ABSTRACT
Of the 21,000 journeymen tailors at work in the metropolis there were, in the year 1844, 3,697 employed on the premises of the masters in the "honourable" trade at the West-end of London, and 2,348 working out of doors at the "dishonourable" show and slop trade. Hence there were 6,081 journeymen tailors engaged at the West-end, and about 15,000 employed at the East-end of the metropolis. In the East there are upwards of 80 slop and show shops, many employing from 200 to 300 hands. There were in 1844 only 72 masters in the West who had all the work made on their premises; besides these, there were 270 masters who had only part of their work made in-doors, and 112 who had none at all done at home. Hence the West-end branch of the business consisted principally of 454 masters, of whom less than one-sixth belonged to what is called the "honourable" part of the trade. Since then, I am assured by one who has long made the business his peculiar study, that the 72 honourable masters have declined at least to 60, while the 172 dishonourable ones have been more than doubled. The men employed in-doors have decreased from 3,600 to less than 3,000, and those employed out of doors have increased from 2,300 to more than 4,000. Hence the honourable part of the trade is declining at the rate of 150 men per year; so that in 20 years at least the whole business will have merged in the show and slop shops; and the wages of the men have fallen from ISs. a week-which I find is the average of the honourable part of the trade-to 11s., the average of the slop trade.
