80 MY LIFE 



six to half-past five, with one and a half hours out for meals, 

 leaving a working day of ten hours. 



Having nothing else to do, I used to spend the greater part 

 of my time in the shop, seeing the men work, doing little 

 jobs occasionally, and listening to their conversation. These 

 were no doubt an average sample of London mechanics, and 

 were on the whole quite as respectable a set of men as any 

 in a similar position to-day. I soon became quite at home 

 in the shop, and got to know the peculiarities of each of the 

 men. I heard their talk together, their jokes and chaff, their 

 wishes and their ideas, and all those little touches of character 

 which come out in the familiar intercourse of the workshop. 

 My general impression is that there was very little swearing 

 among them, much less than became common thirty years 

 later, and perhaps about as much as among a similar class of 

 men to-day. Neither was there much coarseness or indecency 

 in their talk, far less indeed than I met with among pro- 

 fessional young men a few years afterwards. One of the best 

 of the workmen was a very loose character — a kind of 

 Lothario or Don Juan by his own account — who would often 

 talk about his adventures, and boast of them as the very 

 essence of his life. He was a very good and amusing talker, 

 and helped to make the time pass in the monotony of the 

 shop; but occasionally, when he became too explicit or too 

 boastful, the foreman, who was a rather serious though very 

 agreeable man, would gently call him to order, and repudiate 

 altogether his praises of the joys of immorality. But I never 

 once heard such foul language as was not uncommonly used 

 among themselves by young men of a much higher class and 

 much more education. 



Of course, I heard incidentally a good deal about how 

 they lived, and knew exactly what they earned, and I am 

 thus enabled to correct some very erroneous statements which 

 have been made of late years as to the condition of artisans 

 in the early part of the nineteenth century, before the repeal 

 of the corn-laws. Perhaps the most glaring and the most 

 numerous of these errors are due to Sir Robert Giffen, who, 

 being considered an official statistical authority, continues to 



