3-021-089 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Coaling a Royal Mail steam-packet at Kingston, Jamaica, 1865. 'The operation of coaling the mail-steamers at Kingston is a most curious sight. This very laborious work is done by negresses, for a negro must be very badly off indeed before he would condescend to do such work. The coals are carried in baskets on the head. Each basket contains about 80lb., and the payment is 3d. per dozen baskets if coaling by day, but double that, or 6d., if at night. The labour is carried on amidst the most frightful din, each woman singing at the top of her voice, or else wrangling with her neighbour. Many of the women earn a dollar in a few hours. By this method the steamers are supplied with about 200 tons of coal in from eight to ten hours, A tallyman sits near the gangway, whose business it is to keep an account of the number of baskets brought by each person. To aid him, each woman carries a piece of tin at her waist, with her number painted upon it, and she turns towards the tallyman as she passes so as fully to display it. He then drops a pea into a perforated tin lock-up box over that number; and, when the work is done, the peas are counted, and the ladies are paid immediately'. From "Illustrated London News", 1865.