James Greenwood - A night in the workhouse

At last my turn came, and 'chucking over' my shirt and ticket, I quickly attired myself in clothes which, ragged as they were, were cleaner than they looked. In less than two minutes I was out of the shed, and in the yard; where a few of the more decent poor fellows were crowding round a pail of water, and scrambling after something that might pass for a wash. Finding their own soap, as far as I could observe, and drying their faces on any bit of rag they might happen to have about them, or upon the canvas curtain of the shed.

By this time it was about half past 7, and the majority of the casuals were up and dressed. I observed, however, that none of the younger boys were as yet up, and it presently appeared that there existed some rule against their dressing in the shed; for Daddy came out of the bath-room, where the bundles were deposited, and called out, 'Now four boys!' and instantly four poor little wretches, some with their rugs trailing about their shoulders and- some quite bare, came shivering over the stones and across the bleak yard, and were admitted to the bath-room to dress. 'Now four more boys!' cried Daddy, and so on.

When all were up and dressed, the boys carried the bed rugs into Daddy's room, and the pauper inmates made a heap of the 'beds', stacking them against the wall. As before mentioned, the shed served the treble purpose of bed-chamber, workroom, and breakfast-room; it was impossible to get fairly at the cranks and set them going until the bedding was stowed away.

Breakfast before work, however, but it was a weary while to some of us before it made its appearance. For my own part, I had little appetite, but about me were a dozen poor wretches who obviously had a very great one,—they had come in overnight too late for bread, and perhaps may not have broken fast since the morning of the previous day. The decent ones suffered most. The blackguard majority were quite cheerful, smoking, swearing, and playing their pretty horse play, the prime end of which was pain or discomfiture for somebody else. One casual there was with only one leg. When he came in overnight he wore a black hat, which added a certain look of respectability to a worn suit of black. All together his clothes had been delivered up to him by Daddy, but now he was seen hopping disconsolately about the place on his crutch, for the hat was missing. He was a timid man, with a mild voice, and whenever he asked some ruffian whether he had seen such a thing as a 'black hat,' and got his answer, he invariably said 'Thank you,' which was regarded as very amusing. At last one sidled up to him with a grin, and showing about three square inches of some fluffy substance, said, 'Is this anything like wot you've lost, guv'ner?' The cripple inspected it. 'That's the rim of it!' he said. 'What a shame!' and hobbled off with tears in his eyes.

Full three quarters of an hour of loitering and shivering, and then came the taskmaster: a soldierly-looking man, over six feet high, with quick gray eyes, in which 'No trifling' appeared as distinctly as a notice against trespassing on a wayside board. He came in amongst us, and the gray eyes made out our number in a moment. 'Out into the yard, all of you,' he cried, and we went out in a mob. There we shivered for some 20 minutes longer, and then a baker's man appeared with a great wooden tray piled up with just such slices of bread as we had received overnight. The tray was consigned to an able-bodied casual, who took his place with the taskmaster at the shed door, and then in single file we re-entered the shed, each man and boy receiving a slice as he passed in. Pitying, as I suppose, my unaccustomed look, Mr Taskmaster gave me a slice and a large piece over.

The bread devoured, a clamour for 'skilly' began. The rumour had got abroad that this morning, and on all future mornings, there would be skilly at breakfast, and 'skilly! skilly!' resounded through the shed. No one had hinted that it was not forthcoming, but skilly seems to be thought an extraordinary concession, and after waiting only a few minutes for it, they attacked the taskmaster in the fiercest manner. They called him thief, sneak, and 'crawler'. Little boys blackguarded him in gutter language, and, looking him in the face, consigned him to hell without flinching. He never uttered a word in reply, or showed a sign of impatience, and whenever he was obliged to speak it was quite without temper.

There was a loud 'hooray!' when the longed for skilly appeared in two pails, in one of which floated a small tin saucepan, with a stick thrust into its handle, by way of a ladle. Yellow pint basins were provided for our use, and large iron spoons. 'Range round the walls!' the taskmaster shouted. We obeyed with the utmost alacrity; and then what I should judge to be about three fourths of a pint of gruel was handed to each of us as we stood. I was glad to get mine, because the basin that contained it was warm and my hands were numb with cold. I tasted a spoonful, as in duty bound, and wondered more than ever at the esteem in which it was held by my confrères . It was a weak decoction of oatmeal and water, bitter, and without even a pinch of salt or flavour in it—that I could discover. But it was hot, and on that account, perhaps, was so highly relished, that I had no difficulty in persuading one of the decent men to accept my share.

It was now past 8 o'clock, and, as I knew that a certain quantity of labour had to be performed by each man before he was allowed to go his way, I was anxious to begin. The labour was to be 'crank' labour. The 'cranks' are a series of iron bars extending across the width of the shed, penetrating through the wall, and working a flour mill on the other side. Turning the crank is like turning a windlass. The task is not a severe one. Four measures of corn—bushels they were called—but that is doubtful, have to be ground every morning by the night's batch of casuals. Close up by the ceiling hangs a bell connected with the machinery, and as each measure is ground the bell rings, so that the grinders may know how they are going on. But the grinders are as lazy as obscene. We were no sooner set to work than the taskmaster left us to our own sweet will, with nothing to restrain its exercise but an occasional visit from the miller, a weakly expostulating man. Once or twice he came in and said mildly, 'Now then, my men, why don't you stick to it?'—and so went out again.

The result of this laxity of overseeing would have disgusted me at any time, and was intensely disgusting then. At least one half the gang kept their hands from the crank whenever the miller was absent, and betook themselves to their private amusements and pursuits. Some sprawled upon the beds and smoked; some engaged themselves and their friends in tailoring, and one turned hair-cutter for the benefit of a gentleman who, unlike Kay, had not just come out of prison. There were three tailors, two of them on the beds mending their own coats, and the other operating on a recumbent friend in the rearward part of his clothing. Where the needles came from I do not know; but for thread they used a strand of the oakum (evidently easy to deal with) which the boys were picking in the corners. Other loungers strolled about with their hands in their pockets, discussing the topics of the day, and playing practical jokes on the industrious few: a favourite joke being to take a bit of rag, anoint it with grease from the crank axles, and clap it unexpectedly over somebody's eye.

The consequence of all this was that the cranks went round at a very slow rate and now and then stopped altogether. Then the miller came in; the loungers rose from their couches, the tailors ceased stitching, the smokers dropped their pipes, and every fellow was at his post. The cranks spun round furiously again, the miller's expostulation being drowned amidst a shout of 'Slap bang, here we are again!' or this extemporised chorus—