ed: men knew they were imposed. They
pay in money now--but compel them to buy at their own shops....
Wholesale warehouses at Rochdale say, 'Oh! put it sideways: it
will do for Cragg Dale masters to sell among their people.'

_Song_: 'Lousy butter and burnt bread.'

About 1842 a curious perversion of truck was prevalent in parts of
Yorkshire. The trade depression in the Bradford district tempted
disreputable woollen manufacturers to force on their operatives the
products of the factory as part payment of wages. Combers were given
pieces of cloth, workers in shoddy mills bundles of rags. But this
utterly inexcusable fraud, no less than its more specious complement,
the employer's store, was rooted out by inspectors and factory
reformers. Therefore in 1854 the Government's Commissioner was able to
say that in a factory district like Lancashire truck was not only
non-existent but 'impossible'.[61]

He was right as to the factory districts, but not quite right as to
Lancashire. In Prescot, a small Lancashire town on the fringe of the
factory district, the watchmakers in 1871 were being paid in watches.
The masters alleged that they only gave watches to the workers when the
latter had orders for them, but the evidence showed that these orders
only came to hand when the men were asking for fresh work. The
pawnbrokers explained what happened. 'Watches', said a pawnbroker's
clerk, 'pass from hand to hand as a circulating medium until they get
very low in the market and are pawned.'[62] The pawnshop in question
had 700 watches on pledge, most of them belonging to workmen in the
town.

In railway contracting truck was prevalent in the forties. In roving
employment of this type it is difficult to see how some form of
contractor's shop could have been avoided. The navvy needed canteens or
Y.M.C.A. huts, but such things had not been thought of then. However,
when the big period of railway construction came to an end, the question
lost its importance.

South Staffordshire and the Black Country were the ancient strongholds
of truck. The campaigns against truck originated here. The nailers, the
cash-paying masters, and the respectable ratepayers joined together to
promote the Truck Act of 1820. Lord Hatherton, a Staffordshire nobleman,
after three years hammering at the House of Commons, obtained the Truck
Act of 1831. But in 1843, the year of the Midland Mining Commission,
truck was still rife in the coalfield