Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖

or aspiration, they grovelled on the filthy ground, tearing up

the flowers to get at the worms.

 

In the coach presided over by Crass, Bill Bates, the Semidrunk and

the other two or three habitual boozers were all men who had been

driven mad by their environment. At one time most of them had been

fellows like Harlow, working early and late whenever they got the

chance, only to see their earnings swallowed up in a few minutes every

Saturday by the landlord and all the other host of harpies and

profitmongers, who were waiting to demand it as soon as it was earned.

In the years that were gone, most of these men used to take all their

money home religiously every Saturday and give it to the `old girl’

for the house, and then, lo and behold, in a moment, yea, even in the

twinkling of an eye, it was all gone! Melted away like snow in the

sun! and nothing to show for it except an insufficiency of the bare

necessaries of life! But after a time they had become heartbroken and

sick and tired of that sort of thing. They hankered after a little

pleasure, a little excitement, a little fun, and they found that it

was possible to buy something like those in quart pots at the pub.

They knew they were not the genuine articles, but they were better

than nothing at all, and so they gave up the practice of giving all

their money to the old girl to give to the landlord and the other

harpies, and bought beer with some of it instead; and after a time

their minds became so disordered from drinking so much of this beer,

that they cared nothing whether the rent was paid or not. They cared

but little whether the old girl and the children had food or clothes.

They said, `To hell with everything and everyone,’ and they cared for

nothing so long as they could get plenty of beer.

 

The occupants of Nimrod’s coach have already been described and most

of them may correctly be classed as being similar to cretin idiots of

the third degree - very cunning and selfish, and able to read and

write, but with very little understanding of what they read except on

the most common topics.

 

As for those who rode with Harlow in the last coach, most of them, as

has been already intimated, were men of similar character to himself.

The greater number of them fairly good workmen and - unlike the

boozers in Crass’s coach - not yet quite heartbroken, but still

continuing the hopeless struggle against poverty. These differed from

Nimrod’s lot inasmuch as they were not content. They were always

complaining of their wretched circumstances, and found a certain kind

of pleasure in listening to the tirades of the Socialists against the

existing social conditions, and professing their concurrence with many

of the sentiments expressed, and a desire to bring about a better

state of affairs.

 

Most of them appeared to be quite sane, being able to converse

intelligently on any ordinary subject without discovering any symptoms

of mental disorder, and it was not until the topic of Parliamentary

elections was mentioned that evidence of their insanity was

forthcoming. It then almost invariably appeared that they were

subject to the most extraordinary hallucinations and extravagant

delusions, the commonest being that the best thing that the working

people could do to bring about an improvement in their condition, was

to continue to elect their Liberal and Tory employers to make laws for

and to rule over them! At such times, if anyone ventured to point out

to them that that was what they had been doing all their lives, and

referred them to the manifold evidences that met them wherever they

turned their eyes of its folly and futility, they were generally

immediately seized with a paroxysm of the most furious mania, and were

with difficulty prevented from savagely assaulting those who differed

from them.

 

They were usually found in a similar condition of maniacal excitement

for some time preceding and during a Parliamentary election, but

afterwards they usually manifested that modification of insanity which

is called melancholia. In fact they alternated between these two

forms of the disease. During elections, the highest state of exalted

mania; and at ordinary times - presumably as a result of reading about

the proceedings in Parliament of the persons whom they had elected -

in a state of melancholic depression, in their case an instance of

hope deferred making the heart sick.

 

This condition occasionally proved to be the stage of transition into

yet another modification of the disease - that known as dipsomania,

the phase exhibited by Bill Bates and the Semidrunk.

 

Yet another form of insanity was that shown by the Socialists. Like

most of their fellow passengers in the last coach, the majority of

these individuals appeared to be of perfectly sound mind. Upon

entering into conversation with them one found that they reasoned

correctly and even brilliantly. They had divided their favourite

subject into three parts. First; an exact definition of the condition

known as Poverty. Secondly; a knowledge of the causes of Poverty; and

thirdly, a rational plan for the cure of Poverty. Those who were

opposed to them always failed to refute their arguments, and feared,

and nearly always refused, to meet them in fair fight - in open debate -

preferring to use the cowardly and despicable weapons of slander and

misrepresentation. The fact that these Socialists never encountered

their opponents except to defeat them, was a powerful testimony to the

accuracy of their reasonings and the correctness of their conclusions -

and yet they were undoubtedly mad. One might converse with them for an

indefinite time on the three divisions of their subject without

eliciting any proofs of insanity, but directly one inquired what means

they proposed to employ in order to bring about the adoption of their

plan, they replied that they hoped to do so by reasoning with the

others!

 

Although they had sense enough to understand the real causes of

poverty, and the only cure for poverty, they were nevertheless so

foolish that they entertained the delusion that it is possible to

reason with demented persons, whereas every sane person knows that to

reason with a maniac is not only fruitless, but rather tends to fix

more deeply the erroneous impressions of his disordered mind.

 

The wagonette containing Rushton and his friends continued to fly

over the road, pursued by the one in which rode Crass, Bill Bates, and

the Semidrunk; but notwithstanding all the efforts of the drunken

driver, they were unable to overtake or pass the smaller vehicle, and

when they reached the foot of the hill that led up to Windley the

distance between the two carriages rapidly increased, and the race was

reluctantly abandoned.

 

When they reached the top of the hill Rushton and his friends did not

wait for the others, but drove off towards Mugsborough as fast as they

could.

 

Crass’s brake was the next to arrive at the summit, and they halted

there to wait for the other two conveyances and when they came up all

those who lived nearby got out, and some of them sang `God Save the

King’, and then with shouts of `Good Night’, and cries of `Don’t

forget six o’clock Monday morning’, they dispersed to their homes and

the carriages moved off once more.

 

At intervals as they passed through Windley brief stoppages were made

in order to enable others to get out, and by the time they reached the

top of the long incline that led down into Mugsborough it was nearly

twelve o’clock and the brakes were almost empty, the only passengers

being Owen and four or five others who lived down town. By ones and

twos these also departed, disappearing into the obscurity of the

night, until there was none left, and the Beano was an event of the

past.