Читать книгу Glimpses into the Abyss - Mary Higgs - Страница 19

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"The remarks made by your chairman on stone-breaking were very misleading. He said, 'The stones required to be broken by a man were ten hundredweight. Why, he knew a man who could easily break two and a half yards in a day, and in each yard was twenty-two hundredweight, so that his hearers could see that the casual's task was not hard.'

"He did not say that the stones his man broke were probably twice the size of those broken by the casual, and that he had no grid to put them through, which takes almost as long as the actual stone-breaking.

"With regard to entering the casual ward early, I myself when I am on the road always make a point of doing twenty miles a day. Is a man after doing twenty miles fit for work? Navvies and men working on public works like to get from one job to another without delay. Very often a man will start, we will say from Yorkshire to Devon: if he can pick up a day's work on the way he will do so; but his object is to get to Devon, and he is going to get there as soon as possible. He is pretty certain of work when he gets there because he is known either to the ganger or the agent, or some one in a position to start him, which is really the reason he goes such a distance. As a rule he sets himself twenty or twenty-five miles a day, and he does it unless it is very wet. He therefore wants a rest at the end of the journey, not work."

Replying that this was not the class for whom the casual ward was intended, I received the following:—