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

if possible - with a small slice of bread and butter.

 

`At breakfast: half a pint of milk, with coffee, chocolate, or

oatmeal: eggs and bacon, bread and butter, or dry toast.

 

`At eleven o’clock: half a pint of milk with an egg beaten up in it or

some beef tea and bread and butter.

 

`At one o’clock: half a pint of warm milk with a biscuit or sandwich.

 

`At two o’clock: fish and roast mutton, or a mutton chop, with as much

fat as possible: poultry, game, etc., may be taken with vegetables,

and milk pudding.

 

`At five o’clock: hot milk with coffee or chocolate, bread and butter,

watercress, etc.

 

`At eight o’clock: a pint of milk, with oatmeal or chocolate, and

gluten bread, or two lightly boiled eggs with bread and butter.

 

`Before retiring to rest: a glass of warm milk.

 

`During the night: a glass of milk with a biscuit or bread and butter

should be placed by the bedside and be eaten if the patient awakes.’

 

Whilst Owen was reading this book, Crass, Harlow, Philpot and Easton

were talking together on the other side of the street, and presently

Crass caught sight of him. They had been discussing the Secretary’s

letter re the halfpenny rate, and as Owen was one of the members of

the Trades Council, Crass suggested that they should go across and

tackle him about it.

 

`How much is your house assessed at?’ asked Owen after listening for

about a quarter of an hour to Crass’s objection.

 

`Fourteen pound,’ replied Crass.

 

`That means that you would have to pay sevenpence per year if we had a

halfpenny rate. Wouldn’t it be worth sevenpence a year to you to know

that there were no starving children in the town?’

 

`Why should I ‘ave to ‘elp to keep the children of a man who’s too

lazy to work, or spends all ‘is money on drink?’ shouted Crass. `‘Ow

are yer goin’ to make out about the likes o’ them?’

 

`If his children are starving we should feed them first, and punish

him afterwards.’

 

`The rates is quite high enough as it is,’ grumbled Harlow, who had

four children himself.

 

`That’s quite true, but you must remember that the rates the working

classes at present pay are spent mostly for the benefit of other

people. Good roads are maintained for people who ride in motor cars

and carriages; the Park and the Town Band for those who have leisure

to enjoy them; the Police force to protect the property of those who

have something to lose, and so on. But if we pay this rate we shall

get something for our money.’

 

`We gets the benefit of the good roads when we ‘as to push a ‘andcart

with a load o’ paint and ladders,’ said Easton.

 

`Of course,’ said Crass, `and besides, the workin’ class gets the

benefit of all the other things too, because it all makes work.’

 

`Well, for my part,’ said Philpot, `I wouldn’t mind payin’ my share

towards a ‘appeny rate, although I ain’t got no kids o’ me own.’

 

The hostility of most of.the working men to the proposed rate was

almost as bitter as that of the `better’ classes - the noble-minded

philanthropists who were always gushing out their sympathy for the

`dear little ones’, the loathsome hypocrites who pretended that there

was no need to levy a rate because they were willing to give

sufficient money in the form of charity to meet the case: but the

children continued to go hungry all the same.

 

`Loathsome hypocrites’ may seem a hard saying, but it was a matter of

common knowledge that the majority of the children attending the local

elementary schools were insufficiently fed. It was admitted that the

money that could be raised by a halfpenny rate would be more than

sufficient to provide them all with one good meal every day. The

charity-mongers who professed such extravagant sympathy with the `dear

little children’ resisted the levying of the rate `because it would

press so heavily on the poorer ratepayers’, and said that they were

willing to give more in voluntary charity than the rate would amount

to: but, the `dear little children’ - as they were so fond of calling

them - continued to go to school hungry all the same.

 

To judge them by their profession. and their performances, it appeared

that these good kind persons were willing to do any mortal thing for

the `dear little children’ except allow them to be fed.

 

If these people had really meant to do what they pretended, they would

not have cared whether they paid the money to a rate-collector or to

the secretary of a charity society and they would have preferred to

accomplish their object in the most efficient and economical way.

 

But although they would not allow the children to be fed, they went to

church and to chapel, glittering with jewellery, their fat carcases

clothed in rich raiment, and sat with smug smiles upon their faces

listening to the fat parsons reading out of a Book that none of them

seemed able to understand, for this was what they read:

 

`And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of

them, and said: Whosoever shall receive one such little child in My

name, receiveth Me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones,

it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and

that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.

 

`Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones, for I say

unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of My

Father.’

 

And this: `Then shall He say unto them: Depart from me, ye cursed,

into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I

was an hungered and ye gave Me no meat: I was thirsty and ye gave Me

no drink: I was a stranger and ye took Me not in; naked, and ye

clothed Me not.

 

`Then shall they answer: “Lord, when saw we Thee an hungered or

athirst or a stranger or naked, or sick, and did not minister unto

Thee?” and He shall answer them, “Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as

ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to Me.”’

 

These were the sayings that the infidel parsons mouthed in the infidel

temples to the richly dressed infidel congregations, who heard but did

not understand, for their hearts were become gross and their ears dull

of hearing. And meantime, all around them, in the alley and the slum,

and more terrible still - because more secret - in the better sort of

streets where lived die respectable class of skilled artisans, the

little children became thinner and paler day by day for lack of proper

food, and went to bed early because there was no fire.

 

Sir Graball D’Encloseland, the Member of Parliament for the borough,

was one of the bitterest opponents of the halfpenny rate, but as he

thought it was probable that there would soon be another General

Election and he wanted the children’s fathers to vote for him again,

he was willing to do something for them in another way. He had a

ten-year-old daughter whose birthday was in that month, so the kind-hearted Baronet made arrangements to give a Tea to all the school

children in the town in honour of the occasion. The tea was served in

the schoolrooms and each child was presented with a gilt-edged card on

which was a printed portrait of the little hostess, with `From your

loving little friend, Honoria D’Encloseland’, in gold letters. During

the evening the little girl, accompanied by Sir Graball and Lady

D’Encloseland, motored round to all the schools where the tea was

being consumed: the Baronet made a few remarks, and Honoria made a

pretty little speech, specially learnt for the occasion, at each

place, and they were loudly cheered and greatly admired in response.

The enthusiasm was not confined to the boys and girls, for while the

speechmaking was going on inside, a little crowd of grown-up children

were gathered round outside the entrance, worshipping the motor car:

and when the little party came out the crowd worshipped them also,

going into imbecile ecstasies of admiration of their benevolence and

their beautiful clothes.

 

For several weeks everybody in the town was in raptures over this tea -

or, rather, everybody except a miserable little minority of

Socialists, who said it was bribery, an electioneering dodge, that did

no real good, and who continued to clamour for a halfpenny rate.

 

Another specious fraud was the `Distress Committee’. This body - or

corpse, for there was not much vitality in it - was supposed to exist

for the purpose of providing employment for `deserving cases’. One

might be excused for thinking that any man - no matter what his past

may have been - who is willing to work for his living is a `deserving

case’: but this was evidently not the opinion of the persons who

devised the regulations for the working of this committee. Every

applicant for work was immediately given a long job, and presented

with a double sheet of foolscap paper to do it with. Now, if the

object of the committee had been to furnish the applicant with

material for the manufacture of an appropriate headdress for himself,

no one could reasonably have found fault with them: but the foolscap

was not to be utilized in that way; it was called a `Record Paper’,

three pages of it were covered with insulting, inquisitive, irrelevant

questions concerning the private affairs and past life of the `case’

who wished to be permitted to work for his living, and all these had

to be answered to the satisfaction of Messrs D’Encloseland, Bosher,

Sweater, Rushton, Didlum, Grinder and the other members of the

committee, before the case stood any chance of getting employment.

 

However, notwithstanding the offensive nature of the questions on the

application form, during the five months that this precious committee

was in session, no fewer than 1,237 broken-spirited and humble `lion’s

whelps’ filled up the forms and answered the questions as meekly as if

they had been sheep. The funds of the committee consisted of �500,

obtained from the Imperial Exchequer, and about �250 in charitable

donations. This money was used to pay wages for certain work - some

of which would have had to be done even if the committee had never

existed - and if each of the 1,237 applicants had had an equal share

of the work, the wages they would have received would have amounted to

about twelve shillings each. This was what the `practical’ persons,

the `business-men’, called `dealing with the problem of unemployment’.

Imagine having to keep your family for five months with twelve

shillings!

 

And, if you like, imagine that the Government grant had been four

times as much as it was, and that the charity had amounted to four

times as much as it did, and then fancy having to keep your family for

five months with two pounds eight shillings!

 

It is true that some of the members of the committee would have been

very glad if they had been able to put the means of earning a living

within the reach of every man who was willing to work; but they simply

did not know what to do, or how to do it. They were not ignorant of

the reality of the evil they were supposed to be `dealing with’ -

appalling evidences of it faced them on every side, and as, after