Books: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

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They were unable to make much sense of the confused story he told them
through his sobs as soon as he was able to speak. All that was clear
was that there was something very serious the matter at home: he
thought his mother must be either dying or dead, because she did not
speak or move or open her eyes, and `please, please, please will you
come home with me and see her?'

While Nora was getting ready to go with the boy, Owen made him sit on
a chair, and having removed the boot from the foot that was bleeding,
washed the cut with some warm water and bandaged it with a piece of
clean rag, and then they tried to persuade him to stay there with
Frankie while Nora went to see his mother, but the boy would not hear
of it. So Frankie went with them instead. Owen could not go because
he had to finish the coffin-plate, which was only just commenced.

It will be remembered that we left Mary Linden alone in the house
after she returned from seeing the old people away. When the children
came home from school, about half an hour afterwards, they found her
sitting in one of the chairs with her head resting on her arms on the
table, unconscious. They were terrified, because they could not
awaken her and began to cry, but presently Charley thought of
Frankie's mother and, telling his sister to stay there while he was
gone, he started off at a run for Owen's house, leaving the front door
wide open after him.

When Nora and the two boys reached the house they found there two
other women neighbours, who had heard Elsie crying and had come to see
what was wrong. Mary had recovered from her faint and was lying down
on the bed. Nora stayed with her for some time after the other women
went away. She lit the fire and gave the children their tea - there
was still some coal and food left of what had been bought with the
three shillings obtained from the Board of Guardians - and afterwards
she tidied the house.

Mary said that she did not know exactly what she would have to do in
the future. If she could get a room somewhere for two or three
shillings a week, her allowance from the Guardians would pay the rent,
and she would be able to earn enough for herself and the children to
live on.

This was the substance of the story that Nora told Owen when she
returned home. He had finished writing the coffin-plate, and as it
was now nearly dry he put on his coat and took it down to the
carpenter's shop at the yard.

On his way back he met Easton, who had been hanging about in the vain
hope of seeing Hunter and finding out if there was any chance of a
job. As they walked along together, Easton confided to Owen that he
had earned scarcely anything since he had been stood off at Rushton's,
and what he had earned had gone, as usual, to pay the rent. Slyme had
left them some time ago. Ruth did not seem able to get on with him;
she had been in a funny sort of temper altogether, but since he had
gone she had had a little work at a boarding-house on the Grand
Parade. But things had been going from bad to worse. They had not
been able to keep up the payments for the furniture they had hired, so
the things had been seized and carted off. They had even stripped the
oilcloth from the floor. Easton remarked he was sorry he had not
tacked the bloody stuff down in such a manner that they would not have
been able to take it up without destroying it. He had been to see
Didlum, who said he didn't want to be hard on them, and that he would
keep the things together for three months, and if Easton had paid up
arrears by that time he could have them back again, but there was, in
Easton's opinion, very little chance of that.

Owen listened with contempt and anger. Here was a man who grumbled at
the present state of things, yet took no trouble to think for himself
and try to alter them, and who at the first chance would vote for the
perpetuation of the System which produced his misery.

`Have you heard that old Jack Linden and his wife went to the
workhouse today,' he said.

`No,' replied Easton, indifferently. `It's only what I expected.'

Owen then suggested it would not be a bad plan for Easton to let his
front room, now that it was empty, to Mrs Linden, who would be sure to
pay her rent, which would help Easton to pay his. Easton
agreed and said he would mention it to Ruth, and a few minutes later
they parted.

The next morning Nora found Ruth talking to Mary Linden about the room
and as the Eastons lived only about five minutes' walk away, they all
three went round there in order that Mary might see the room. The
appearance of the house from outside was unaltered: the white lace
curtains still draped the windows of the front room; and in the centre
of the bay was what appeared to be a small round table covered with a
red cloth, and upon it a geranium in a flowerpot standing in a saucer
with a frill of coloured tissue paper round it. These things and the
curtains, which fell close together, made it impossible for anyone to
see that the room was, otherwise, unfurnished. The `table' consisted
of an empty wooden box - procured from the grocer's - stood on end,
with the lid of the scullery copper placed upside down upon it for a
top and covered with an old piece of red cloth. The purpose of this
was to prevent the neighbours from thinking that they were hard up;
although they knew that nearly all those same neighbours were in more
or less similar straits.

It was not a very large room, considering that it would have to serve
all purposes for herself and the two children, but Mrs Linden knew
that it was not likely that she would be able to get one as good
elsewhere for the same price, so she agreed to take it from the
following Monday at two shillings a week.

As the distance was so short they were able to carry most of the
smaller things to their new home during the next few days, and on the
Monday evening, when it was dark. Owen and Easton brought the
remainder on a truck they borrowed for the purpose from Hunter.

During the last weeks of February the severity of the weather
increased. There was a heavy fall of snow on the 20th followed by a
hard frost which lasted several days.

About ten o'clock one night a policeman found a man lying unconscious
in the middle of a lonely road. At first he thought the man was
drunk, and after dragging him on to the footpath out of the way of
passing vehicles he went for the stretcher. They took the man to the
station and put him into a cell, which was already occupied by a man
who had been caught in the act of stealing a swede turnip from a barn.
When the police surgeon came he pronounced the supposed drunken man to
be dying from bronchitis and want of food; and he further said that
there was nothing to indicate that the man was addicted to drink.
When the inquest was held a few days afterwards, the coroner remarked
that it was the third case of death from destitution that had occurred
in the town within six weeks.

The evidence showed that the man was a plasterer who had walked from
London with the hope of finding work somewhere in the country. He had
no money in his possession when he was found by the policeman; all
that his pockets contained being several pawn-tickets and a letter
from his wife, which was not found until after he died, because it was
in an inner pocket of his waistcoat. A few days before this inquest
was held, the man who had been arrested for stealing the turnip had
been taken before the magistrates. The poor wretch said he did it
because he was starving, but Aldermen Sweater and Grinder, after
telling him that starvation was no excuse for dishonesty, sentenced
him to pay a fine of seven shillings and costs, or go to prison for
seven days with hard labour. As the convict had neither money nor
friends, he had to go to jail, where he was, after all, better off
than most of those who were still outside because they lacked either
the courage or the opportunity to steal something to relieve their
sufferings.

As time went on the long-continued privation began to tell upon Owen
and his family. He had a severe cough: his eyes became deeply sunken
and of remarkable brilliancy, and his thin face was always either
deathly pale or dyed with a crimson flush.

Frankie also began to show the effects of being obliged to go so often
without his porridge and milk; he became very pale and thin and his
long hair came out in handfuls when his mother combed or brushed it.
This was a great trouble to the boy, who, since hearing the story of
Samson read out of the Bible at school, had ceased from asking to have
his hair cut short, lest he should lose his strength in consequence.
He used to test himself by going through a certain exercise he had
himself invented, with a flat iron, and he was always much relieved
when he found that, notwithstanding the loss of the porridge, he was
still able to lift the iron the proper number of times. But after a
while, as he found that it became increasingly difficult to go through
the exercise, he gave it up altogether, secretly resolving to wait
until `Dad' had more work to do, so that he could have the porridge
and milk again. He was sorry to have to discontinue the exercise, but
he said nothing about it to his father or mother because he did not
want to `worry' them ...

Sometimes Nora managed to get a small job of needlework. On one
occasion a woman with a small son brought a parcel of garments
belonging to herself or her husband, an old ulster, several coats, and
so on - things that although they were too old-fashioned or shabby to
wear, yet might look all right if turned and made up for the boy.

Nora undertook to do this, and after working several hours every day
for a week she earned four shillings: and even then the woman thought
it was so dear that she did not bring any more.

Another time Mrs Easton got her some work at a boarding-house where
she herself was employed. The servant was laid up, and they wanted
some help for a few days. The pay was to be two shillings a day, and
dinner. Owen did not want her to go because he feared she was not
strong enough to do the work, but he gave way at last and Nora went.
She had to do the bedrooms, and on the evening of the second day, as a
result of the constant running up and down the stairs carrying heavy
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.

Chapter 35

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 Skull and
Crossbones Boys', which existed for the purpose of perpetuating the
great religious festival of Guy Fawkes. This association also came to
the aid of the unemployed and organized a Grand Fancy Dress Carnival
and Torchlight Procession. When this took place, although there was a
slight sprinkling of individuals dressed in tawdry costumes as
cavaliers of the time of Charles I, and a few more as highwaymen or
footpads, the majority of the processionists were boys in women's
clothes, or wearing sacks with holes cut in them for their heads and
arms, and with their faces smeared with soot. There were also a
number of men carrying frying-pans in which they burnt red and blue
fire. The procession - or rather, mob - was headed by a band, and the
band was headed by two men, arm in arm, one very tall, dressed to
represent Satan, in red tights, with horns on his head, and smoking a
large cigar, and the other attired in the no less picturesque costume
of a bishop of the Established Church.

This crew paraded the town, howling and dancing, carrying flaring
torches, burning the blue and red fire, and some of them singing silly
or obscene songs; whilst the collectors ran about with the boxes
begging for money from people who were in most cases nearly as
poverty-stricken as the unemployed they were asked to assist. The
money thus obtained was afterwards handed over to the Secretary of the
Organized Benevolence Society, Mr Sawney Grinder.

Then there was the Soup Kitchen, which was really an inferior
eating-house in a mean street. The man who ran this was a relative of
the secretary of the OBS. He cadged all the ingredients for the soup
from different tradespeople: bones and scraps of meat from butchers:
pea meal and split peas from provision dealers: vegetables from
greengrocers: stale bread from bakers, and so on. Well-intentioned,
charitable old women with more money than sense sent him donations in
cash, and he sold the soup for a penny a basin - or a penny a quart to
those who brought jugs.

He had a large number of shilling books printed, each containing
thirteen penny tickets. The Organized Benevolence Society bought a
lot of these books and resold them to benevolent persons, or gave them
away to `deserving cases'. It was this connection with the OBS that
gave the Soup Kitchen a semi-official character in the estimation of
the public, and furnished the proprietor with the excuse for cadging
the materials and money donations.

In the case of the Soup Kitchen, as with the unemployed processions,
most of those who benefited were unskilled labourers or derelicts:
with but few exceptions the unemployed artisans - although their need
was just as great as that of the others - avoided the place as if it
were infected with the plague. They were afraid even to pass through
the street where it was situated lest anyone seeing them coming from
that direction should think they had been there. But all the same,
some of them allowed their children to go there by stealth, by night,
to buy some of this charity-tainted food.

Another brilliant scheme, practical and statesmanlike, so different
from the wild projects of demented Socialists, was started by the Rev.
Mr Bosher, a popular preacher, the Vicar of the fashionable Church of
the Whited Sepulchre. He collected some subscriptions from a number
of semi-imbecile old women who attended his church. With some of this
money he bought a quantity of timber and opened what he called a
Labour Yard, where he employed a number of men sawing firewood. Being
a clergyman, and because he said he wanted it for a charitable
purpose, of course he obtained the timber very cheaply - for about
half what anyone else would have had to pay for it.