HENRY MAYHEW (1812-1887) AND

executes the job, and is obliged to slave away every hour, night after night.
to get a bare living out of it; and this is the contract system. A tradesman, or
speculator. will contract, for a certain sum, to complete the skeleton of a house,
and render it fit for habitation. He will sublet the flooring to some working joiner,
who will, in very many cases, take it on such terms as to allow himself, by
working early and late, the regular journeymen's wages of 30s.a week, or
perhaps rather more. Now this sub-contractor cannot complete the work within
the requisite time by his own unaided industry. and he employs men to assist
him, often subletting again, and such assistant men will earn perhaps 4s.a day.
It is the same with the doors, the staircases, the balustrades, the window-frames,
the room-skirtings. the closets; in shon. all parts of the buildingLU
Mayhew discovered the "same marked contrast" "' between the customary and competitive
boot and shoemakers. the carpenters and joiners, and tailors. "The principle source of regret," for
the London chairrnakers. was "that the public have no knowledge of the quality of the articles
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they buy.
For Mayhew. "the decline which has taken place within the last twenty years in the
wages of the operative cabinet-makers of London is so enormous, and moreover. it seems so
opposed to the principles of political economy." "' Concerning the cabinet trade, Mayhew stated:
.. . we find a collection of circumstances at variance with that law of supply
and demand by which many suppose that the rate of wages is invariably determined.
Wages. it is said. depend upon the demand and supply of labour; and it is commonly
assumed that they cannot be affected by anything else. .. . the history of the cabinet
trade for the last twenty years is a most convincing proof, for there we find.
Mayhew. 11: 330.
"' Mayhew. 111: 223.
"6 Ibid.