Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖
- Author: Robert Tressell
- Performer: -
Book online «Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (read novel full TXT) 📖». Author Robert Tressell
cans and pails of water, she was in such intense pain that she was
scarcely able to walk home, and for several days afterwards had to lie
in bed through a recurrence of her old illness, which caused her to
suffer untold agony whenever she tried to stand.
Owen was alternately dejected and maddened by the knowledge of his own
helplessness: when he was not doing anything for Rushton he went about
the town trying to find some other work, but usually with scant
success. He did some samples of showcard and window tickets and
endeavoured to get some orders by canvassing the shops in the town,
but this was also a failure, for these people generally had a
ticket-writer to whom they usually gave their work. He did get a few
trifling orders, but they were scarcely worth doing at the price he
got for them. He used to feel like a criminal when he went into the
shops to ask them for the work, because he realized fully that, in
effect, he was saying to them: `Take your work away from the other
man, and employ me.’ He was so conscious of this that it gave him a
shamefaced manner, which, coupled as it was with his shabby clothing,
did not create a very favourable impression upon those he addressed,
who usually treated him with about as much courtesy as they would have
extended to any other sort of beggar. Generally, after a day’s
canvassing, he returned home unsuccessful and faint with hunger and
fatigue.
Once, when there was a bitterly cold east wind blowing, he was out on
one of these canvassing expeditions and contracted a severe cold: his
chest became so bad that he found it almost impossible to speak,
because the effort to do so often brought on a violent fit of
coughing. It was during this time that a firm of drapers, for whom he
had done some showcards, sent him an order for one they wanted in a
hurry, it had to be delivered the next morning, so he stayed up by
himself till nearly midnight to do it. As he worked, he felt a
strange sensation in his chest: it was not exactly a pain, and he
would have found it difficult to describe it in words - it was just a
sensation. He did not attach much importance to it, thinking it an
effect of the cold he had taken, but whatever it was he could not help
feeling conscious of it all the time.
Frankie had been put to bed that evening at the customary hour, but
did not seem to be sleeping as well as usual. Owen could hear him
twisting and turning about and uttering little cries in his sleep.
He left his work several times to go into the boy’s room and cover him
with the bedclothes which his restless movements had disordered. As
the time wore on, the child became more tranquil, and about eleven
o’clock, when Owen went in to look at him, he found him in a deep
sleep, lying on his side with his head thrown back on the pillow,
breathing so softly through his slightly parted lips that the sound
was almost imperceptible. The fair hair that clustered round his
forehead was damp with perspiration, and he was so still and pale and
silent that one might have thought he was sleeping the sleep that
knows no awakening.
About an hour later, when he had finished writing the showcard, Owen
went out into the scullery to wash his hands before going to bed: and
whilst he was drying them on the towel, the strange sensation he had
been conscious of all the evening became more intense, and a few
seconds afterwards he was terrified to find his mouth suddenly filled
with blood.
For what seemed an eternity he fought for breath against the
suffocating torrent, and when at length it stopped, he sank trembling
into a chair by the side of the table, holding the towel to his mouth
and scarcely daring to breathe, whilst a cold sweat streamed from
every pore and gathered in large drops upon his forehead.
Through the deathlike silence of the night there came from time to
time the chimes of the clock of a distant church, but he continued to
sit there motionless, taking no heed of the passing hours, and
possessed with an awful terror.
So this was the beginning of the end! And afterwards the other two
would be left by themselves at the mercy of the world. In a few
years’ time the boy would be like Bert White, in the clutches of some
psalm-singing devil like Hunter or Rushton, who would use him as if he
were a beast of burden. He imagined he could see him now as he would
be then: worked, driven, and bullied, carrying loads, dragging carts,
and running here and there, trying his best to satisfy the brutal
tyrants, whose only thought would be to get profit out of him for
themselves. If he lived, it would be to grow up with his body
deformed and dwarfed by unnatural labour and with his mind stultified,
degraded and brutalized by ignorance and poverty. As this vision of
the child’s future rose before him, Owen resolved that it should never
be! He would not leave them alone and defenceless in the midst of the
`Christian’ wolves who were waiting to rend them as soon as he was
gone. If he could not give them happiness, he could at least put them
out of the reach of further suffering. If he could not stay with
them, they would have to come with him. It would be kinder and more
merciful.
Facing the `Problem’
Nearly every other firm in the town was in much the same plight as
Rushton & Co.; none of them had anything to speak of to do, and the
workmen no longer troubled to go to the different shops asking for a
job. They knew it was of no use. Most of them just walked about
aimlessly or stood talking in groups in the streets, principally in
the neighbourhood of the Wage Slave Market near the fountain on the
Grand Parade. They congregated here in such numbers that one or two
residents wrote to the local papers complaining of the `nuisance’, and
pointing out that it was calculated to drive the `better-class’
visitors out of the town. After this two or three extra policemen
were put on duty near the fountain with instructions to `move on’ any
groups of unemployed that formed. They could not stop them from
coming there, but they prevented them standing about.
The processions of unemployed continued every day, and the money they
begged from the public was divided equally amongst those who took
part. Sometimes it amounted to one and sixpence each, sometimes it
was a little more and sometimes a little less. These men presented a
terrible spectacle as they slunk through the dreary streets, through
the rain or the snow, with the slush soaking into their broken boots,
and, worse still, with the bitterly cold east wind penetrating their
rotten clothing and freezing their famished bodies.
The majority of the skilled workers still held aloof from these
processions, although their haggard faces bore involuntary testimony
to their sufferings. Although privation reigned supreme in their
desolate homes, where there was often neither food nor light nor fire,
they were too `proud’ to parade their misery before each other or the
world. They secretly sold or pawned their clothing and their
furniture and lived in semi-starvation on the proceeds, and on credit,
but they would not beg. Many of them even echoed the sentiments of
those who had written to the papers, and with a strange lack of
class-sympathy blamed those who took part in the processions. They
said it was that sort of thing that drove the `better class’ away,
injured the town, and caused all the poverty and unemployment.
However, some of them accepted charity in other ways; district
visitors distributed tickets for coal and groceries. Not that that
sort of thing made much difference; there was usually a great deal of
fuss and advice, many quotations of Scripture, and very little
groceries. And even what there was generally went to the
least-deserving people, because the only way to obtain any of this
sort of `charity’ is by hypocritically pretending to be religious: and
the greater the hypocrite, the greater the quantity of coal and
groceries. These `charitable’ people went into the wretched homes of
the poor and - in effect - said: `Abandon every particle of self-respect: cringe and fawn: come to church: bow down and grovel to us,
and in return we’ll give you a ticket that you can take to a certain
shop and exchange for a shillingsworth of groceries. And, if you’re
very servile and humble we may give you another one next week.’
They never gave the `case’ the money. The ticket system serves three
purposes. It prevents the `case’ abusing the `charity’ by spending
the money on drink. It advertises the benevolence of the donors: and
it enables the grocer - who is usually a member of the church - to get
rid of any stale or damaged stock he may have on hand.
When these visiting ladies’ went into a workman’s house and found it
clean and decently furnished, and the children clean and tidy, they
came to the conclusion that those people were not suitable `cases’ for
assistance. Perhaps the children had had next to nothing to eat, and
would have been in rags if the mother had not worked like a slave
washing and mending their clothes. But these were not the sort of
cases that the visiting ladies assisted; they only gave to those who
were in a state of absolute squalor and destitution, and then only on
condition that they whined and grovelled.
In addition to this district visitor business, the well-to-do
inhabitants and the local authorities attempted - or rather,
pretended - to grapple with the poverty `problem’ in many other ways,
and the columns of the local papers were filled with letters from all
sorts of cranks who suggested various remedies. One individual, whose
income was derived from brewery shares, attributed the prevailing
distress to the drunken and improvident habits of the lower orders.
Another suggested that it was a Divine protest against the growth of
Ritualism and what he called `fleshly religion’, and suggested a day
of humiliation and prayer. A great number of well-fed persons thought
this such an excellent proposition that they proceeded to put it into
practice. They prayed, whilst the unemployed and the little children
fasted.
If one had not been oppressed by the tragedy of Want and Misery, one
might have laughed at the farcical, imbecile measures that were taken
to relieve it. Several churches held what they called `Rummage’ or
`jumble’ sales. They sent out circulars something like this:
JUMBLE SALE
in aid of the Unemployed.
If you have any articles of any description which are of no
further use to you, we should be grateful for them, and if you
will kindly fill in annexed form and post it to us, we will send
and collect them.
On the day of the sale the parish room was transformed into a kind of
Marine Stores, filled with all manner of rubbish, with the parson and
the visiting ladies grinning in the midst. The things were sold for
next to nothing to such as cared to buy them, and the local
rag-and-bone man reaped a fine harvest. The proceeds of these sales
were distributed in `charity’ and it was usually a case of much cry
and little wool.
There was a religious organization, called `The Mugsborough
Comments (0)