either worn-out drudges before they have reached middle-
age, or have developed into the careless slatterns who live
on the doorstep gossiping with like-minded neighbours ;
the fathers, with all self-respect crushed out of them, are
reduced to picking up odd jobs at the street-corner, and
live more in the public-house than in their wretched homes.
When we think, further, what the children brought up in
such surroundings must become, this question of improvi-
dent marriage shows itself as one of the most serious of
modern social life.
One root of the mischief lies in the overcrowding in our
large towns. Too often marriage is accepted as .the only
way of escape from conditions which have become unbear-
able. Family life, which is carried on in one or two rooms,
is bad enough when the family still consists of children ;
as they grow up to be young men and women it becomes
intolerable. Nor is it a simple matter for the young people
to be independent, even when they are earning sufficient
to support themselves. There are very few amongst the
less educated classes who can endure the solitude of living
quite alone, even if it were an easier matter than it is to
break away from the home-life without some obvious excuse.
For girls, moreover, it is hardly desirable ; while to young
men the prospect of preparing their own meals and doing
their own household work is not an attractive one. The
same overcrowding which makes family life difficult makes
boarding in most cases impossible, and the one solution
they have found to the problem is to look round for a more
or less suitable companion. How far well-conducted
boarding-houses for young men and women may meet the
difficulty is an experiment yet to be tried ; the great point
will be to ensure their being well conducted without making
VI MARRIAGE IN EAST LONDON 8i
them too oppressive for natures little wont to discipline
and much given to self-indulgence.
Much of the evil is due also to false ideas about life
which are not peculiar to the people of whom we are speak-
ing. It is not only in the lower classes that girls are
allowed to think, and even made to feel, that a woman's
life has no legitimate interests outside those of marriage,
and that, therefore, to lose an opportunity of getting
married may be to miss all of good which life has to offer.
Nor are those who should be the teachers of the young on
such important matters wholly without blame ; their doctrine
that to discourage early marriage is to encourage immorality
is a gross injustice to the great majority of the poor —
perhaps, if they did but know it, the greatest of which they
have as a class to complain at the present day. Evil
enough there is, as all know who have much to do with
the poor ; but those amongst whom these marriages take
place are just those who still have a respect for such
obligations as they have been taught to recognise, and
they are far more likely to sink to a lower level in con-
sequence of their imprudence than they would be in con-
sequence of judicious teaching and warning. As it is, they
are acting up to the highest standard which has been set
before them, and we have no right to assume that if they
are shown one still higher they will not aim at that also.
To realise that the people have a capacity for rising as
well as falling is the next step towards the Social Utopia
in which no one will enter upon the responsibilities of
marriage without a fair prospect of being able to bring up
a family in decency and comfort.
vn
THE INDUSTRIAL RESIDUUM i
By H. Dendy
I AM particularly anxious to make it clear from the first
that nothing of what I have to say applies to the class of
genuinely self-supporting wage-earners, to those workers
whom we may call the true industrials. At every turn of
their daily life the two classes meet and influence each
other, they are connected by every tie of mutual service
and dis-service ; to the casual observer their dress, their
food, their living accommodation, even their work, is the
same in kind if not in quantity. Yet striking right through
this superficial resemblance, and reducing to comparative
insignificance (for our present purpose) all social and family
alHance, we may find a fundamental distinction which can
only be intensified by any attempts to obliterate it by
artificial means. It is a difference of character and dis-
position, and it is to this difference of character and its
economic results, rather than to any numerical investiga-
tion, that I specially wish to draw attention. The qualities
which are characteristic of members of the Residuum are
not distributed with any reference to money income, and
for this reason it is impossible to base a calculation of their
numbers upon any estimate of earnings. Moreover, I
know of no important general proposition that can be laid
down about all the individuals who are in receipt of small
incomes, nor about those in receipt of large incomes ;
^ Read at the Economic Club, loth January 1893, and published in the
Economic Journal for December 1893.
VII THE INDUSTRIAL RESIDUUM 83
except, perhaps, that the latter will be more comfortable
than the former, and this is only an approximate generalisa-
tion. But by taking as a ground of classification some
fundamental characteristic of the individual, some dis-
position or habit which will determine his actions, it may
be possible to mark out a development in human nature
which will repay study. The most trivial accident of birth
or fortune may enable a true member of the Residuum to
conceal himself in that section of society which Mr. Giffen
characterises as the upper barbarians, or may force a
respectable man to take temporary refuge in an East End
slum ; but while such freaks of fortune would hopelessly
disarrange figures, they will in no way affect our knowledge'
of how the one or the other will be likely to act under
given circumstances.
What then are the characteristics of the class? Measured
by the economic standard they are rather negative than
positive. The ideal economic man, as we know, is remark-
able for his foresight and self-control; in the Residuum these
qualities are entirely absent. In place of foresight we find
the happy faith which never fails, that " something will turn
up," and instead of self-control the impulsive recklessness
which may lead indifferently to a prodigal generosity, or
an almost inconceivable selfishness. The true type of this
class lives in the present moment only ; not only is he
without foresight, — he is almost without memory, in the
sense that his past is so completely past that he has no
more organised experience to refer to than a child. Hence
his life is one incoherent jumble from beginning to end ;
it would be impossible to make even a connected story out
of it, for every day merely repeats the mistakes, the follies
and mishaps of yesterday ; there is no development in it ;
all is aimless and drifting.
This description may seem overdrawn, but it is based
upon an accumulation of experience to which it is difiicult
to give tangible form. To fully realise the facts it is
necessary to live amongst these people, to see them day
after day, watch their extraordinary freaks, and feel the
burden of their total irresponsibility. But I should like to
84 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM vii
suggest to those who are more famiHar with the wealthy
section of the Residuum, whether they do not find exactly
the same characteristics amongst people whom mere
accident of birth has separated from their natural surround-
ings. There is the same insuperable aversion to steady
work, the same self-indulgence, the same eager devotion to
trifles and absorption in the interests of the moment. All
that they need to complete their likeness to their poorer
brethren are the dirty homes and squalid surroundings,
and if they were left for only a week to their own exertions
there can be little doubt that these also would appear.
This absence of the economic virtues is, of course, only
one aspect of a very strongly marked type of character ; it
accompanies a low order of intellect, and a degradation of
the natural affections to something little better than animal
instincts. It would take me too long to go far into this
matter, but in corroboration of the view I may indicate
briefly one or two of the more striking facts which we con-
stantly come across in dealing with these people: Take,
for instance, their frequent inability to give the number of
the house in which they live, or even the name of the
street; when this is combined with their complete ignor-
ance of the points of the compass, and failure to distinguish
between the right and left hand, the rational man has
dropped very low on the scale towards the sagacious
animal, which finds its home easily enough, but has no
power of communicating its whereabouts in language.
Or take, again, the difficulty they have in giving any
coherent account of even quite recent events. A little
skill in leading questions will elicit almost any statement
you please, and this from no wilful unveracity, but from
mere confusion of mind. Interesting evidence might also
be gained by a student who had time and patience to
investigate their vocabulary ; it is limited in the extreme,
and their power of expression except by means of gesticula-
tion is proportionately small.
It would be hard to attribute this intellectual failing
entirely to absence of anything to express ; sometimes, I
am convinced, there must be actual suffering from the
vn THE INDUSTRIAL RESIDUUM 8$
inability to give articulate utterance to the mental chaos
within. Nevertheless, we are forced to recognise that, on
the whole, these people are as undeveloped — or as degraded
— on the side of their affections as of their intellect. The
most striking proof of this is the looseness of the family tie,
and the absence of all feeling of mutual responsibility
between parents and children and brothers and sisters.
The children drift away as soon as they become self-
supporting, sometimes before, and are often completely
lost sight of at an age when they most need the affection
and care of their parents. It is very unusual to come
across a family of this type where several members are not
missing, and very common to find an old couple with a
large family scattered about in London, but without com-
munication with any of them.
The economic side of this character may perhaps be
best illustrated by reference to the curve in which Professor
Jevons expresses the basis of his theory of labour ; and
which I have copied in the diagram. The horizontal Une
is the neutral line between pleasure and pain ; the upper
line represents the increase of pleasure derived from an
increase of the reward to labour, the lower curve the increase
of pain derived from an increase of labour. Now for the
theory which it supports, this curve is of interest mainly
when approaching the point where pleasure gained is equal
to pain endured ; the point, therefore, when the labourer
begins to question the advisability of continuing. As
descriptive of a process it seems to illustrate the mind not
so much of the ordinary industrial of to-day, working under
ordinary conditions, as of the member of the Residuum.
You notice that it assumes a very rapid fall in the final
utility of the reward to labour ; but in our modern organisa-
tion the use of money and the habit of looking to the
needs of the future combine to make the final utility of
the reward as nearly constant as possible among the
working classes. If a man is accumulating money,
the final utility will, of course, diminish, and he may
in time reach the critical point where his pleasures
86 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM vii
and pains balance, and retire from business. But the
ordinary wage-earner when he receives his pay on
Saturday nights is as far off the critical point as
when he goes to work on Monday
morning. If the idea of leaving
his work does cross his mind, it is
banished by the thought of not getting
it again when he wants it ; the mere
possibility of a rise in the final utility of
the reward is enough to prevent its fall-
ing, and for him the upper curve would
be far more true if it were almost a
straight line.
But for the member of the Residuum who has no fears
for the future the curve represents a constantly recurring
process. With his debts cleared off, and a week's wages
in hand, the final utility of the reward is so small that
he has absolutely no inducement to work ; the smallest
temptation will keep him away, the smallest inconvenience
cause him to throw up the job ; and it is not until he is
destitute and his credit exhausted, that he finds himself
beginning his curve again, to repeat the process as often
as he gets the chance. It is, of course, only a question of
degree. I suppose it occurs once or twice in every man's
life to question whether it is all worth while ; but an
event which is to the normal man a crisis has become with
the Residuum a habit, making little or no impression, and
leaving no lesson.
In itself, and apart from any special incapacity, this
disposition is not altogether an unfavourable one, even
from an economic point of view ; and the man to whom
the future is merely the infinite possibility of something
turning up, is so far in a better position for making his
bargain in the labour market than the man who is
burdened with all the cares of a lifetime. It is the indif-
ferent seller who gets the best price for his wares ; and
this may partly account for the high wages which clever
good-for-nothings sometimes command when they choose
to work. But this point is insignificant in view of the
VII THE INDUSTRIAL RESIDUUM 87
facts : first, that the disposition is in the highest degree
unfavourable to the acquirement of skill, and that though
sometimes combined with natural genius it is more often
allied to incapacity ; and second, that though the good-for-
nothing is indifferent when the question is of continuing
a bargain, he rarely approaches one until he finds the
necessaries of life running alarmingly short, — until, that is,
the claims of the future have become the needs of the
present.
From the point of view of happiness there is perhaps
more to be said for the disposition. It is difficult to avoid
the thought that the facts represented by the curve have
possibilities of pleasure about them, which are wanting
where the reward of labour has always a fixed and mode-
rate utility ; it means an alternation between leisure,
excitement, and intense gratification, which might con-
ceivably yield a larger total of happiness than the some-
what low and monotonous level of satisfaction which the
regular wage earner gets out of his reward. It must be
borne in mind also, that in estimating the happiness of the
Residuum we must leave almost entirely out of account
all pleasures or pains of anticipation ; and if, as I believe,
the worst of pain lies in its anticipation, while the best of
pleasure is in its realisation, the balance in favour of the
disposition in question may tend to become a large one.
Taking this type of character as one of our data, we
may now ask about its effect upon the economic position
of its possessor. It will be found to result invariably in
his permanent failure to maintain himself (and those
legally dependent upon him) in that standard of comfort
which is considered necessary, and insisted upon by the
community. It is, indeed, inevitable that this should be
so ; want of the economic virtues involves economic
failure, and no artificial social arrangements can alter the
fact that the man in any rank of life who is not self-sup-
porting is an economic failure. We cannot, however,
without some limitations convert the proposition, and say
that all who fail to be self-supporting are members of the
Residuum.
88 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM vii
I have already alluded to those who fall from the ranks
of independence through merely temporary misfortune ;
they owe their failure to the accident of circumstance
alone, and not to any inherent defects. It is unfortunately
true that long-continued misfortune is only too likely to
develop these defects, but until this has taken place there
is always hope. There is another class which I should
like to exclude, even though their failure to be self-sup-
porting may be more or less permanent. I refer to the
large class of women workers, whose earnings have to be
supplemented to enable them to live in the standard to
which they naturally belong. Their position presents a
genuine economic problem, though not quite the one before
us now. Looked at from the point of view of exchange,
women's labour seems at present to be in the position of
what is known as a " by-product " ; it shares a joint cost of
production with men's labour, but is so much less in
requisition that the latter stands in the position of the
main product, and receives by far the greater proportion
of remuneration. Some of the histories of joint production
have been very interesting ; for instance that of soda and
hydrochloric acid, where the latter, originally a waste
product, has, through the new uses discovered for it,
taken the lead, and reduced soda to the position of a by-
product. It is conceivable that as the most fitting uses
are found for women's labour it may advance more nearly
to the dignity of being the main product, and thus be able
to claim a more equal share of remuneration.
But no such hope can be entertained with regard to
the true Residuum ; their labour is distinguished by its
inferiority alone, and mere inferiority will never find a
market'; it differs not in kind, but in degree of utility only,
and it is inconceivable that a use should be found for it
which would not be better supplied by the class from
which it has fallen.
Bearing in mind these exceptions — women workers and
the subjects of temporary misfortune — the Residuum
seems to fall more or less obviously into two divisions,
according to the nature of the services rendered. The one
VII THE INDUSTRIAL RESIDUUM 89
consists of those who follow what, for want of a better
name, I will call factitious or superfluous employments ; the
other of men who possess a limited amount of skill, and
supplement regular wage earners in the main industries.
The first class is probably the larger in number (at any
rate in poorer London), and the most hopelessly excluded
from the true industrial ranks. It is a curious product of
modern times, and I doubt whether it has its counterpart
in history. It is usually assumed that in proportion as
labour lacks skill, it falls back upon brute force, mere
strength of muscle ; but here we have a race living, and to
some extent thriving, who have no specialised skill, no
" trade in their hands," as they will say, and who yet have
only the minimum of physical strength. A sort of super-
ficial sharpness you may find in some of them, especially
those who get their living in the streets ; but it is very
shallow, and rarely amounts to more than a ready adapt-
ability of manner and a shrewd facility in saying what is
expected. If placed in circumstances which are new to
them, or which call for any promptness of action or readi-
ness of resource, their incapacity is immediately apparent.
Their mission in life is to pick up the odds and ends of
work which are let fall through carelessness or indolence
by other people, and their one economic virtue is that of
being " on the spot." A typical instance of this virtue is
found in the protege of dustmen, who is technically known
as the " follower-up." Say that the dustman has to empty
six dust-bins on a round, and that his cart will only hold
the contents of five and a half; here is the opportunity for
the follower-up, who saves him the trouble of returning,
and gets so much a barrow-load for his pains.
To the immense multiplication of subsidiary employ-
ments which is due to the existence of a Residuum, I need
only allude ; any one familiar with working London knows
them only too well. I do not, of course, refer to the
genuine industrial development of subsidiary employment
arising from the organisation of labour, but to a multipli-
cation of minor services of very doubtful benefit to the
community. Compare the legitimate and natural function
90 ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL PROBLEM vii
of the milkman, arising from the perishable nature of his
commodity, with that of the oil-man, the coal-man, the
wood-man, the coke-man, the coster of every description
who haunts the streets of working London, and saves his
customers the trouble of going to the shop at the corner.
It may of course be argued that this is a legitimate and
even desirable service, but those who recognise as the
type of this class, not the milkman, but the tally-man —
that evil genius of the poor — will share my doubts. The
whole method of retail industry differs from that pursued
in higher classes of the community ; there the purchaser
sends her orders to the tradesman, here the tradesman
takes his goods to the purchaser. It is a difference of the
imaginative faculty which well illustrates the disposition of
the Residuum ; for the educated person anticipating her
needs, the sight of the store's list is sufficient to provoke a
purchase, but for the uneducated person the sight and
touch of the commodities themselves is found to be
necessary, and these prove so stimulating that debts are
frequently incurred for comparatively useless articles.
Other representatives of the class are the girl who
cleans steps, the old woman who minds babies, the
knocker-up who will waken you at any hour for 2d. a
week, the self-appointed commissionaire who stations him-
self outside public-houses ready for o5d jobs, and so on,
with a variety which is to be equalled only by the various
forms of indolence which creates the demand for those
minor service people. For the most part they are entirely
dependent for occupation upon the wage-earners themselves,
and it is evident that this limitation of their usefulness
renders their mode of life in the highest degree precarious.
They are exposed to every breath of " bad times " which
excites the smallest desire for economising in their patrons.
Many of them are of no real use, — they are even of negative
value, for the costermonger who knows his business is as
well able to enforce a purchase as the organ-grinder who
gets paid to go away. Hence the demand for their
services is an unnatural one, and would not make itself
felt for a day if it were not artificially fostered. I think it
vii THE INDUSTRIAL RESIDUUM 91
is Roscher who has urged the necessity of taking into con-
sideration the intensity of a demand as well as its extent ;
if I may apply the term in a somewhat different sense, the
demand for these services may be described as having the
least degree of intensity which is compatible with its being
effective. That it is effective at all is due to the peculiar
conditions of supply, which we shall have to note presently.
It might be thought that in some degree this lack of
intensity might be compensated by extent. I believe that
in many of the industries which supply the working classes
the comparative stability of demand in face of bad times is
to be accounted for by their large numbers, cheap goods
for the many forming a safer basis for trading than
expensive goods for the few. But members of this class
never serve a large connection. Some dozen streets will
comprise the ordinary coster's round, the charwoman has
her half-dozen patrons, the coal and oil-men have their
regular customers, and when these fail them they rarely
succeed in establishing a new groove.
As a natural link between this class and the next, I
should like to refer, in passing, to the charwoman. In the
East End she is called in, like other casual labour, when
the mistress of a household is unable or disinclined for any
reason to do her own work, and the irregularity of an
occupation dependent upon such causes quite defies calcu-
lation. She probably had her origin in the West, and is a
typical instance of the development and results of partial
employment. Under any satisfactory arrangement a house-
hold will find within its own internal economy sufficient
labour power to carry on its necessary and normal work ;
but the modern system of intermittent cleaning, by which
the dirt is allowed to accumulate until the family goes out
of town, makes it possible to work with a smaller regular
staff, supplementing it from the Residuum upon occasion.