Documentation of the rich is usually easy compared with the problems of learning how the poor lived. We know, for instance, that the hundreds of labourers who worked on the docks led exceptionally hard lives. The work was heavy, dirty and erratic; the pay was small, and the hours long. Unemployment was frequent, especially in winter. Those who secured winter work toiled amid spray which froze to their clothing and faced winds off the bay which chilled them to the bone. On Saturday nights workers were paid off and on their way home they would stop at stores which remained open for the purpose of allowing them to buy food for the weekend.
The homes in which the poor lived have not survived, but this excellent photograph of Duke Street shows some of the dilapidated buildings available for their use. Note the haystack at the right and the bend in the frame of the house on the left. Poor living conditions bred physical and social disease and perpetuated the cycle of poverty which entrapped the city's disadvantaged. At the bottom of the street, the harbour and the fish market can be seen.
