The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

by Robert Tressell

  They were for the most part tame, broken-spirited, poor wretches who contentedly resigned themselves to a life of miserable toil and poverty, and with callous indifference abandoned their offspring to the same fate. Compared with such as these, the savages of New Guinea or the Red Indians are immensely higher in the scale of manhood. They are free! They call no man master; and if they do not enjoy the benefits of science and civilization, neither do they toil to create those things for the benefit of others. And as for their children – most of those savages would rather knock them on the head with a tomahawk than allow them to grow up to be half-starved drudges for other men.

  But these were not free: their servile lives were spent in grovelling and cringing and toiling and running about like little dogs at the behest of their numerous masters. And as for the benefits of science and civilization, their only share was to work and help to make them, and then to watch other men enjoy them. And all the time they were tame and quiet and content and said, ‘The likes of us can’t expect to ’ave nothing better, and as for our children, wot’s been good enough for us is good enough for the likes of them.’

  But although they were so religious and respectable and so contented to be robbed on a large scale, yet in small matters, in the commonplace and petty affairs of their everyday existence, most of these men were acutely alive to what their enfeebled minds conceived to be their own selfish interests, and they possessed a large share of that singular cunning which characterizes this form of dementia.

  That was why they had chosen to ride in Nimrod’s brake – because they wished to chum up with him as much as possible, in order to increase their chances of being kept on in preference to others who were not so respectable.

  Some of these poor creatures had very large heads, but a close examination would have shown that the size was due to the extraordinary thickness of the bones. The cavity of the skull was not so large as the outward appearance of the head would have led a casual observer to suppose, and even in those instances where the brain was of a fair size, it was of inferior quality, being coarse in texture and to a great extent composed of fat.

  Although most of them were regular attendants at some place of so-called worship, they were not all teetotallers, and some of them were now in different stages of intoxication, not because they had had a great deal to drink, but because – being usually abstemious – it did not take very much to make them drunk.

  From time to time this miserable crew tried to enliven the journey by singing, but as most of them only knew odd choruses it did not come to much. As for the few who did happen to know all the words of a song, they either had no voices or were not inclined to sing. The most successful contribution was that of the religious maniac, who sang several hymns, the choruses being joined in by everybody, both drunk and sober.

  The strains of these hymns, wafted back through the balmy air to the last coach, were the cause of much hilarity to its occupants who also sang the choruses. As they had all been brought up under ‘Christian’ influences and educated in ‘Christian’ schools, they all knew the words: ‘Work, for the night is coming’, ‘Turn poor Sinner and escape Eternal Fire’, ‘Pull for the Shore’ and ‘Where is my Wandering Boy?’

  The last reminded Harlow of a song he knew nearly all the words of, ‘Take the news to Mother’, the singing of which was much appreciated by all present and when it was finished they sang it all over again, Philpot being so affected that he actually shed tears: and Easton confided to Owen that there was no getting away from the fact that a boy’s best friend is his mother.

  In this last carriage, as in the other two, there were several men who were more or less intoxicated and for the same reason – because not being used to taking much liquor, the few extra glasses they had drunk had got into their heads. They were as sober a lot of fellows as need be at ordinary times, and they had flocked together in this brake because they were all of about the same character – not tame, contented imbeciles like most of those in Misery’s carriage, but men something like Harlow, who, although dissatisfied with their condition, doggedly continued the hopeless, weary struggle against their fate.

  They were not teetotallers and they never went to either church or chapel, but they spent little in drink or on any form of enjoyment – an occasional glass of beer or a still rarer visit to a music-hall and now and then an outing more or less similar to this being the sum total of their pleasures.

  These four brakes might fitly be regarded as so many travelling lunatic asylums, the inmates of each exhibiting different degrees and forms of mental disorder.

  The occupants of the first – Rushton, Didlum and Co. – might be classed as criminal lunatics who injured others as well as themselves. In a properly constituted system of society such men as these would be regarded as a danger to the community, and would be placed under such restraint as would effectually prevent them from harming themselves or others. These wretches had abandoned every thought and thing that tends to the elevation of humanity. They had given up everything that makes life good and beautiful, in order to carry on a mad struggle to acquire money which they would never be sufficiently cultured to properly enjoy. Deaf and blind to every other consideration, to this end they had degraded their intellects by concentrating them upon the minutest details of expense and profit, and for their reward they raked in their harvest of muck and lucre along with the hatred and curses of those they injured in the process. They knew that the money they accumulated was foul with the sweat of their brother men, and wet with the tears of little children, but they were deaf and blind and callous to the consequences of their greed. Devoid of every ennobling thought or aspiration, they grovelled on the filthy ground, tearing up the flowers to get at the worms.

  In the coach presided over by Crass, Bill Bates, the Semi-drunk and the other two or three habitual boozers were all men who had been driven mad by their environment. At one time most of them had been fellows like Harlow, working early and late whenever they got the chance, only to see their earnings swallowed up in a few minutes every Saturday by the landlord and all the other host of harpies and profitmongers, who were waiting to demand it as soon as it was earned. In the years that were gone, most of these men used to take all their money home religiously every Saturday and give it to the ‘old girl’ for the house, and then, lo and behold, in a moment, yea, even in the twinkling of an eye, it was all gone! Melted away like snow in the sun! and nothing to show for it except an insufficiency of the bare necessaries of life! But after a time they had become heartbroken and sick and tired of that sort of thing. They hankered after a little pleasure, a little excitement, a little fun, and they found that it was possible to buy something like those in quart pots at the pub. They knew they were not the genuine articles, but they were better than nothing at all, and so they gave up the practice of giving all their money to the old girl to give to the landlord and the other harpies, and bought beer with some of it instead; and after a time their minds became so disordered from drinking so much of this beer, that they cared nothing whether the rent was paid or not. They cared but little whether the old girl and the children had food or clothes. They said, ‘To hell with everything and everyone,’ and they cared for nothing so long as they could get plenty of beer.

  The occupants of Nimrod’s coach have already been described and most of them may correctly be classed as being similar to cretin idiots of the third degree – very cunning and selfish, and able to read and write, but with very little understanding of what they read except on the most common topics.

  As for those who rode with Harlow in the last coach, most of them, as has been already intimated, were men of similar character to himself. The greater number of them fairly good workmen and – unlike the boozers in Crass’s coach – not yet quite heartbroken, but still continuing the hopeless struggle against poverty. These differed from Nimrod’s lot inasmuch as they were not content. They were always complaining of their wretched circumstances, and found a certain kind of pleasure in
listening to the tirades of the Socialists against the existing social conditions, and professing their concurrence with many of the sentiments expressed, and a desire to bring about a better state of affairs.

  Most of them appeared to be quite sane, being able to converse intelligently on any ordinary subject without discovering any symptoms of mental disorder, and it was not until the topic of Parliamentary elections was mentioned that evidence of their insanity was forthcoming. It then almost invariably appeared that they were subject to the most extraordinary hallucinations and extravagant delusions, the commonest being that the best thing that the working people could do to bring about an improvement in their condition, was to continue to elect their Liberal and Tory employers to make laws for and to rule over them! At such times, if anyone ventured to point out to them that that was what they had been doing all their lives, and referred them to the manifold evidences that met them wherever they turned their eyes of its folly and futility, they were generally immediately seized with a paroxysm of the most furious mania, and were with difficulty prevented from savagely assaulting those who differed from them

  They were usually found in a similar condition of maniacal excitement for some time preceding and during a Parliamentary election, but afterwards they usually manifested that modification of insanity which is called melancholia. In fact they alternated between these two forms of the disease. During elections, the highest state of exalted mania; and at ordinary times – presumably as a result of reading about the proceedings in Parliament of the persons whom they had elected – in a state of melancholic depression, in their case an instance of hope deferred making the heart sick.

  This condition occasionally proved to be the stage of transition into yet another modification of the disease – that known as dipsomania, the phase exhibited by Bill Bates and the Semi-drunk.

  Yet another form of insanity was that shown by the Socialists. Like most of their fellow passengers in the last coach, the majority of these individuals appeared to be of perfectly sound mind. Upon entering into conversation with them one found that they reasoned correctly and even brilliantly. They had divided their favourite subject into three parts. First; an exact definition of the condition known as Poverty. Secondly; a knowledge of the causes of Poverty; and thirdly, a rational plan for the cure of Poverty. Those who were opposed to them always failed to refute their arguments, and feared, and nearly always refused, to meet them in fair fight – in open debate – preferring to use the cowardly and despicable weapons of slander and misrepresentation. The fact that these Socialists never encountered their opponents except to defeat them, was a powerful testimony to the accuracy of their reasonings and the correctness of their conclusions – and yet they were undoubtedly mad. One might converse with them for an indefinite time on the three divisions of their subject without eliciting any proofs of insanity, but directly one inquired what means they proposed to employ in order to bring about the adoption of their plan, they replied that they hoped to do so by reasoning with the others!

  Although they had sense enough to understand the real causes of poverty, and the only cure for poverty, they were nevertheless so foolish that they entertained the delusion that it is possible to reason with demented persons, whereas every sane person knows that to reason with a maniac is not only fruitless, but rather tends to fix more deeply the erroneous impressions of his disordered mind.

  The wagonette containing Rushton and his friends continued to fly over the road, pursued by the one in which rode Crass, Bill Bates, and the Semi-drunk; but notwithstanding all the efforts of the drunken driver, they were unable to overtake or pass the smaller vehicle, and when they reached the foot of the hill that led up to Windley the distance between the two carriages rapidly increased, and the race was reluctantly abandoned.

  When they reached the top of the hill Rushton and his friends did not wait for the others, but drove off towards Mugsborough as fast as they could.

  Crass’s brake was the next to arrive at the summit, and they halted there to wait for the other two conveyances and when they came up all those who lived nearby got out, and some of them sang ‘God Save the King’, and then with shouts of ‘Good Night’, and cries of ‘Don’t forget six o’clock Monday morning’, they dispersed to their homes and the carriages moved off once more.

  At intervals as they passed through Windley brief stoppages were made in order to enable others to get out, and by the time they reached the top of the long incline that led down into Mugsborough it was nearly twelve o’clock and the brakes were almost empty, the only passengers being Owen and four or five others who lived down town. By ones and twos these also departed, disappearing into the obscurity of the night, until there was none left, and the Beano was an event of the past.

  45

  The Great Oration

  The outlook for the approaching winter was – as usual – gloomy in the extreme. One of the leading daily newspapers published an article prophesying a period of severe industrial depression. ‘As the warehouses were glutted with the things produced by the working classes, there was no need for them to do any more work – at present; and so they would now have to go and starve until such time as their masters had sold or consumed the things already produced.’ Of course, the writer of the article did not put it exactly like that, but that was what it amounted to. This article was quoted by nearly all the other papers, both Liberal and Conservative. The Tory papers – ignoring the fact that all the Protectionist countries were in exactly the same condition, published yards of misleading articles about Tariff Reform. The Liberal papers said Tariff Reform was no remedy. Look at America and Germany – worse than here! Still, the situation was undoubtedly very serious – continued the Liberal papers – and Something would have to be done. They did not say exactly what, because, of course, they did not know; but Something would have to be done – tomorrow. They talked vaguely about Re-afforestation, and Reclaiming of Foreshores, and Sea walls: but of course there was the question of Cost! that was a difficulty. But all the same Something would have to be done. Some Experiments must be tried! Great caution was necessary in dealing with such difficult problems! We must go slow, and if in the meantime a few thousand children die of starvation, or become ‘rickety’ or consumptive through lack of proper nutrition it is, of course, very regrettable, but after all they are only working-class children, so it doesn’t matter a great deal.

  Most of the writers of these Liberal and Tory papers seemed to think that all that was necessary was to find ‘Work’ for the ‘working’ class! That was their conception of a civilized nation in the twentieth century! For the majority of the people to work like brutes in order to obtain a ‘living wage’ for themselves and to create luxuries for a small minority of persons who are too lazy to work at all! And although this was all they thought was necessary, they did not know what to do in order to bring even that much to pass! Winter was returning, bringing in its train the usual crop of horrors, and the Liberal and Tory monopolists of wisdom did not know what to do!

  Rushton’s had so little work in that nearly all the hands expected that they would be slaughtered the next Saturday after the ‘Beano’ and there was one man – Jim Smith he was called – who was not allowed to live even till then: he got the sack before breakfast on the Monday morning after the Beano.

  This man was about forty-five years old, but very short for his age, being only a little over five feet in height. The other men used to say that Little Jim was not made right, for while his body was big enough for a six-footer, his legs were very short, and the fact that he was rather inclined to be fat added to the oddity of his appearance.

  On the Monday morning after the Beano he was painting an upper room in a house where several other men were working, and it was customary for the coddy to shout ‘Yo! Ho!’ at mealtimes, to let the hands know when it was time to leave off work. At about ten minutes to eight, Jim had squared the part of the work he had been doing – the window – so he decided not to start on
the door or the skirting until after breakfast. Whilst he was waiting for the foreman to shout ‘Yo! Ho!’ his mind reverted to the Beano, and he began to hum the tunes of some of the songs that had been sung. He hummed the tune of ‘He’s a jolly good fellow’, and he could not get the tune out of his mind: it kept buzzing in his head. He wondered what time it was? It could not be very far off eight now, to judge by the amount of work he had done since six o’clock. He had rubbed down and stopped all the woodwork and painted the window. A jolly good two hours’ work! He was only getting sixpence-halfpenny an hour and if he hadn’t earned a bob he hadn’t earned nothing! Anyhow, whether he had done enough for ’em or not he wasn’t goin’ to do no more before breakfast.

  The tune of ‘He’s a jolly good fellow’ was still buzzing in his head; he thrust his hands deep down in his trouser pockets, and began to polka round the room, humming softly:

  ‘I won’t do no more before breakfast!

  I won’t do no more before breakfast!

  I won’t do no more before breakfast!

  So ’ip ’ip ’ip ’ooray!

  So ’ip ’ip ’ip ’ooray So ’ip ’ip ’ooray!

  I won’t do no more before breakfast – etc.’

  ‘No! and you won’t do but very little after breakfast, here!’ shouted Hunter, suddenly entering the room.

  ‘I’ve bin watchin’ of you through the crack of the door for the last ’arf hour; and you’ve not done a dam’ stroke all the time. You make out yer time sheet, and go to the office at nine o’clock and git yer money; we can’t afford to pay you for playing the fool.’