EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN IN THE BLACK COUNTRY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume III, Issue 158, 12 May 1876, Page 15

EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN IN THE BLACK COUNTRY.

Thi following extracts from the report of Mr. Baker, inspector of Factories, gives a terrible picture of the condition of women in the Black Country. The report from which the extracts are taken was made to Mr. Baker by Mr. Sub-Inspector Brewer, who says— " From both the nail and chain trades there are strong representations made against the labour of women, whether as to the number employed or the size of the articles made. The women are said to take the place of fathers as well as of husbands while the men are idle and drunken. So difficult, too, are some of these shops to find, that the same place may be passed many times, and only be discovered at last by the merest accident. . . 'I thought this was a free country/ was a remark which greeted me as 1 entered a nail shop in the outskirts of a large manufacturing town. I enquired what was the matter now, and was answered, ' Do you call this a free country where women are employed in such trades ta these are here ? I replied I had again and again discussed this question with working men around me, and I am continually asked whether I cannot do something to stop women's labor, especially in and around Halesowen, where 'hundreds' work; makino- the laro-e nails or spikes is the order of the day, and is far fitter for men's work than women's. The root of all the evil in the Black Country appears to be drunkenness, no matter whether the drinker be puddler, collier, chain or nail maker. The outcry against the colliers' and puddlers wives working is very great; not, perhaps, so much from their influx into the trade, but from the fact that they work night and day, and toil and slave— and for what ? Not for the price that straightforward masters would give, but for any price any crafty knave of a master chooses to offer. These people work, ana do cot stand out for ' tommy ' and 'beer' so long as they can o-et something to satisfy their half-starving families; while the ouo-ht-to-be bread-winner is luxuriating in some public-house at his ease in ' training his whiffet ' for some future running on beefsteaks and the best of good fare. Day by day lam more convinced that this I Avoman s labor is the bane of this place. Nor do I confine this re- , mark to the nail and chain trade alone. It was only the other day ' that a young woman, addressing me, said, 'I say, master, I wish i you would make my man do a little more work and me less ' At ' Bromsgrove I heard also of the growing custom of idle, lazy youn? i lads looking out for skilled, industrious wives in order to obtain an easy life. Things go on smoothly for a time, but then come child- I ren, and perhaps sickness, and the idle hand of the le°-itiniate bread-winner has lost its craft, or a course of drunkenness has so debilitated him that he can no longer stand the fatigue and heat While the mother toils and slaves, the children are left uncared for' to wander shoeless and in rags, till they are old enough to blow the I bellows for their father at a miserable pittance per week— to be i kicked and cuffed, hear filthy, indecent, and blasphemous lan-ua-e and are then sent into the shop amid men degraded by drink and ! gambling, in time to follow the same course. My experience is I that the chief encouragers of such labor as this are the middlemen i the foggers, and the drunkards. '

"It la explained that 'foggers,' '.middlemen/ and ' factors ' are synonymous terms for a class of men who get a livino- by burinsnails at a somewhat cheaper rate from the working- naifer, and selling them at an advance to the large masters. To these ' foo-srers ' the improvident hasten, who lire from hand to mouth. The foWr gets the advantage of all little odd quantities, as, for instance a ' nailer who takes in ISoz. of iron would only get paid for the pound Foggers are supposed to be greatly mixed up with track. 'Not ' many days since a tale was related to me by an ironmaster of what i happened in a brickyard near Bilaton a short time back. The ' manager noticed a girl carrying clay looking exceedingly iv Thinking she had been drinking overnight, he exclaimed," • Why > Clara, you don't look up to much this morning ' 'No more would I you,' was the retort, ' if you had had a child during the night/ ! " Mr. Baker acknowledged that this report of Mr. *Brewers is ' sensational,' adding, however—' But I have not introduced a tithe of what he and other writers have said of this Black Country In a report of this kind, or any kind, it is indescribable, and much must necessarily be omitted. But I believe, from what I have mt. } • elf seen, all that I have written is true, and I am afraid that all l

should have written is true also. And the remedy ? That I respectfully leave to the Eoyal Commissioners, before whom I have laid Mr Brewer's report.' Mr. Baker calls attention to one possible reiult— namely, that as women are often obliged to uae the Olivers to weld their chain links, Ac, weakly work, or occasionally bad iron, may be introduced in the fabrication of cable chains, on the safe holding of which many lives may depend in rough weather at sea ; and that, at all events, testing by a Government official is desirable before they are trusted for such purposes."