The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

The children stood by wistfully when Owen put the kitten under his coat and rose to go away.

As Linden prepared to accompany him to the front door, Owen, happening to notice a timepiece standing on a small table in the recess at one side of the fireplace, exclaimed:

‘That’s a very nice clock.’

‘Yes, it’s all right, ain’t it?’ said old Jack, with a touch of pride. ‘Poor Tom made that: not the clock itself, but just the case.’

It was the case that had attracted Owen’s attention. It stood about two feet high and was made of fretwork in the form of an Indian mosque, with a pointed dome and pinnacles. It was a very beautiful thing and must have cost many hours of patient labour.

‘Yes,’ said the old woman, in a trembling, broken voice, and looking at Owen with a pathetic expression. ‘Months and months he worked at it. and no one ever guessed who it were for. And then, when my birthday came round, the very first thing I saw when I woke up in the morning were the clock standing on a chair by the bed with a card:

‘To dear mother, from her loving son, Tom. Wishing her many happy birthdays.’

‘But he never had another birthday himself, because just five months afterwards he were sent out to Africa, and he’d only been there five weeks when he died. Five years ago, come the fifteenth of next month.’

Owen, inwardly regretting that he had unintentionally broached so painful a subject, tried to think of some suitable reply, but had to content himself with murmuring some words of admiration of the work.

As he wished her good night, the old woman, looking at him, could not help observing that he appeared very frail and ill: his face was very thin and pale, and his eyes were unnaturally bright.

Possibly the Lord in His infinite loving kindness and mercy was chastening this unhappy castaway in order that He might bring him to Himself. After all, he was not altogether bad: it was certainly very thoughtful of him to come all this way to let John know about that job. She observed that he had no overcoat, and the storm was still raging fiercely outside, furious gusts of wind frequently striking the house and shaking it to its very foundations.

The natural kindliness of her character asserted itself; her better feelings were aroused, triumphing momentarily over the bigotry of her religious opinions.

‘Why, you ain’t got no overcoat!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ll be soaked goin’ ’ome in this rain.’ Then, turning to her husband, she continued: “There’s that old one of yours; you might lend him that; it would be better than nothing.’

But Owen would not hear of this: he thought, as he became very conscious of the clammy feel of his saturated clothing, that he could not get much wetter than he already was. Linden accompanied him as far as the front door, and Owen once more set out on his way homeward through the storm that howled around like a wild beast hungry for its prey.

6 It is not My Crime

Owen and his family occupied the top floor of a house that had once been a large private dwelling but which had been transformed into a series of flats. It was situated in Lord Street, almost in the centre of the town.

At one time this had been a most aristocratic locality, but most of the former residents had migrated to the newer suburb at the west of the town. Notwithstanding this fact, Lord Street was still a most respectable neighbourhood, the inhabitants generally being of a very superior type: shop-walkers, shop assistants, barber’s clerks, boarding house keepers, a coal merchant, and even two retired jerry-builders.

There were four other flats in the house in which Owen lived. No. 1 (the basement) was occupied by an estate agent’s clerk. No. 2 – on a level with the street – was the habitat of the family of Mr Trafaim, a cadaverous-looking gentleman who wore a top hat, boasted of his French descent, and was a shop-walker at Sweater’s Emporium. No. 3 was tenanted by an insurance agent, and in No. 4 dwelt a tallyman’s traveller.

Lord Street – like most other similar neighbourhoods – supplied a striking answer to those futile theorists who prate of the equality of mankind, for the inhabitants instinctively formed themselves into groups, the more superior types drawing together, separating themselves from the inferior, and rising naturally to the top, while the others gathered themselves into distinct classes, grading downwards, or else isolated themselves altogether; being refused admission to the circles they desired to enter, and in their turn refusing to associate with their inferiors.

The most exclusive set consisted of the families of the coal merchant, the two retired jerry-builders and Mr Trafaim, whose superiority was demonstrated by the fact that, to say nothing of his French extraction, he wore – in addition to the top hat aforesaid – a frock coat and a pair of lavender trousers every day. The coal merchant and the jerry-builders also wore top hats, lavender trousers and frock coats, but only on Sundays and other special occasions. The estate agent’s clerk and the insurance agent, though excluded from the higher circle, belonged to another select coterie from which they excluded in their turn all persons of inferior rank, such as shop assistants or barbers.

The only individual who was received with equal cordiality by all ranks, was the tallyman’s traveller. But whatever differences existed amongst them regarding each other’s social standing they were unanimous on one point at least: they were indignant at Owen’s presumption in coming to live in such a refined locality.

This low fellow, this common workman, with his paint-bespattered clothing, his broken boots, and his generally shabby appearance, was a disgrace to the street; and as for his wife she was not much better, because although whenever she came out she was always neatly dressed, yet most of the neighbours knew perfectly well that she had been wearing the same white straw hat all the time she had been there. In fact, the only tolerable one of the family was the boy, and they were forced to admit that he was always very well dressed; so well indeed as to occasion some surprise, until they found out that all the boy’s clothes were home-made. Then their surprise was changed into a somewhat grudging admiration of the skill displayed, mingled with contempt for the poverty which made its exercise necessary.

The indignation of the neighbours was increased when it became known that Owen and his wife were not Christians: then indeed everyone agreed that the landlord ought to be ashamed of himself for letting the top flat to such people.

But although the hearts of these disciples of the meek and lowly Jewish carpenter were filled with uncharitableness, they were powerless to do much harm. The landlord regarded their opinion with indifference. All he cared about was the money: although he also was a sincere Christian, he would not have hesitated to let the top flat to Satan himself, provided he was certain of receiving the rent regularly.

The only one upon whom the Christians were able to inflict any suffering was the child. At first when he used to go out into the street to play, the other children, acting on their parents’ instructions, refused to associate with him, or taunted him with his parents’ poverty. Occasionally he came home heartbroken and in tears because he had been excluded from some game.

At first, sometimes the mothers of some of the better-class children used to come out with a comical assumption of superiority and dignity and compel their children to leave off playing with Frankie and some other poorly dressed children who used to play in that street. These females were usually overdressed and wore a lot of jewellery. Most of them fancied they were ladies, and if they had only had the sense to keep their mouths shut, other people might possibly have shared the same delusion.

But this was now a rare occurrence, because the parents of the other children found it a matter of considerable difficulty to prevent their youngsters from associating with those of inferior rank, for when left to themselves the children disregarded all such distinctions. Frequently in that street was to be seen the appalling spectacle of the ten-year-old son of the refined and fashionable Trafaim dragging along a cart constructed of a sugar box and an old pair of perambulator wheels with no tyres, in which reposed the plebeian Frankie Owen, armed with a whip, and the dowdy daughter of a barber’s clerk: while the nine-year-old heir of the coal merchant rushed up behind…

[Owen’s wife and little son were waiting for him in the living room.] This room was about twelve feet square and the ceiling – which was low and irregularly shaped, showing in places the formation of the roof – had been decorated by Owen with painted ornaments.

There were three or four chairs, and an oblong table, covered with a clean white tablecloth, set ready for tea. In the recess at the right of the fireplace – an ordinary open grate – were a number of shelves filled with a miscellaneous collection of books, most of which had been bought second-hand.

There were also a number of new books, mostly cheap editions in paper covers.

Over the back of a chair at one side of the fire, was hanging an old suit of Owen’s, and some underclothing, which his wife had placed there to air, knowing that he would be wet through by the time he arrived home…

The woman was half-sitting, half lying, on a couch by the other side of the fire. She was very thin, and her pale face bore the traces of much physical and mental suffering. She was sewing, a task which her reclining position rendered somewhat difficult. Although she was really only twenty-eight years of age, she appeared older.

The boy, who was sitting on the hearthrug playing with some toys, bore a strong resemblance to his mother. He also, appeared very fragile and in his childish face was reproduced much of the delicate prettiness which she had once possessed. His feminine appearance was increased by the fact that his yellow hair hung in long curls on his shoulders. The pride with which his mother regarded this long hair was by no means shared by Frankie himself, for he was always entreating her to cut it off.

Presently the boy stood up and walking gravely over to the window. looked down into the street, scanning the pavement for as far as he could see: he had been doing this at intervals for the last hour.

‘I wonder wherever he’s got to,’ he said, as he returned to the fire.

‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ returned his mother. ‘Perhaps he’s had to work overtime.’

‘You know, I’ve been thinking lately,’ observed Frankie, after a pause, ‘that it’s a great mistake for Dad to go out working at all. I believe that’s the very reason why we’re so poor.’

‘Nearly everyone who works is more or less poor, dear, but if Dad didn’t go out to work we’d be even poorer than we are now. We should have nothing to eat.’

‘But Dad says that the people who do nothing get lots of everything.’

‘Yes, and it’s quite true that most of the people who never do any work get lots of everything, but where do they get it from? And how do they get it?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ replied Frankie, shaking his head in a puzzled fashion.

‘Supposing Dad didn’t go to work, or that he had no work to go to, or that he was ill and not able to do any work, then we’d have no money to buy anything. How should we get on then?’

‘I’m sure I don’t know,’ repeated Frankie, looking round the room in a thoughtful manner. ‘The chairs that’s left aren’t good enough to sell, and we can’t sell the beds, or your sofa, but you might pawn my velvet suit.’

‘But even if all the things were good enough to sell, the money we’d get for them wouldn’t last very long, and what should we do then?’

‘Well, I suppose we’d have to go without, that’s all, the same as we did when Dad was in London.’

‘But how do the people who never do any work manage to get lots of money then?’ added Frankie.

‘Oh, there’s lots of different ways. For instance, you remember when Dad was in London, and we had no food in the house, I had to sell the easy chair.’

Frankie nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I remember you wrote a note and I took it to the shop, and afterwards old Didlum came up here and bought it, and then his cart came and a man took it away.’

‘And do you remember how much he gave us for it?’

‘Five shillings,’ replied Frankie, promptly. He was well acquainted with the details of the transaction, having often heard his father and mother discuss it.

‘And when we saw it in his shop window a little while afterwards, what price was marked on it?’

‘Fifteen shillings.’

‘Well, that’s one way of getting money without working.’

Frankie played with his toys in silence for some minutes. At last he said:

‘What other ways?’

‘Some people who have some money already get more in this way: they find some people who have no money and say to them, “Come and work for us.” Then the people who have the money pay the workers just enough wages to keep them alive whilst they are at work. Then, when the things that the working people have been making are finished, the workers are sent away, and as they still have no money, they are soon starving. In the meantime the people who had the money take all the things that the workers have made and sell them for a great deal more money than they gave to the workers for making them. That’s another way of getting lots of money without doing any useful work.’

‘But is there no way to get rich without doing such things as that?’

‘It’s not possible for anyone to become rich without cheating other people.’

‘What about our schoolmaster then? He doesn’t do any work.’

‘Don’t you think it’s useful and necessary and also very hard work teaching all those boys every day? I don’t think I should like to have to do it.’

‘Yes, I suppose what he does is some use,’ said Frankie thoughtfully. ‘And it must be rather hard too, I should think. I’ve noticed he looks a bit worried sometimes, and sometimes he gets into a fine old wax when the boys don’t pay proper attention.’

The child again went over to the window, and pulling back the edge of the blind looked down the deserted rain washed street.

‘What about the vicar?’ he remarked as he returned.

Although Frankie did not go to church or Sunday School, the day school that he had attended was that attached to the parish church, and the vicar was in the habit of looking in occasionally.

‘Ah, he really is one of those who live without doing any necessary work, and of all the people who do nothing, the vicar is one of the very worst.’

Frankie looked up at his mother with some surprise, not because he entertained any very high opinion of clergymen in general, for, having been an attentive listener to many conversations between his parents, he had of course assimilated their opinions as far as his infant understanding permitted, but because at the school the scholars were taught to regard the gentleman in question with the most profound reverence and respect.

‘Why, Mum?’ he asked.

‘For this reason, dearie. You know that all the beautiful things which the people who do nothing have are made by the people who work, don’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you know that those who work have to eat the very worst food, and wear the very worst clothes, and live in the very worst homes.’

‘Yes,’ said Frankie.

‘And sometimes they have nothing to eat at all, and no clothes to wear except rags, and even no homes to live in.’

‘Yes,’ repeated the child.

‘Well, the vicar goes about telling the Idlers that it’s quite right for them to do nothing, and that God meant them to have nearly everything that is made by those who work. In fact, he tells them that God made the poor for the use of the rich. Then he goes to the workers and tells them that God meant them to work very hard and to give all the good things they make to those who do nothing, and that they should be very thankful to God and to the idlers for being allowed to have even the very worst food to eat and the rags, and broken boots to wear. He also tells them that they mustn’t grumble, or be discontented because they’re poor in this world, but that they must wait till they’re dead, and then God will reward them by letting them go to a place called heaven.’

Frankie laughed.

‘And what about the Idlers?’ he asked.

‘The vicar says that if they believe everything he tells them and give him some of the money they make out of the workers, then God will let them into heaven also.’

‘Well, that’s not fair doos, is it, Mum?’ said Frankie with some indignation.

‘It wouldn’t be if it were true, but then you see it’s not true, it can’t be true.’

‘Why can’t it, Mum?’

‘Oh, for many reasons: to begin with, the vicar doesn’t believe it himself: he only pretends to. For instance, he pretends to believe the Bible, but if we read the Bible we find that Jesus said that God is our father and that all the people in the world are His children, all brothers and sisters. But the vicar says that although Jesus said “brothers and sisters” He really ought to have said “masters and servants”. Again, Jesus said that His disciples should not think of tomorrow, or save up a lot of money for themselves, but they should be unselfish and help those who are in need. Jesus said that His disciples must not think about their own future needs at all, because God will provide for them if they only do as He commands. But the vicar says that is all nonsense.

‘Jesus also said that if anyone tried to do His disciples harm, they must never resist, but forgive those who injured them and pray God to forgive them also. But the vicar says this is all nonsense too. He says that the world would never be able to go on if we did as Jesus taught. The vicar teaches that the way to deal with those that injure us is to have them put into prison, or – if they belong to some other country – to take guns and knives and murder them, and burn their houses. So you see the vicar doesn’t really believe or do any of the things that Jesus said: he only pretends.’

‘But why does he pretend, and go about talking like that, Mum? What does he do it for?’

‘Because he wishes to live without working himself, dear.’

‘And don’t the people know that he’s only pretending?’

‘Some of them do. Most of the idlers know that what the vicar says is not true, but they pretend to believe it, and give him money for saying it, because they want him to go on telling it to the workers so that they will go on working and keep quiet and be afraid to think for themselves.’

‘And what about the workers? Do they believe it?’

‘Most of them do, because when they were little children like you, their mothers taught them to believe, without thinking, whatever the vicar said, and that God made them for the use of the idlers. When they went to school, they were taught the same thing: and now that they’re grown up they really believe it, and they go to work and give nearly everything they make to the idlers, and have next to nothing left for themselves and their children. That’s the reason why the workers’ children have very bad clothes to wear and sometimes no food to eat; and that’s how it is that the idlers and their children have more clothes than they need and more food than they can eat. Some of them have so many clothes that they are not able to wear them and so much food that they are not able to eat it. They just waste it or throw it away.’

‘When I’m grown up into a man,’ said Frankie, with a flushed face, ‘I’m going to be one of the workers, and when we’ve made a lot of things, I shall stand up and tell the others what to do. If any of the idlers come to take our things away, they’ll get something they won’t like.’

In a state of suppressed excitement and scarcely conscious of what he was doing, the boy began gathering up the toys and throwing them violently one by one into the box.

‘I’ll teach ’em to come taking our things away,’ he exclaimed, relapsing momentarily into his street style of speaking.

‘First of all we’ll all stand quietly on one side. Then when the idlers come in and start touching our things, we’ll go up to ’em and say, “‘Ere, watcher doin’ of? Just you put it down, will yer?” And if they don’t put it down at once, it’ll be the worse for ‘em, I can tell you.’

All the toys being collected, Frankie picked up the box and placed it noisily in its accustomed corner of the room.

‘I should think the workers will be jolly glad when they see me coming to tell them what to do, shouldn’t you, Mum?’

‘I don’t know, dear; you see so many people have tried to tell them, but they won’t listen, they don’t want to hear. They think it’s quite right that they should work very hard all their lives, and quite right that most of the things they help to make should be taken away from them by the people who do nothing. The workers think that their children are not as good as the children of the idlers, and they teach their children that as soon as ever they are old enough they must be satisfied to work very hard and to have only very bad food and clothes and homes.’

‘Then I should think the workers ought to be jolly well ashamed of themselves, Mum, don’t you?’

‘Well, in one sense they ought, but you must remember that that’s what they’ve always been taught themselves. First, their mothers and fathers told them so; then, their schoolteachers told them so; and then, when they went to church, the vicar and the Sunday School teacher told them the same thing. So you can’t be surprised that they now really believe that God made them and their children to make things for the use of the people who do nothing.’

‘But you’d think their own sense would tell them! How can it be right for the people who do nothing to have the very best and most of everything that’s made, and the very ones who make everything to have hardly any. Why even I know better than that, and I’m only six and a half years old.’

‘But then you’re different, dearie, you’ve been taught to think about it. and Dad and I have explained it to you, often.’

‘Yes, I know,’ replied Frankie confidently. ‘But even if you’d never taught me, I’m sure I should have tumbled to it all right by myself; I’m not such a juggins as you think I am.’

‘So you might, but you wouldn’t if you’d been brought up in the same way as most of the workers. They’ve been taught that it’s very wicked to use their own judgement, or to think. And their children are being taught so now. Do you remember what you told me the other day, when you came home from school, about the Scripture lesson?’

‘About St Thomas?’

‘Yes. What did the teacher say St Thomas was?’

‘She said he was a bad example; and she said I was worse than him because I asked too many foolish questions. She always gets in a wax if I talk too much.’

‘Well, why did she call St Thomas a bad example?’

‘Because he wouldn’t believe what he was told.’

‘Exactly: well, when you told Dad about it what did he say?’

‘Dad told me that really St Thomas was the only sensible man in the whole crowd of Apostles. That is,’ added Frankie, correcting himself, ‘if there ever was such a man at all.’

‘But did Dad say that there never was such a man?’

‘No; he said he didn’t believe there ever was, but he told me to just listen to what the teacher said about such things, and then to think about it in my own mind, and wait till I’m grown up and then I can use my own judgement.’

‘Well, now, that’s what you were told, but all the other children’s mothers and fathers tell them to believe, without thinking, whatever the teacher says. So it will be no wonder if those children are not able to think for themselves when they’re grown up, will it?’

‘Don’t you think it will be any use, then, for me to tell them what to do to the Idlers?’ asked Frankie, dejectedly.

‘Hark!’ said his mother, holding up her finger.