Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell (fiction novels to read .txt) ๐
Another answer is that `The Philanthropists' is not a treatise oressay, but a novel. My main object was to write a readable story fullof human interest and based on the happenings of everyday life, thesubject of Socialism being treated incidentally.
This was the task I set myself. To what extent I have succeeded isfor others to say; but whatever their verdict, the work possesses atleast one merit - that of being true. I have invented nothing. Thereare no scenes or incidents in the story that I have not eitherwitnessed myself or had conclusive evidence of. As far as I dared Ilet th
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the flowers to get at the worms.
In the coach presided over by Crass, Bill Bates, the Semidrunk 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 girlโ
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,โ and they cared for
nothing so long as they could get plenty of beer.
The occupants of Nimrodโs 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 Crassโs coach - not yet quite heartbroken, but still
continuing the hopeless struggle against poverty. These differed from
Nimrodโs 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 Semidrunk.
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 Semidrunk; 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.
Crassโs 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
Kingโ, and then with shouts of `Good Nightโ, and cries of `Donโt
forget six oโclock Monday morningโ, 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 oโclock 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.
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.โ 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 `ricketyโ or consumptive through lack of proper
nutrition it is, of course, very regrettable, but after all they are
only working-class children, so it doesnโt 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 `Workโ for the `workingโ
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 wageโ 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!
Rushtonโs had so little work in that nearly all the hands expected
that they would be slaughtered the next Saturday after the `Beanoโ 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!โ 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
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