‘Just listen to this,’ interrupted Easton, wishing to create a diversion and beginning to read from the copy of the Obscurer which he still held in his hand:
‘GREAT DISTRESS IN MUGSBOROUGH.
HUNDREDS OUT OF EMPLOYMENT.
WORK OF THE CHARITY SOCIETY.
789 CASES ON THE BOOKS.
‘Great as was the distress among the working classes last year, unfortunately there seems every prospect that before the winter which has just commenced is over the distress will be even more acute.
Already the Charity Society and kindred associations are relieving more cases than they did at the corresponding time last year. Applications to the Board of Guardians have also been much more numerous, and the Soup Kitchen has had to open its doors on Nov. 7th a fortnight earlier than usual. The number of men, women and children provided with meals is three or four times greater than last year.’
Easton stopped: reading was hard work to him.
‘There’s a lot more,’ he said, ‘about starting relief works: two shillings a day for married men and one shilling for single and something about there’s been 1,572 quarts of soup given to poor families wot was not even able to pay a penny, and a lot more. And ‘ere’s another thing, an advertisement.
‘THE SUFFERING POOR
Sir: Distress among the poor is so acute that I earnestly ask you for aid for The Salvation Army’s great Social work on their behalf. Some 6000 are being sheltered nightly. Hundreds are found work daily. Soup and bread are distributed in the midnight hours to homeless wanderers in London. Additional workshops for the unemployed have been established. Our Social Work for men, women and children, for the characterless and the outcast, is the largest and oldest organized effort of its kind in the country, and greatly needs help. £10,000 is required before Christmas day. Gifts may be made to any specific section or home, if desired. Can you please send us something to keep the work going? Please address cheques, crossed Bank of England (Law Courts Branch), to me at 101, Queen Victoria Street, EC. Balance Sheets and Reports upon application.
‘BRAMWELL BOOTH.’
‘Oh, that’s part of the great ’appiness an’ prosperity wot Owen makes out Free Trade brings,’ said Crass with a jeering laugh.
‘I never said Free Trade brought happiness or prosperity,’ said Owen.
‘Well, praps you didn’t say exactly them words, but that’s wot it amounts to.’
‘I never said anything of the kind. We’ve had Free Trade for the last fifty years and today most people are living in a condition of more or less abject poverty, and thousands are literally starving. When we had Protection things were worse still. Other countries have Protection and yet many of their people are glad to come here and work for starvation wages. The only difference between Free Trade and Protection is that under certain circumstances one might be a little worse than the other, but as remedies for Poverty, neither of them are of any real use whatever, for the simple reason that they do not deal with the real causes of Poverty.’
‘The greatest cause of poverty is hover-population,’ remarked Harlow.
‘Yes,’ said old Joe Philpot. ‘If a boss wants two men, twenty goes after the job: ther’s too many people and not enough work.’
‘Over-population!’ cried Owen, ‘when there’s thousands of acres of uncultivated land in England without a house or human being to be seen. Is over-population the cause of poverty in France? Is over-population the cause of poverty in Ireland? Within the last fifty years the population of Ireland has been reduced by more than half. Four millions of people have been exterminated by famine or got rid of by emigration, but they haven’t got rid of poverty. P’raps you think that half the people in this country ought to be exterminated as well.’
Here Owen was seized with a violent fit of coughing, and resumed his seat. When the cough had ceased he sat wiping his mouth with his handkerchief and listening to the talk that ensued.
‘Drink is the cause of most of the poverty,’ said Slyme.
This young man had been through some strange process that he called ‘conversion’. He had had a ‘change of ’art’ and looked down with pious pity upon those he called ‘worldly’ people. He was not ‘worldly’, he did not smoke or drink and never went to the theatre. He had an extraordinary notion that total abstinence was one of the fundamental principles of the Christian religion. It never occurred to what he called his mind, that this doctrine is an insult to the Founder of Christianity.
‘Yes,’ said Crass, agreeing with Slyme, ‘an’ thers plenty of ’em wot’s too lazy to work when they can get it. Some of the b—s who go about pleading poverty ’ave never done a fair day’s work in all their bloody lives. Then thers all this new fangled machinery,’ continued Crass. ‘That’s wot’s ruinin’ everything. Even in our trade ther’s them machines for trimmin’ wallpaper, an’ now they’ve brought out a paintin’ machine. Ther’s a pump an’ a ’ose pipe, an’ they reckon two men can do as much with this ’ere machine as twenty could without it.’
‘Another thing is women,’ said Harlow, ‘there’s thousands of ‘em nowadays doin’ work wot oughter be done by men.’
‘In my opinion ther’s too much of this ’ere eddication, nowadays,’ remarked old Linden. ‘Wot the ’ell’s the good of eddication to the likes of us?’
‘None whatever,’ said Crass, ‘it just puts foolish idears into people’s ‘eds and makes ’em too lazy to work.’
Barrington, who took no part in the conversation, still sat silently smoking. Owen was listening to this pitiable farrago with feelings of contempt and wonder. Were they all hopelessly stupid? Had their intelligence never developed beyond the childhood stage? Or was he mad himself?
‘Early marriages is another thing,’ said Slyme: ‘no man oughtn’t to be allowed to get married unless he’s in a position to keep a family.’
‘How can marriage be a cause of poverty?’ said Owen, contemptuously. ‘A man who is not married is living an unnatural life. Why don’t you continue your argument a little further and say that the practice of eating and drinking is the cause of poverty or that if people were to go barefoot and naked there would be no poverty? The man who is so poor that he cannot marry is in a condition of poverty already.’
‘Wot I mean,’ said Slyme, ‘is that no man oughtn’t to marry till he’s saved up enough so as to ‘ave some money in the bank; an’ another thing, I reckon a man oughtn’t to get married till ’e’s got a ’ouse of ’is own. It’s easy enough to buy one in a building society if you’re in reg’lar work.’
At this there was a general laugh.
‘Why, you bloody fool,’ said Harlow, scornfully, ‘most of us is walkin’ about ‘arf our time. It’s all very well for you to talk; you’ve got almost a constant job on this firm. If they’re doin’ anything at all you’re one of the few wot gets a show in. And another thing,’ he added with a sneer, ‘we don’t all go to the same chapel as old Misery.’
‘Old Misery’ was Rushton & Co.’s manager or walking foreman. ‘Misery’ was only one of the nicknames bestowed upon him by the hands: he was also known as ‘Nimrod’ and ‘Pontius Pilate’.
‘And even if it’s not possible,’ Harlow continued, winking at the others, ‘what’s a man to do during the years he’s savin’ up?’
‘Well, he must conquer hisself,’ said Slyme, getting red.
‘Conquer hisself is right!’ said Harlow and the others laughed again.
‘Of course if a man tried to conquer hisself by his own strength,’ replied Slyme, ‘’e would be sure to fail,