Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖
- Author: Robert Tressell
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one was almost certain to have some money every day, because it wasn’t
likely that a whole day would go by without someone or other coming
into the shop to buy something. When delivering the groceries with
the horse and cart, he would give rides to all the boys he knew, and
in the summertime, after the work was done and the shop shut up,
Mother and Elsie and Granny could also come for long rides into the
country.
The old grandmother - who had latterly become quite childish - used to
sit and listen to all this talk with a superior air. Sometimes she
argued with the children about their plans, and ridiculed them. She
used to say with a chuckle that she had heard people talk like that
before - lots of times - but it never came to nothing in the end.
One week about the middle of February, when they were in very sore
straits indeed, old Jack applied to the secretary of the Organized
Benevolence Society for assistance. It was about eleven o’clock in
the morning when he turned the corner of the street where the office
of the society was situated and saw a crowd of about thirty men
waiting for the doors to be opened in order to apply for soup tickets.
Some of these men were of the tramp or the drunken loafer class; some
were old, broken-down workmen like himself, and others were labourers
wearing corduroy or moleskin trousers with straps round their legs
under their knees.
Linden waited at a distance until all these were gone before he went
in. The secretary received him sympathetically and gave him a big
form to fill up, but as Linden’s eyes were so bad and his hand so
unsteady the secretary very obligingly wrote in the answers himself,
and informed him that he would inquire into the case and lay his
application before the committee at the next meeting, which was to be
held on the following Thursday - it was then Monday.
Linden explained to him that they were actually starving. He had been
out of work for sixteen weeks, and during all that time they had lived
for the most part on the earnings of his daughter-in-law, but she had
not done anything for nearly a fortnight now, because the firm she
worked for had not had any work for her to do. There was no food in
the house and the children were crying for something to eat. All last
week they had been going to school hungry, for they had had nothing
but dry bread and tea every day: but this week - as far as he could
see - they would not get even that. After some further talk the
secretary gave him two soup tickets and an order for a loaf of bread,
and repeated his promise to inquire into the case and bring it before
the committee.
As Jack was returning home he passed the Soup Kitchen, where he saw
the same lot of men who had been to the office of the Organized
Benevolence Society for the soup tickets. They were waiting in a long
line to be admitted. The premises being so small, the proprietor
served them in batches of ten at a time.
On Wednesday the secretary called at the house, and on Friday Jack
received a letter from him to the effect that the case had been duly
considered by the committee, who had come to the conclusion that as it
was a `chronic’ case they were unable to deal with it, and advised him
to apply to the Board of Guardians. This was what Linden had hitherto
shrunk from doing, but the situation was desperate. They owed five
weeks’ rent, and to crown their misfortune his eyesight had become so
bad that even if there had been any prospect of obtaining work it was
very doubtful if he could have managed to do it. So Linden, feeling
utterly crushed and degraded, swallowed all that remained of his pride
and went like a beaten dog to see the relieving officer, who took him
before the Board, who did not think it a suitable case for out-relief,
and after some preliminaries it was arranged that Linden and his wife
were to go into the workhouse, and Mary was to be allowed three
shillings a week to help her to support herself and the two children.
As for Linden’s sons, the Guardians intimated their Intention of
compelling them to contribute towards the cost of their parents’
maintenance.
Mary accompanied the old people to the gates of their future
dwelling-place, and when she returned home she found there a letter
addressed to J. Linden. It was from the house agent and contained a
notice to leave the house before the end of the ensuing week. Nothing
was said about the rent that was due. Perhaps Mr Sweater thought that
as he had already received nearly six hundred pounds in rent from
Linden he could afford to be generous about the five weeks that were
still owing - or perhaps he thought there was no possibility of
getting the money. However that may have been, there was no reference
to it in the letter - it was simply a notice to clear out, addressed
to Linden, but meant for Mary.
It was about half past three o’clock in the afternoon when she
returned home and found this letter on the floor in the front passage.
She was faint with fatigue and hunger, for she had had nothing but a
cup of tea and a slice of bread that day, and her fare had not been
much better for many weeks past. The children were at school, and the
house - now almost destitute of furniture and without carpets or
oilcloth on the floors - was deserted and cold and silent as a tomb.
On the kitchen table were a few cracked cups and saucers, a broken
knife, some lead teaspoons, a part of a loaf, a small basin containing
some dripping and a brown earthenware teapot with a broken spout.
Near the table were two broken kitchen chairs, one with the top
cross-piece gone from the back, and the other with no back to the seat
at all. The bareness of the walls was relieved only by a coloured
almanac and some paper pictures which the children had tacked upon
them, and by the side of the fireplace was the empty wicker chair
where the old woman used to sit. There was no fire in the grate, and
the cold hearth was untidy with an accumulation of ashes, for during
the trouble of these last few days she had not had time or heart to do
any housework. The floor was unswept and littered with scraps of
paper and dust: in one corner was a heap of twigs and small branches
of trees that Charley had found somewhere and brought home for the
fire.
The same disorder prevailed all through the house: all the doors were
open, and from where she stood in the kitchen she could see the bed
she shared with Elsie, with its heterogeneous heap of coverings. The
sitting-room contained nothing but a collection of odds and ends of
rubbish which belonged to Charley - his `things’ as he called them -
bits of wood, string and rope; one wheel of a perambulator, a top, an
iron hoop and so on. Through the other door was visible the
dilapidated bedstead that had been used by the old people, with a
similar lot of bedclothes to those on her own bed, and the torn,
ragged covering of the mattress through the side of which the flock
was protruding and falling in particles on to the floor.
As she stood there with the letter in her hand - faint and weary in
the midst of all this desolation, it seemed to her as if the whole
world were falling to pieces and crumbling away all around her.
The Beginning of the End
During the months of January and February, Owen, Crass, Slyme and
Sawkins continued to work at irregular intervals for Rushton & Co.,
although - even when there was anything to do - they now put in only
six hours a day, commencing in the morning and leaving off at four,
with an hour’s interval for dinner between twelve and one. They
finished the `plant’ and painted the front of Rushton’s shop. When
all this was completed, as no other work came in, they all had to
`stand off’ with the exception of Sawkins, who was kept on because he
was cheap and able to do all sorts of odd jobs, such as unstopping
drains, repairing leaky roofs, rough painting or limewashing, and he
was also useful as a labourer for the plumbers, of whom there were now
three employed at Rushton’s, the severe weather which had come in with
January having made a lot of work in that trade. With the exception
of this one branch, practically all work was at a standstill.
During this time Rushton & Co. had had several `boxing-up’ jobs to do,
and Crass always did the polishing of the coffins on these occasions,
besides assisting to take the `box’ home when finished and to `lift
in’ the corpse, and afterwards he always acted as one of the bearers
at the funerals. For an ordinary class funeral he usually put in
about three hours for the polishing; that came to one and nine.
Taking home the coffin and lifting in the corpse, one shilling -
usually there were two men to do this besides Hunter, who always
accompanied them to superintend the work - attending the funeral and
acting as bearer, four shillings: so that altogether Crass made six
shillings and ninepence out of each funeral, and sometimes a little
more. For instance, when there was an unusually good-class corpse
they had a double coffin and then of course there were two `lifts in’,
for the shell was taken home first and the outer coffin perhaps a day
or two later: this made another shilling. No matter how expensive the
funeral was, the bearers never got any more money. Sometimes the
carpenter and Crass were able to charge an hour or two more on the
making and polishing of a coffin for a good job, but that was all.
Sometimes, when there was a very cheap job, they were paid only three
shillings for attending as bearers, but this was not often: as a rule
they got the same amount whether it was a cheap funeral or an
expensive one. Slyme earned only five shillings out of each funeral,
and Owen only one and six - for writing the coffin plate.
Sometimes there were three or four funerals in a week, and then Crass
did very well indeed. He still had the two young men lodgers at his
house, and although one of them was out of work he was still able to
pay his way because he had some money in the bank.
One of the funeral jobs led to a terrible row between Crass and
Sawkins. The corpse was that of a well-to-do woman who had been ill
for a long time with cancer of the stomach, and after the funeral
Rushton & Co. had to clean and repaint and paper the room she had
occupied during her illness. Although cancer is not supposed to be an
infectious disease, they had orders to take all the bedding away and
have it burnt. Sawkins was instructed to take a truck to the house
and get the bedding and take it to the town Refuse Destructor to be
destroyed. There were two feather beds, a bolster and two pillows:
they were
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