University of Virginia Library

OF WATER-CARRIERS.

It may surprise many to learn that there are
still existing water-carriers in London, and
some of them depending upon the trade for
a livelihood; while others, the "odd men" of
the neighbourhood, carry pails of spring water
to the publicans or eating-house keepers, who
may not have servants to send to the nearest
pump for it, and who require it fresh and cool
for those who drink it at their meals. Of these
men there are, as near as I can ascertain, from
100 to 150; their charge is 1d. per pail. Their
earnings per day 6d. to 1s.. Perhaps none of
them depend solely upon this labour for their
support.

It is otherwise at Highgate and Hampstead,
for in those places both men and women depend
entirely for their daily bread on water carrying.
At Hampstead the supply is derived from what
may be called a double well, known as "the
Conduit." The ground is flagged, and the
water is seen at each corner of a wall built to
the surface of the ground (about eight feet) and
surmounted by an iron rail. The water is
covered over, in one corner and not in the other,
and the carrier descends a step or two, dips in
his pails and walks away with them when filled.
The water is carried by means of a "yoke,"
in the same way as we see the milk-pails
carried in every street in London. The well
and the field in which the Hampstead water is
situated are the property of the Church, and
the water is free to any one, in any quantity,
either for sale or any other purpose, "without
leave." In droughts or frosts the supply fails,
and the carriers have sometimes to wait hours
for their "turn," and then to bale the water
into their pails with a basin. The nearest
street to which the water is carried is half a
mile distant. Some is carried three quarters of
a mile, and some (occasionally) a mile. The
two pails full, which contain seven gallons, are
sold at 1½d. The weight is about 70 lbs.
Seventeen years ago the price was 3d.; after
which it fell to 2½d., then to 2d., and has been
1½d. these five or six years, while now there are
three or four carriers who even "carry" at two
pails a-penny to the nearer places. The supply
of the well (apart from drought or frost) is fifty-
six gallons an hour. The principal customers
are the laundresses; but in wet weather their
cisterns and water-tubs are filled, and the car-
riers, or the major part of them, are idle. The
average earnings of the carriers are 5s. a week
the year through. Two of them are men of
seventy. There is a bench about midway to
Hampstead, at which these labourers rest; and
here on almost every fine day sits with them a
palsied old soldier, a pensioner of about eighty,
who regales them, almost daily, with long tales
of Vinegar Hill, and Jemmy O'Brien (the in-
former), and all the terrors of the terrible times
of the Irish rebellion of 1798; for the old man
(himself an Irishman) had served through the
whole of it. This appears to be a somewhat
curious theme for constant expatiation to a band
of London water-carriers.

There are now twenty individuals, fourteen
men and six women, carrying at Hampstead, and
twice that number at Highgate. Some leave the
carrying when they get better work, — but three-
fourths of the number live by it entirely. The
women are the wives and widows of carriers.
The men have been either mechanics or labour-
ers, except six or eight youths (my informant
was not certain which) who had been "brought
up to the water, but would willingly get away
from it if they could."

A well-spoken and intelligent-looking man,
dressed in thick fustian, old and greasy, "but
good enough for the carrying," gave me the fol-
lowing account.

"I was a copper-plate printer," he said,
"and twenty years ago could earn my 25s. a
week. But employment fell off. The litho-
graphic injured it, and at last I could get very
little work, and then none at all, so I have been
carrying now between three and four years. My
father-in-law was in the trade, and that made
me think of it. My best day's work, and it's the
same with all, is 2s., which is sixteen turns.
It's not possible to do more. If that could be
done every day it would be very well, but in
wet weather when the laundresses, who are my

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customers, don't want water, I can't make 1s. a
week. Then in a drought or a frost one has to
wait such a long time for his turn, that it's not
6d. a day; a dry spring's the worst. Last
March I had many days to wait six turns, and
it takes well on to an hour for a turn then. We
sit by the well and talk when we're waiting.
O, yes, sir, the Pope has had his turn of talk.
There's water companies both at Hampstead
and Highgate, but our well water (Hampstead)
is asked for, for all that. It's so with Highgate.
It is beautiful water, either for washing or
drinking. Perhaps it's better with a little drop
of spirit for drinking, but I seldom taste it that
way. The fatigue's so great that we must take
a little drop of spirit on a long day. No, sir, we
don't mix it; that spoils two good things. I've
been at the well first light in the morning, and
in summer I've been at work at it all night.
There's no rule among us, but it's understood
that every one has his turn. There's a little
chaff sometimes, and some get angry at having
to wait, but I never knew a fight. I have a wife
and three children. She works for a laundress,
and has 2s. 6d. a day. She has two days regular
every week, and sometimes odd turns as well.
I think that the women earn more than the
men in Hampstead. My rent is 1s. 6d. a week
for an unfurnished room. There is no trade on
Sundays, but on fine summer Sundays old —
attends at the well and sells glasses of cool
water. He gets 2s. 6d. some days. He makes
no charge; just what any one pleases to give.
Any body might do it, but the old gentleman
would grumble that they were taking his post."

Computing the number of water carriers at the
two places at sixty, and their average earnings
through the year at 5s. a week, it appears that
these men receive 1,452l. yearly. The capital
required to start in the business is 9s., the cost
of a pair of pails and a yoke.

The old man who sells water on the summer
Sunday mornings, generally leaving off his sale
at church-time, told me that his best customers
were ladies and gentlemen who loved an
early walk, and bought of him "as it looked
like a bit of country life," he supposed, more
than from being thirsty. When such customers
were not inhabitants of the neighbourhood, they
came to him to ask their way, or to make
inquiries concerning the localities. Sometimes
he dispensed water to men who "looked as if
they had been on the loose all night." One
gentleman," he said, "looks sharp about him,
and puts a dark-coloured stuff — very likely it's
brandy — into the two or three glasses of water
which he drinks every Sunday, or which he used
to drink rather, for I missed him all last summer,
I think. His hand trembled like a aspen; he
mostly gave me 6d." The water-seller spoke
with some indignation of boys, and sometimes
men, going to the well on a Sunday morning
and "drinking out of their own tins that they'd
taken with 'em."