The break-up of the London factories has furnished "sweating trades" with a large quantity of unemployed and starving people from whom to draw.
Regarded from the widest economic point of view, the existence of an excessive supply of labour seeking employments open to free competition must be regarded as the most important aspect of the "sweating system." The recent condition of the competition for casual dock-labour brought dramatically to the foreground this factor in the labour question.

The struggle for livelihood was there reduced to its lowest and most brutal terms.

"There is a place at the London Docks called the cage, a sort of pen fenced off by iron railings.

I have seen three hundred half-starved dockers crowded round this cage, when perhaps a ganger would appear wanting three hands, and the awful struggle of these three hundred famished wretches fighting for that opportunity to get two or three hours' work has left an impression upon me that can never be effaced.
Why, I have actually seen them clambering over each other's backs to reach the coveted ticket.

I have frequently seen men emerge bleeding and breathless, with their clothes pretty well torn off their backs." The competition described in this picture only differs from other competitions for low-skilled town labour in as much as the conditions of tender gave a tragical concentration to the display of industrial forces.