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

stretched a vast,

cultivated plain that extended to the south coast, one hundred miles

away. The climate was supposed to be cool in summer and mild in

winter.

 

The town proper nestled in the valley: to the west, the most beautiful

and sheltered part was the suburb of Irene: here were the homes of the

wealthy residents and prosperous tradespeople, and numerous

boarding-houses for the accommodation of well-to-do visitors. East,

the town extended up the slope to the top of the hill and down the

other side to the suburb of Windley, where the majority of the working

classes lived.

 

Years ago, when the facilities for foreign travel were fewer and more

costly, Mugsborough was a favourite resort of the upper classes, but

of late years most of these patriots have adopted the practice of

going on the Continent to spend the money they obtain from the working

people of England. However, Mugsborough still retained some semblance

of prosperity. Summer or winter the place was usually fairly full of

what were called good-class visitors, either holidaymakers or

invalids. The Grand Parade was generally crowded with well-dressed

people and carriages. The shops appeared to be well-patronized and at

the time of our story an air of prosperity pervaded the town. But

this fair outward appearance was deceitful. The town was really a

vast whited sepulchre; for notwithstanding the natural advantages of

the place the majority of the inhabitants existed in a state of

perpetual poverty which in many cases bordered on destitution. One of

the reasons for this was that a great part of the incomes of the

tradespeople and boarding-house-keepers and about a third of the wages

of the working classes were paid away as rent and rates.

 

For years the Corporation had been borrowing money for necessary

public works and improvements, and as the indebtedness of the town

increased the rates rose in proportion, because the only works and

services undertaken by the Council were such as did not yield revenue.

Every public service capable of returning direct profit was in the

hands of private companies, and the shares of the private companies

were in the hands of the members of the Corporation, and the members

of the Corporation were in the hands of the four most able and

intellectual of their number, Councillors Sweater, Rushton, Didlum and

Grinder, each of whom was a director of one or more of the numerous

companies which battened on the town.

 

The Tramway Company, the Water Works Company, the Public Baths

Company, the Winter Gardens Company, the Grand Hotel Company and

numerous others. There was, however, one Company in which Sweater,

Rushton, Didlum and Grinder had no shares, and that was the Gas

Company, the oldest and most flourishing of them all. This

institution had grown with the place; most of the original promoters

were dead, and the greater number of the present shareholders were

non-residents; although they lived on the town, they did not live in

it.

 

The profits made by this Company were so great that, being prevented

by law from paying a larger dividend than ten percent, they frequently

found it a difficult matter to decide what to do with the money. They

paid the Directors and principal officials - themselves shareholders,

of course - enormous salaries. They built and furnished costly and

luxurious offices and gave the rest to the shareholders in the form of

Bonuses.

 

There was one way in which the Company might have used some of the

profits: it might have granted shorter hours and higher wages to the

workmen whose health was destroyed and whose lives were shortened by

the terrible labour of the retort-houses and the limesheds; but of

course none of the directors or shareholders ever thought of doing

that. It was not the business of the Company to concern itself about

them.

 

Years ago, when it might have been done for a comparatively small

amount, some hare-brained Socialists suggested that the town should

buy the Gas Works, but the project was wrecked by the inhabitants,

upon whom the mere mention of the word Socialist had the same effect

that the sight of a red rag is popularly supposed to have on a bull.

 

Of course, even now it was still possible to buy out the Company, but

it was supposed that it would cost so much that it was generally

considered to be impracticable.

 

Although they declined to buy the Gas works, the people of Mugsborough

had to buy the gas. The amount paid by the municipality to the

Company for the public lighting of the town loomed large in the

accounts of the Council. They managed to get some of their own back

by imposing a duty of two shillings a ton upon coals imported into the

Borough, but although it cost the Gas Works a lot of money for coal

dues the Company in its turn got its own back by increasing the price

of gas they sold to the inhabitants of the town…

 

End of Project Gutenberg’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Tressell