Tom Beadle. I wish I may die, sir, if she ain't told the truth, the 'ole truth, and nothin' but the truth, so 'elp me Bob!
Blade-o'-Grass gazes at Mr. Merrywhistle eagerly, and with glistening eyes, and seeing that her vindication of Tom has raised him in the estimation of their benefactor, nods at her ragged companion two or three times in satisfaction. Mr. Merrywhistle, in his heart of hearts, forgives Tom for the deception-nay, finds justification for it; and the children are allowed to depart with their spoil.
Mr. Merrywhistle. That's a sad sight, and a sad tale.
Robert Truefit. England's full of such sights and such tales.
Jimmy Virtue pricked up his ears. He knew when his friend Bob was 'coming out,' and he prepared himself to listen by taking out his glass eye and contemplating it with his fierce eye, polishing it up the while.
Mr. Merrywhistle [gently]. Not full of such sights, surely?
Robert Truefit. Yes, full of them, unfortunately. Take London. There are thousands and thousands of such children in such positions as Tom Beadle and Blade-o'-Grass, hanging about the courts and alleys-pushed out of sight, one might almost say. And as London is, so every other large English city is. If they haven't shoals of boys and girls growing up to men and women in one bad way, they have them in another bad way. I know what old Jimmy got me here for to-day-he wanted me to talk; he knows I'm fond of it.
Jimmy Virtue. Bob ought to be in Parleyment. He'd tell 'em somethin'.
Robert Truefit. That's a specimen of old Jimmy's flattery, sir. I don't see what good I could do in Parliament. I've got to work for my living, and that takes up all my time; if I were in Parliament, I should have to get money somehow to support my wife and family, and it isn't in my blood to become a pensioner. Besides, I should be contented enough with what's called 'the ruling powers,' if they'd only turn their attention more to such social questions as this.
Mr. Merrywhistle. Ah, I'm glad of that; I'm glad you're not a republican.
Robert Truefit. Not I, sir-though I don't know what I might become by and by; for there's no denying that things are unequal, and that working men are talking of this inequality more and more every year. You'd be surprised to know what they think about this and that. And although I don't go so far as some of them do, I can't help agreeing with them in many things.
Mr. Merrywhistle. But what do they want? Equality? Such a thing is impossible.
Robert Truefit. I know it is. You'd have to do away with brains before you got that; though there are a many who believe that it is to be arrived at. Some of them are fools, and some of them are rogues; but some of them have really worked themselves up into absolute belief.
Mr. Merrywhistle. Discontented people are to be found everywhere, and under any form of government.
Robert Truefit. Ay, that's the way a great many sum up; when they say that, they think they have found out the cause, and that the matter is settled. 'Tisn't the sensible way to view it.
Mr. Merrywhistle. What is the reason, then, of this spread of feeling among working-men?
Robert Truefit. That's a large question, and would take too long to answer. But I think the penny newspaper is partly accountable for it. They can afford to buy the penny and halfpenny newspaper, and they read them, and talk more among themselves. You see, things press upon them. They are arriving at a sort of belief that the laws are made more for the protection and benefit of property than for the protection and benefit of flesh and blood; and as their value in the market doesn't lie in land and money, but in bone and muscle, the idea isn't pleasant to them.
Mr. Merrywhistle. But surely they are not right in this idea?
Robert Truefit. Are they not? Read the newspapers, and you'll find they are. Why, a man may do anything to flesh and blood, short of murder, and the law won't be very hard on him. But let him touch property, ever so little, and down it comes on him like a sledge-hammer. I'll tell you what I read in the police reports this morning. A man is had up at the police-court for beating his wife. The woman is put into the box, with marks on her face and with her head bandaged; the man doesn't deny that he beat her, and half-a-dozen witnesses prove that he beat her cruelly; the floor of the room in which they lived was covered with blood-stains. There is no excuse for him; no aggravation on her part is set up; a doctor states, that if one of the blows she received had been a little more on the left of her head, she would have been killed; and the man gets three months' hard labour. Afterwards, a man is brought up for stealing three-and-sixpence. He is miserably dressed, and there is want in his face. The evidence in this case is quite as clear as in the other. The prisoner snatched a purse, containing three-and-sixpence, out of a man's hand, and ran away. Being searched, not a farthing is found upon him, nor anything of the value of a farthing. The man does not deny the theft, and says he wanted a meal; the police know nothing of him; and he gets three months' hard labour. Compare these equal sentences with the unequal offences, and you will see the relative value of property and human flesh in the criminal market.
Jimmy Virtue. Bob puts it plainly, doesn't he?
Mr. Merrywhistle. But these cases must be rare.
Robert Truefit. They are very common; and these two cases that I have put side by side, are two of the mildest. Listen to this-another wife-beating case: Husband comes home at noon. What kind of man he is may be guessed from his first words to his wife: 'I've something to tell thee, you-! I'm going to murder thee, you-!' He takes off his jacket, calls his bulldog, and sets it at his wife. As the dog flies at the woman, her husband hits her in the face; the dog drags her from the sofa, with its teeth in her flesh (it is almost too horrible to tell, but it is true, every word of it), and the husband jumps upon her, and kicks her on the head and shoulders. Imploring him to have mercy upon her, crying for help, the woman is dragged by the dog from room to room, tearing flesh out of her. The frightful struggle continues for some time, until the woman manages to make her escape from the house. It is dreadful to read the doctor's description of the state of the woman, and how he feared, for three or four days, that mortification would set in. The man is sentenced to-what do you think? Six months' hard labour. About the same time, a very young man is found guilty of stealing twenty shillings' worth of metal, and he gets seven years' penal servitude. But I could multiply these instances. You may say, that such cases as these have nothing to do with the broad question of misgovernment; but I maintain that they have. You get your criminal material from such places as Stoney-alley, where poor Blade-o'-Grass lives; and yet Stoney-alley is as bad now-ay, and worse than it was fifty years ago. The law knows of its existence, has its wakeful eye upon it; but what has the law done for its good, or for the good of those who live there? Take the case of Blade-o'-Grass. What does the law do for her? – and by the law you must understand that I mean the governing machinery for keeping society in order and for dispensing justice to all-out of our police-courts as well as in them. Think of the story she told, and the way in which she told it. There is capacity for good, in that child-ay, and in Tom Beadle, too. Can you doubt that, but for your charity, she might have died of hunger?
Mr. Merrywhistle [eagerly]. Then you don't disapprove of indiscriminate charity?
Robert Truefit. Not I; I don't disapprove of a man putting his hand into his pocket and exercising a benevolent impulse. Your lip-philanthropists, who preach against indiscriminate charity-what would they do for Blade-o'-Grass? What would they do! What do they do? 'Work,' they say. But they don't? give her work; don't even teach her how to work, if such a miracle happened to fall in her way. And all the while the policeman says, 'Move on.' I know something, through Jimmy here, of Blade-o'-Grass-a hapless waif, an encumbrance, a blot, serving as a theme for countless meetings and oceans of words. What business has she in the world? But she came, unfortunately for herself, and she is so legislated for, that to live is her greatest affliction.
Jimmy Virtue. It's my opinion that a good many of the fellers who preach agin indiscriminate charity only do so as an excuse for buttonin' up their pockets.
Robert Truefit [laughing]. And their hearts as well, Jimmy. You put me in mind