Books: The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

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`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 all,
these committee men were human beings and not devils, they would have
been glad to mitigate it if they could have done so without hurting
themselves: but the truth was that they did not know what to do!

These are the `practical' men; the monopolists of intelligence, the
wise individuals who control the affairs of the world: it is in
accordance with the ideas of such men as these that the conditions of
human life are regulated.

This is the position:

It is admitted that never before in the history of mankind was it
possible to produce the necessaries of life in such abundance as at
present.

The management of the affairs of the world — the business of arranging
the conditions under which we live - is at present in the hands of
Practical, Level-headed, Sensible Business-men.

The result of their management is, that the majority of the people
find it a hard struggle to live. Large numbers exist in perpetual
poverty: a great many more periodically starve: many actually die of
want: hundreds destroy themselves rather than continue to live and
suffer.

When the Practical, Level-headed, Sensible Business-men are asked why
they do not remedy this state of things, they reply that they do not
know what to do! or, that it is impossible to remedy it!

And yet it is admitted that it is now possible to produce the
necessaries of life, in greater abundance than ever before!

With lavish kindness, the Supreme Being had provided all things
necessary for the existence and happiness of his creatures. To
suggest that it is not so is a blasphemous lie: it is to suggest that
the Supreme Being is not good or even just. On every side there is an
overflowing superfluity of the materials requisite for the production
of all the necessaries of life: from these materials everything we
need may be produced in abundance - by Work. Here was an army of
people lacking the things that may be made by work, standing idle.
Willing to work; clamouring to be allowed to work, and the Practical,
Level-headed, Sensible Business-men did not know what to do!

Of course, the real reason for the difficulty is that the raw
materials that were created for the use and benefit of all have been
stolen by a small number, who refuse to allow them to be used for the
purposes for which they were intended. This numerically insignificant
minority refused to allow the majority to work and produce the things
they need; and what work they do graciously permit to be done is not
done with the object of producing the necessaries of life for those
who work, but for the purpose of creating profit for their masters.

And then, strangest fact of all, the people who find it a hard
struggle to live, or who exist in dreadful poverty and sometimes
starve, instead of trying to understand the causes of their misery and
to find out a remedy themselves, spend all their time applauding the
Practical, Sensible, Level-headed Business-men, who bungle and
mismanage their affairs, and pay them huge salaries for doing so. Sir
Graball D'Encloseland, for instance, was a `Secretary of State' and was
paid £5,000 a year. When he first got the job the wages were only a
beggarly £2,000, but as he found it impossible to exist on less than
£100 a week he decided to raise his salary to that amount; and the
foolish people who find it a hard struggle to live paid it willingly,
and when they saw the beautiful motor car and the lovely clothes and
jewellery he purchased for his wife with the money, and heard the
Great Speech he made - telling them how the shortage of everything was
caused by Over-production and Foreign Competition, they clapped their
hands and went frantic with admiration. Their only regret was that
there were no horses attached to the motor car, because if there had
been, they could have taken them out and harnessed themselves to it
instead.

Nothing delighted the childish minds of these poor people so much as
listening to or reading extracts from the speeches of such men as
these; so in order to amuse them, every now and then, in the midst of
all the wretchedness, some of the great statesmen made `great
speeches' full of cunning phrases intended to hoodwink the fools who
had elected them. The very same week that Sir Graball's salary was
increased to £5,000 a year, all the papers were full of a very fine
one that he made. They appeared with large headlines like this:

GREAT SPEECH BY SIR GRABALL D'ENCLOSELAND

Brilliant Epigram!

None should have more than they need, whilst any have less than
they need!

The hypocrisy of such a saying in the mouth of a man who was drawing a
salary of five thousand pounds a year did not appear to occur to
anyone. On the contrary, the hired scribes of the capitalist Press
wrote columns of fulsome admiration of the miserable claptrap, and the
working men who had elected this man went into raptures over the
`Brilliant Epigram' as if it were good to eat. They cut it out of the
papers and carried it about with them: they showed it to each other:
they read it and repeated it to each other: they wondered at it and
were delighted with it, grinning and gibbering at each other in the
exuberance of their imbecile enthusiasm.

The Distress Committee was not the only body pretending to `deal' with
the poverty `problem': its efforts were supplemented by all the other
agencies already mentioned - the Labour Yard, the Rummage Sales, the
Organized Benevolence Society, and so on, to say nothing of a most
benevolent scheme originated by the management of Sweater's Emporium,
who announced in a letter that was published in the local Press that
they were prepared to employ fifty men for one week to carry sandwich
boards at one shilling - and a loaf of bread - per day.

They got the men; some unskilled labourers, a few old, worn out
artisans whom misery had deprived of the last vestiges of pride or
shame; a number of habitual drunkards and loafers, and a non-descript
lot of poor ragged old men - old soldiers and others of whom it would
be impossible to say what they had once been.

The procession of sandwich men was headed by the Semi-drunk and the
Besotted Wretch, and each board was covered with a printed poster:
`Great Sale of Ladies' Blouses now Proceeding at Adam Sweater's
Emporium.'

Besides this artful scheme of Sweater's for getting a good
advertisement on the cheap, numerous other plans for providing
employment or alleviating the prevailing misery were put forward in
the columns of the local papers and at the various meetings that were
held. Any foolish, idiotic, useless suggestion was certain to receive
respectful attention; any crafty plan devised in his own interest or
for his own profit by one or other of the crew of sweaters and
landlords who controlled the town was sure to be approved of by the
other inhabitants of Mugsborough, the majority of whom were persons of
feeble intellect who not only allowed themselves to be robbed and
exploited by a few cunning scoundrels, but venerated and applauded
them for doing it.

Chapter 38

The Brigands' Cave

One evening in the drawing-room at `The Cave' there was a meeting of a
number of the `Shining Lights' to arrange the details of a Rummage
Sale, that was to be held in aid of the unemployed. It was an
informal affair, and while they were waiting for the other luminaries,
the early arrivals, Messrs Rushton, Didlum and Grinder, Mr Oyley
Sweater, the Borough Surveyor, Mr Wireman, the electrical engineer who
had been engaged as an `expert' to examine and report on the Electric
Light Works, and two or three other gentlemen - all members of the
Band - took advantage of the opportunity to discuss a number of things
they were mutually interested in, which were to be dealt with at the
meeting of the Town Council the next day. First, there was the affair
of the untenanted Kiosk on the Grand Parade. This building belonged
to the Corporation, and `The Cosy Corner Refreshment Coy.' of which Mr
Grinder was the managing director, was thinking of hiring it to open
as a high-class refreshment lounge, provided the Corporation would
make certain alterations and let the place at a reasonable rent.
Another item which was to be discussed at the Council meeting was Mr
Sweater's generous offer to the Corporation respecting the new drain
connecting `The Cave' with the Town Main.

The report of Mr Wireman, the electrical expert, was also to be dealt
with, and afterwards a resolution in favour of the purchase of the
Mugsborough Electric light and Installation Co. Ltd by the town, was
to be proposed.

In addition to these matters, several other items, including a
proposal by Mr Didlum for an important reform in the matter of
conducting the meetings of the Council, formed subjects for animated
conversation between the brigands and their host.

During this discussion other luminaries arrived, including several
ladies and the Rev. Mr Bosher, of the Church of the Whited Sepulchre.

The drawing-room of `The Cave' was now elaborately furnished. A large
mirror in a richly gilt frame reached from the carved marble
mantelpiece to the cornice. A magnificent clock in an alabaster case
stood in the centre of the mantelpiece and was flanked by two
exquisitely painted and gilded vases of Dresden ware. The windows
were draped with costly hangings, the floor was covered with a
luxurious carpet and expensive rugs. Sumptuously upholstered couches
and easy chairs added to the comfort of the apartment, which was
warmed by the immense fire of coal and oak logs that blazed and
crackled in the grate.

The conversation now became general and at times highly philosophical
in character, although Mr Bosher did not take much part, being too
busily engaged gobbling up the biscuits and tea, and only occasionally
spluttering out a reply when a remark or question was directly
addressed to him.

This was Mr Grinder's first visit at the house, and he expressed his
admiration of the manner in which the ceiling and the walls were
decorated, remarking that he had always liked this 'ere Japanese style.

Mr Bosher, with his mouth full of biscuit, mumbled that it was sweetly
pretty - charming - beautifully done - must have cost a lot of money.

`Hardly wot you'd call Japanese, though, is it?' observed Didlum,
looking round with the air of a connoisseur. `I should be inclined to
say it was rather more of the - er - Chinese or Egyptian.'

`Moorish,' explained Mr Sweater with a smile. `I got the idear at the
Paris Exhibition. It's simler to the decorations in the "Halambara",
the palace of the Sultan of Morocco. That clock there is in the same
style.'

The case of the clock referred to - which stood on a table in a corner
of the room - was of fretwork, in the form of an Indian Mosque, with a
pointed dome and pinnacles. This was the case that Mary Linden had
sold to Didlum; the latter had had it stained a dark colour and
polished and further improved it by substituting a clock of more
suitable design than the one it originally held. Mr Sweater had
noticed it in Didlum's window and, seeing that the design was similar
in character to the painted decorations on the ceiling and walls of
his drawing-room, had purchased it.

`I went to the Paris Exhibition meself,' said Grinder, when everyone
had admired the exquisite workmanship of the clock-case. `I remember
'avin' a look at the moon through that big telescope. I was never so
surprised in me life: you can see it quite plain, and it's round!'

`Round?' said Didlum with a puzzled look. `Round? Of course it's
round! You didn't used to think it was square, did yer?'

`No, of course not, but I always used to think it was flat - like a
plate, but it's round like a football.'

`Certainly: the moon is a very simler body to the earth,' explained
Didlum, describing an aerial circle with a wave of his hand. They
moves through the air together, but the earth is always nearest to the
sun and consequently once a fortnight the shadder of the earth falls
on the moon and darkens it so that it's invisible to the naked eye.
The new moon is caused by the moon movin' a little bit out of the
earth's shadder, and it keeps on comin' more and more until we gets
the full moon; and then it goes back again into the shadder; and so it
keeps on.'

For about a minute everyone looked very solemn, and the profound
silence was disturbed only the the crunching of the biscuits between
the jaws of Mr Bosher, and by certain gurglings in the interior of
that gentleman.

`Science is a wonderful thing,' said Mr Sweater at length, wagging his
head gravely, `wonderful!'

`Yes: but a lot of it is mere theory, you know,' observed Rushton.
`Take this idear that the world is round, for instance; I fail to see
it! And then they say as Hawstralia is on the other side of the
globe, underneath our feet. In my opinion it's ridiculous, because if
it was true, wot's to prevent the people droppin' orf?'

`Yes: well, of course it's very strange,' admitted Sweater. `I've
often thought of that myself. If it was true, we ought to be able to
walk on the ceiling of this room, for instance; but of course we know
that's impossible, and I really don't see that the other is any more
reasonable.'

`I've often noticed flies walkin' on the ceilin',' remarked Didlum,
who felt called upon to defend the globular theory.

`Yes; but they're different,' replied Rushton. `Flies is provided by
nature with a gluey substance which oozes out of their feet for the
purpose of enabling them to walk upside down.'

`There's one thing that seems to me to finish that idear once for
all,' said Grinder, `and that is - water always finds its own level.
You can't get away from that; and if the world was round, as they want
us to believe, all the water would run off except just a little at the
top. To my mind, that settles the whole argymint.'

`Another thing that gets over me,' continued Rushton, `is this:
according to science, the earth turns round on its axle at the rate of
twenty miles a minit. Well, what about when a lark goes up in the sky
and stays there about a quarter of an hour? Why, if it was true that
the earth was turnin' round at that rate all the time, when the bird
came down it would find itself 'undreds of miles away from the place
where it went up from! But that doesn't 'appen at all; the bird
always comes down in the same spot.'

`Yes, and the same thing applies to balloons and flyin' machines,'
said Grinder. `If it was true that the world is spinnin' round on its
axle so quick as that, if a man started out from Calais to fly to
Dover, by the time he got to England he'd find 'imself in North
America, or p'r'aps farther off still.'

`And if it was true that the world goes round the sun at the rate they
makes out, when a balloon went up, the earth would run away from it!
They'd never be able to get back again!' remarked Rushton.

This was so obvious that nearly everyone said there was probably
something in it, and Didlum could think of no reply. Mr Bosher upon
being appealed to for his opinion, explained that science was alright
in its way, but unreliable: the things scientists said yesterday they
contradicted today, and what they said today they would probably
repudiate tomorrow. It was necessary to be very cautious before
accepting any of their assertions.

`Talking about science,' said Grinder, as the holy man relapsed into
silence and started on another biscuit and a fresh cup of tea.
`Talking about science reminds me of a conversation I 'ad with Dr
Weakling the other day. You know, he believes we're all descended
from monkeys.'

Everyone laughed; the thing was so absurd: the idea of placing
intellectual beings on a level with animals!

`But just wait till you hear how nicely I flattened 'im out,'
continued Grinder. `After we'd been arguin' a long time about wot 'e
called everlution or some sich name, and a lot more tommy-rot that I
couldn't make no 'ead or tail of - and to tell you the truth I don't
believe 'e understood 'arf of it 'imself - I ses to 'im, "Well," I
ses, "if it's true that we're hall descended from monkeys," I ses, "I
think your famly must 'ave left orf where mine begun."'

In the midst of the laughter that greeted the conclusion of Grinder's
story it was seen that Mr Bosher had become black in the face. He was
waving his arms and writhing about like one in a fit, his goggle eyes
bursting from their sockets, whilst his huge stomach quivering
spasmodically, alternately contracted and expanded as if it were about
to explode.

In the exuberance of his mirth, the unfortunate disciple had swallowed
two biscuits at once. Everybody rushed to his assistance, Grinder and
Didlum seized an arm and a shoulder each and forced his head down.
Rushton punched him in the back and the ladies shrieked with alarm.
They gave him a big drink of tea to help to get the biscuits down, and
when he at last succeeded in swallowing them he sat in the armchair
with his eyes red-rimmed and full of tears, which ran down over his
white, flabby face.

The arrival of the other members of the committee put an end to the
interesting discussion, and they shortly afterwards proceeded with the
business for which the meeting had been called - the arrangements for
the forthcoming Rummage Sale.

Chapter 39

The Brigands at Work

The next day, at the meeting of the Town Council, Mr Wireman's report
concerning the Electric Light Works was read. The expert's opinion
was so favourable - and it was endorsed by the Borough Engineer, Mr
Oyley Sweater - that a resolution was unanimously carried in favour of
acquiring the Works for the town, and a secret committee was appointed
to arrange the preliminaries. Alderman Sweater then suggested that a
suitable honorarium be voted to Mr Wireman for his services. This was
greeted with a murmur of approval from most of the members, and Mr
Didlum rose with the intention of proposing a resolution to that
effect when he was interrupted by Alderman Grinder, who said he
couldn't see no sense in giving the man a thing like that. `Why not
give him a sum of money?'

Several members said `Hear, hear,' to this, but some of the others
laughed.

`I can't see nothing to laugh at,' cried Grinder angrily. `For my
part I wouldn't give you tuppence for all the honorariums in the
country. I move that we pay 'im a sum of money.'

`I'll second that,' said another member of the Band - one of those who
had cried `Hear, Hear.'

Alderman Sweater said that there seemed to be a little
misunderstanding and explained that an honorarium WAS a sum of money.

`Oh, well, in that case I'll withdraw my resolution,' said Grinder.
`I thought you wanted to give 'im a 'luminated address or something
like that.'

Didlum now moved that a letter of thanks and a fee of fifty guineas be
voted to Mr Wireman, and this was also unanimously agreed to. Dr
Weakling said that it seemed rather a lot, but he did not go so far as
to vote against it.

The next business was the proposal that the Corporation should take
over the drain connecting Mr Sweater's house with the town main. Mr
Sweater - being a public-spirited man - proposed to hand this
connecting drain - which ran through a private road - over to the
Corporation to be theirs and their successors for ever, on condition
that they would pay him the cost of construction - £55 - and agreed to
keep it in proper repair. After a brief discussion it was decided to
take over the drain on the terms offered, and then Councillor Didlum
proposed a vote of thanks to Alderman Sweater for his generosity in
the matter: this was promptly seconded by Councillor Rushton and would
have been carried nem. con., but for the disgraceful conduct of Dr
Weakling, who had the bad taste to suggest that the amount was about
double what the drain could possibly have cost to construct, that it
was of no use to the Corporation at all, and that they would merely
acquire the liability to keep it in repair.