Adventures of Working Men. From the Notebook of a Working Surgeon

“Ah!” he said, “some men can always make plenty of friends without taking any trouble, and some can make plenty of enemies in the same way; and that last seems to have been my luck through life. I suppose as an ordinary mechanic I’m not such a very bad sort, and I’ll tell you why: after about a dozen years of married life there’s always a pleasant smile to welcome me home – a sweet look that I always answer with a grin which spreads all over my rough, dirty face till it gets lost on each side in my whiskers, and up a-top in my hair. Then, too, for all I’m a big, grim-looking fellow, as my mates call Sour Sam, the little ones never seem a bit frightened of me; but one comes and gets hold of my cap, and another my coat, and one come and pulls before, and another comes and pushes behind, till they get me in my chair beside the table; and I know times and times I haven’t had half a meal for the young rebels climbing on me; for, somehow or another, if there is any time in the day that goes fast, it’s dinner hour. You get sat down, and toss this little one, and play with that, and eat two or three mouthfuls, and then it’s time to go back to the shop, and grime yourself up again with steel filings and oil.

“I was such a grim, gruff fellow, that my shopmates took precious little notice of me; and one day, after it had been brewing for some time, they all turned out – hundred and forty of ’em.

“Now, I was so took aback, and it come upon me so unexpectedly, that I put on my coat and came out with the rest, and stood outside the gates; but as soon as I was outside, I felt mad at having done so, and would have gone back, only it was too late, and what my shopmates had settled it seemed that I must abide by. So, thinking of how it would end, I walked home, though two or three called me a sneak for not joining their meeting at a public-house hard by. After sitting by the fire for an hour I made up my mind what I should do, and that was to go back to work, for I didn’t want to strike, and felt that the treatment we got at the works was quite as good as we deserved; and it didn’t seem fair to me to look upon my employer as an enemy because he had had so much better luck in the world than I had. So back I went without a word, and as I got near the gates there were three or four of our chaps hanging about.

“‘Where going, Sam?’ says one.

“‘Works,’ I says, gruffly.

“‘What for?’ he says; and just then some others came up, and then from here and there more and more, till fifty or sixty stood round.

“‘I’m going into the works,’ I said, roughly, and trying to shove my way on.

“‘Well, but what for!’ he says, with a sort of half laugh. ‘We haven’t heard that they’ve given the rise, but being a favourite you got the news first. Why didn’t you tell us, mate?’

“Of course I didn’t like his bantering way, nor I didn’t like the half laugh which followed; but I said nothing, only tried to push through the crowd, when being brought up short I swallowed down a sort of feeling of rage that seemed to come up my throat, and facing round, I says boldly:

“‘Harry Perkins, you’re on strike, as yer call it; well, I’m not. You don’t mean work: I do; and I’m off into the shop.’

“Well, this seemed to stagger him for a moment, but the next minute half a dozen fellows had hold of me, and I was dragged back right into the middle of the crowd, and the voices I heard naming the pump and river told me I should get some rather rough usage; but the English obstinacy in me began to kick against this treatment, and, shouting out loudly, on the chance of there being some present of my way of thinking, I says:

“‘I mean work, mates, and down with the strikers. Who’s on my side?’ when fifteen or twenty came forward, and then I can’t tell you how it was, for I always was hot-blooded; the next minute we all seemed to be raging and tearing at one another in a regular fight; men shouting, and swearing, and striking fiercely at one another; some down and trampled upon; some wrestling together; and the crowd swaying backwards forwards, here and there, and the battle growing more and more bitter every moment.

“You can’t see much in a fight like this, when you have an enemy to contend with the whole time; but I saw that the men now all came out in their true colours, and that the sides were evenly balanced, for a good half had turned out more from feeling bound to act as the others did, than from being dissatisfied with the rate of pay; while now, seeing the stand I had made on their side, they felt bound to take my part in return, and, as I said before, the fight grew fiercer every moment, while headed by Perkins, the man who had spoken to me, the other side was making head, and we were being beaten back step by step and driven along a narrow street, but fighting desperately the whole time.

“Every now and then a chap on one side or the other would stagger out bleeding and wild, and make his way on to a doorstep, or up one of the courts that connected the street with the next, and more than one went down with a groan; while by some means or other about eight or nine of our side were driven up a court by some of the other party, when, seeing the chance, I shouted to them to follow, and we all ran hard, pursued by our enemies for twenty yards or so, when they turned back.

“‘Come on,’ I shouted, and, leading the way, I got into the next street, led them along it a little way, and then turned down the next court. ‘Keep together,’ I said, ‘and we’ll take ’em behind;’ and the next minute we were back in the street, where our mates still fought on desperately, for in my heart I believe every blow struck on our side was nerved by the thought of home, and those we worked for.

“Next moment we took them in the rear, with a desperate rush, cheering as we did so, and tumbling them over right and left; whilst our mates in front who were just then giving way, cheered again and the fight was hotter than ever. But now, hemmed in between the two parties, the strikers fought desperately, and I caught sight of Perkins with a small hammer in his hand, knocking down first one and then another poor fellow, who crawled out of the struggling mob as well as he could.

“There were no police visible, but they could have done nothing if they had been there; but every window was crowded with people, while men’s wives came harrying up, and shrieking to the people looking on to stop the fight.

“Just then I had downed the man opposed to me, when I heard a heavy blow, and turning, saw the man who worked at the next vice to me go down from a crack on the forehead from Perkins’s hammer, and the next moment I stood on one side just in time to avoid a blow aimed at me, when the handle caught me on the shoulder, and the hammer-head snapped off, falling upon the ground behind me.

“I believe I was half-mad then with pain and excitement as I leaped at Perkins, and closed with him; when, being both big, stout fellows, and heads of the row, the desperate struggle going on between us seemed to act like magic on the others, who stopped to watch us as we wrestled together here and there – now up, now down, the centre of a busy throng, cheering and shouting us on, as if we had been two wild beasts fighting for their amusement.

“I’m not going to give you a long description of a hard fight, nor of the savage feelings that burned in my brain, as mad with fury I tore at him again and again; for I often look back upon that time with feelings of shame, though I can’t help thinking that I only acted as most men would have done in such a case. All I can tell you is that I’ve a recollection of giving and receiving fierce blows, of falling, being picked up, and being cheered on, and muttering through my set teeth ‘It’s for those at home,’ till there came a fiercer and longer struggle than ever, ending in both falling heavily; and I shall never forget the sickening crash with which my opponent’s head came down upon the kerb-stone.

“Then, blind and giddy, I was standing panting there with a policeman hold of each arm, but only to be dragged from him next moment by my mates, who bore me away cheering.

“Early next morning, though, the police were at my place, and I followed them quietly, shuddering as I went, for I heard that Perkins was in a dying state. Then came the examination before the magistrates, and I was remanded a day or two till the doctors had given in their opinion. Our heads of the firm, though, took great interest in the case as soon as they knew all the particulars; and one of the cleverest counsel they could get took my affairs in hand, which ended in my being discharged, for Perkins grew better; but a good many of us were fined pretty smartly for the breach of the peace.

“The workshop was open directly, and quite half the men went back to work; but from that day I began to find out that our town was no place for me. My employers were kind enough, and I was not a penny the worse in pocket for my encounter; but it grew plainer and plainer to me, day by day, that I should be driven out of the place. Threatening letters came; once I was struck down from behind as I came home on a dark night, and though I felt sure the man I caught a glance of was Perkins, I could not swear it. Then came news of the cowardly tricks at Sheffield – throwing powder into houses – and my wife grew pale and ill with apprehension; while what filled the measure up to the brim was my poor lass being set upon and insulted one night only a few yards from our door, so near that I heard her call ‘Help,’ and knew the voice, and ran out.

“The next week I was sitting in our empty room; the floor trampled and dirty with the feet of those who had been to the sale of the things in our bit of a four-roomed house. And the things had sold well, too; for my mates had sent their wives, and one had bought one thing, and another another. But I was down-hearted and sad at seeing first one little familiar thing and then another dragged away, while the thought of being driven out of the place was bitter to me. The wife and children had gone on to London, and there was no one there to see me as something which showed there were weak places in the strong man came into my eyes.

“But I had to choke that down, for a knock came at the door, and it sounded hollow and strange in the empty place. It was a letter; just in time, too, for I was thinking just before of locking up the place and going away, but fancied I should just like one pipe of tobacco for the last where I had spent so many quiet evenings. However, I opened the letter, and then started to run after the postman, feeling that it must be a mistake, for inside was a crisp new twenty-pound note, with a few lines telling me that it was from two friends who regretted the loss to the town and its works, of an honest, upright man, and begging my acceptance of the trifle enclosed, as a testimony of the esteem in which my services had been held.

“Twenty pounds, sir – a larger sum than I had ever before owned at once; but as I’m an honest man I thought more of the words of that letter then than I did of the money; while through being weak, I suppose, there was a wet spot or two upon the note when I put it away.

“After it was dark that night, I went and thanked those from whom I knew it had come, though they would not own to it; but the senior partner slapped me on the shoulder as I went out, and he said:

“‘There’s too much holding aloof between master and man, Samuel Harris; but if all mechanics were like you we should have no more strikes.’”

“He was quite right,” I said, nodding.

“Think so, sir? perhaps he was, perhaps he was not, but depend upon it the best way is to give and take all you can. Striking’s expensive work for both sides; but you see the thing is this – what makes the trouble is that neither side likes to be beat.”

Chapter Eight.

My Patient, the Driver

I wish I could put Solomon Gann before you in the flesh; for a finer broad-shouldered specimen of humanity I never saw. He was gruff, bluff, swarthy; and rugged as his face was, it always bore a pleasant smile, just as if he had said to you, “Ah! all right; things are rough; but I’m going to take it coolly.”

And he was cool; nobody cooler – even in cases of emergency; and a better man for an engine-driver could not have been chosen.

I first met Solomon Gann in connection with an accident at Grandton, where I and other surgeons were called in to attend the sufferers by a collision with a goods train. After that I attended him two or three times; for he came to me in preference to the Company’s surgeon, and he used to give me scraps of information about his life, and tell me little incidents in his career.

“Glorious profession, ain’t it, Sir,” he said. “Grows more important every day, does the railway profession, and is likely to. Ah! people in our great-grandfathers’ days would have opened their eyes if you had talked about being an engine-driver; and I ain’t much like a four-horse mail coachee, am I? Rum set out, the rail. Not so many years back, and there wasn’t such a thing; and now it employs its thousands, beginning with your superintendents, and going down through clerks, and guards, and drivers, and so on, to the lowest porter or cleaner on the line.

“I’ve had some experience, I have. I was cleaner in the engine-house afore I got put on to stoke; and I’m not going to say that engine-drivers are worse off than other men because I happen to be one: for we want a little alteration right through the whole machine: a little easing in this collar; a little less stuffing there; them nuts give a turn with the screw-hammer; and the oily rag put over the working gear a little more oftener, while the ile-can itself ain’t spared. Don’t you see, you know, I’m a speaking metaphorically; and of course I mean the whole of the railways’ servants.

“The Public, perhaps – and he’s a terrible humbug that fellow Public – thinks we are well paid and discontented; and leaving out danger, let me ask him how he would like to be racing along at express speed through a storm of wind and rain, or snow, or hail, for fifty miles without stopping, blinded almost, cut to pieces almost; or roasting on a broiling summer’s day; or running through the pitchiest, blackest night – Sunday and week-day all the year round. ‘Well, you’re paid for it,’ says the public. So we are, and pretty good wages as times goes; but those wages don’t pay a man for the wear and tear of his constitution; and though there’s so much fuss made about the beauty of the British constitution, and people brag about it to an extent that’s quite sickening, when you come down to the small bit of British constitution locked up in a single British person’s chest – him being an engine-driver, you know – you’ll find that constitution wears, and gets weak, and liable to being touched up with the cold, or heat, or what not; and it’s a precious ticklish thing to mend – so now then!

“We don’t want to grumble too much, but railway work isn’t all lying down on a feather-bed, smoking shag at threepence an ounce, and drinking porter at threepence a pot in your own jugs; we have to work, and think too, or else there would soon be an alteration in the companies’ dividends. Accidents will happen, do what we will to stop ’em, and there’s no mistake about it, our accidents are, as a rule, bad ones – terrible bad ones, even when life and limb don’t get touched. Only an engine damaged, perhaps, but that can easily wear a thousand pound; while a hundred’s as good as nothing when a few trucks and coaches are knocked into matchwood. Then, too, when we have a bad ‘pitch-in,’ as we call it, look at the thousands as the company has to pull out for damages to injured folks. One chap, I see, got seven thousand the other day for having his back damaged; and I don’t know but what I’d think it a good bargain to be knocked about to that tune. But, there, they wouldn’t think my whole carcase worth half as much. But our work ain’t feather-bed work, I can tell you; and as to risk, why, we all of us come in for that more or less, though we get so used to it that we don’t seem to see the danger.

“Oh! you’ll say ‘Familiarity breeds contempt,’ or something else fine; but just you come and stoke, or drive, or guard, or be signalman, or pointsman, every day of your life, and just see if you’ll pull a blessed long face and be seeing a skillington with a hour-glass in one hand and a harpoon in t’other, ready to stick it into yours or somebody else’s wesket every precious hour of the day. It’s all worry fine to talk, but a man can’t be always thinking of dying when he is so busy thinking about living, and making a living for half-a-dozen mouths at home. I like to be serious, and think of the end in a quiet, proper way, as a man should; but it’s my humble opinion as the man who is seeing grim death at every turn and in every movement, has got his liver into a precious bad state, and the sooner he goes to the doctor the better. ’Taint natural, nor it ain’t reasonable; and though we often get the credit of being careless, I mean to say we don’t deserve it half the times, and the very fact of often being in risky places makes you think nothing of ’em. It’s natural, you know, and a wonderful wise thing, too; for if we were always to be thinking of the danger, it’s my belief – my honest belief – that your railway accidents would be doubled; for the men would be that anxious and worried that they would work badly, and in a few years knock up altogether, with their nerves shattered to pieces.

“I’ve been on the line twenty year, and of course I’ve seen a little in that space, and I could tell you hundreds of things about the different dangers, if I had time. Now, for instance, I’ll tell you what’s a great danger that some railway servants has to encounter, and that is being at a small country station, say where perhaps very few trains stop in a day. It don’t matter whether it’s clerk or porter, the danger’s the same; there’s the fast trains thundering by over and over again, twenty times a day may be, and after a time you get so used to them that you don’t hear them coming; and many’s the time some poor fellow has stepped down to cross the line right in front of one, when – there, you know the old story, and I’ve got one horror to tell you, and that will be quite enough, I dare say.

“‘Carelessness – want of caution – the man had been years in the company’s service, and must have known better,’ says the public. But there – that’s just it – it’s that constant being amongst the perils that makes a man forget things that he ought to recollect; and are you going to try and make me believe a man can have such power over his thinking apparatus that he can recollect everything? He must be a very perfect piece of goods if there is such a one, and one as would go for ever, I should think, without a touch of the oily rag. No spots of rust on him, I’ll wager.

“Shunting’s hard work – terrible hard work – for men; I mean the shunting of goods trains at the little stations – picking up empty trucks, and setting down the full ones; coupling, and uncoupling; and waving of lanterns, and shouting and muddling about; and mostly in the dark; for, you see, the passenger traffic is nearly all in the day-time, while we carry on the goods work by night. Ah! shunting’s queer work where there’s many sidings, and you are tripping over point-handles, and rods, or looking one way for the train and going butt on to an empty truck the other way. There’s some sad stories relating to shunting – stories of fine young fellows crushed to death in a moment; let alone those of the poor chaps you may see to this day at some of the crossings with wooden legs or one sleeve empty – soldiers, you know, who have been wounded in the battle of life, and I think as worthy of medals as anybody.

“Of course, you know, a ‘pitch-in’ will come some time spite of all care; and I’ve been in one or two in my time, but never to get hurt. I remember one day going down our line and getting pretty close to a junction where another line crossed the down so as to get on to the up. I knew that it was somewhere about the time for the up train to come along, for it was generally five minutes before me, and I passed it about a couple of miles before I got to the junction – me going fast, it slow. Sometimes we were first, and then it was kept back by signal till we had passed, so that on the day I am talking of, I thought nothing of it that my signal was up ‘All clear,’ though the up train hadn’t crossed, and with my stoker shovelling in the coal, I opened the screamer and on we were darting at a good speed – ours always having been reckoned a fast line.

“All at once, though, I turned as I had never turned before – thoroughly struck aback; for as I neared the station I saw the signal altered, and at the same moment the up train coming round the curve; then it was crossing my line; and it seemed to me that the next moment we should cut it right in two and go on through it. But we were not quite so nigh as that, and before we got close up I had shut off, reversed, and was screwing down the break, for my stoker seemed struck helpless; then I just caught a glimpse of him as he leaped off; there was a crash, and I was lying half stunned back amongst the coal in the tender, and we were still dashing on for nearly a mile before I was quite recovered and the train at a standstill.

“I was half stupid for a bit, and on putting my hand to my head I found that it was bleeding, whilst the screen was bent right down over me, and had saved my life, no doubt. As far as I could see then there was no more damage done to us, and just then the guard came running up and shook hands when he found I’d got off so well.

“‘But where’s Joe?’ he says, meaning my stoker.

“‘He went off,’ I says, ‘just as we went into ’em. How about t’other train?’

“‘Let’s run back,’ he says; and I put her gently back; but all the while in a muddly sort of way, as if I wasn’t quite right in my head, which bled powerful. Then there was a good deal of shouting and noise amongst the passengers; but my guard went along the foot-board from coach to coach till he had quieted them all pretty well, and then by that time they signalled to us to stop.

“Not many ruins to see, there wasn’t, only the guard’s break of the up train, which my engine had struck full, and another few seconds of time would have let us go clear; while how the points didn’t throw us off I can’t tell, for it’s quite a wonder that my train kept on the line.