went to swell the ranks of those employed upon the staple products.[1] All this was bad for the poor "stockinger," but the Report of 1844–45 makes it clear that his weakness was ruthlessly exploited by unscrupulous and grasping "bagmen." Not content with deducting the 30 or 40 per cent from wages, allowed by custom for his normal labour and trouble of fetching and carrying yarn and goods, the bagman resorted to underhand tricks. He understated the warehouse prices and pocketed the margin; he exacted rent for frames when the price of the goods was scarcely sufficient to pay it. In slack times he would give one week's work for one knitter to two or even three and draw full rents for two or three frames instead of one.[2] Finally he resorted to truck.
The Report of 1845 is full of bitter and violent denunciations of the bagmen. None of them is so eloquent as that quoted by Mr. Podmore,[3] but a few are worth quotation: Samuel Jennings was employed by T. P. of Hinckley, who paid all his wages in truck and even charged him rent upon his (Jennings') own frame.[4] One knitter sued his employer in court. "On Saturday the 23rd of December I settled with C. (defendant), and then had one pound of candles on credit, and he also lent me sixpence in money. On the 6th of January I reckoned with him for five dozen stocking feet which I had made during the week. I was in his warehouse and his son was present. My work came to 3s. 6½d. He deducted for frame rent 2s. 0½d., candles 5½d., money borrowed 6d., leaving 6½d. to be paid to me."[5] Thomas Revil declares "our middlemen walk the streets like gentlemen, and we are slaves to them." This latter was literally true, as the knitter was always in debt to truck masters, and was consequently unable to quit his employment for fear of imprisonment. The fortunes made by hosiers and bagmen were another source of indignation. Bagmen were often ignorant people of obscure origin, and the rapid rise to fortune of exceptional bagmen, who were more able or more unscrupulous than their fellows, was a source of extreme bitterness. One case was quoted where a shop-boy had in a few years acquired sixty or seventy frames and never paid a penny in coin as wages.
It is to be expected that wages were low. Indeed with hosiers, bagmen, and frame-owners to satisfy out of the produce
