Facing the “Problem”
Nearly every other firm in the town was in much the same plight as
Rushton & Co.; none of them had anything to speak of to do, and the
workmen no longer troubled to go to the different shops asking for a
job. They knew it was of no use. Most of them just walked about
aimlessly or stood talking in groups in the streets, principally in the
neighbourhood of the Wage Slave Market near the fountain on the Grand
Parade. They congregated here in such numbers that one or two residents
wrote to the local papers complaining of the “nuisance”, and pointing
out that it was calculated to drive the “better-class” visitors out of
the town. After this two or three extra policemen were put on duty near
the fountain with instructions to “move on” any groups of unemployed
that formed. They could not stop them from coming there, but they
prevented them standing about.
The processions of unemployed continued every day, and the money they
begged from the public was divided equally amongst those who took part.
Sometimes it amounted to one and sixpence each, sometimes it was a
little more and sometimes a little less. These men presented a terrible
spectacle as they slunk through the dreary streets, through the rain or
the snow, with the slush soaking into their broken boots, and, worse
still, with the bitterly cold east wind penetrating their rotten
clothing and freezing their famished bodies.
The majority of the skilled workers still held aloof from these
processions, although their haggard faces bore involuntary testimony to
their sufferings. Although privation reigned supreme in their desolate
homes, where there was often neither food nor light nor fire, they were
too “proud” to parade their misery before each other or the world. They
secretly sold or pawned their clothing and their furniture and lived in
semi-starvation on the proceeds, and on credit, but they would not beg.
Many of them even echoed the sentiments of those who had written to the
papers, and with a strange lack of class-sympathy blamed those who took
part in the processions. They said it was that sort of thing that drove
the “better class” away, injured the town, and caused all the poverty
and unemployment. However, some of them accepted charity in other ways;
district visitors distributed tickets for coal and groceries. Not that
that sort of thing made much difference; there was usually a great deal
of fuss and advice, many quotations of Scripture, and very little
groceries. And even what there was generally went to the
least-deserving people, because the only way to obtain any of this sort
of “charity” is by hypocritically pretending to be religious: and the
greater the hypocrite, the greater the quantity of coal and groceries.
These “charitable” people went into the wretched homes of the poor
and—in effect—said: “Abandon every particle of self-respect: cringe and
fawn: come to church: bow down and grovel to us, and in return we’ll
give you a ticket that you can take to a certain shop and exchange for
a shillingsworth of groceries. And, if you’re very servile and humble
we may give you another one next week.”
They never gave the “case” the money. The ticket system serves three
purposes. It prevents the “case” abusing the “charity” by spending the
money on drink. It advertises the benevolence of the donors: and it
enables the grocer—who is usually a member of the church—to get rid of
any stale or damaged stock he may have on hand.
When these visiting ladies went into a workman’s house and found it
clean and decently furnished, and the children clean and tidy, they
came to the conclusion that those people were not suitable “cases” for
assistance. Perhaps the children had had next to nothing to eat, and
would have been in rags if the mother had not worked like a slave
washing and mending their clothes. But these were not the sort of cases
that the visiting ladies assisted; they only gave to those who were in
a state of absolute squalor and destitution, and then only on condition
that they whined and grovelled.
In addition to this district visitor business, the well-to-do
inhabitants and the local authorities attempted—or rather, pretended—to
grapple with the poverty “problem” in many other ways, and the columns
of the local papers were filled with letters from all sorts of cranks
who suggested various remedies. One individual, whose income was
derived from brewery shares, attributed the prevailing distress to the
drunken and improvident habits of the lower orders. Another suggested
that it was a Divine protest against the growth of Ritualism and what
he called “fleshly religion”, and suggested a day of humiliation and
prayer. A great number of well-fed persons thought this such an
excellent proposition that they proceeded to put it into practice. They
prayed, whilst the unemployed and the little children fasted.
If one had not been oppressed by the tragedy of Want and Misery, one
might have laughed at the farcical, imbecile measures that were taken
to relieve it. Several churches held what they called “Rummage” or
“Jumble” sales. They sent out circulars something like this:
JUMBLE SALE
in aid of the Unemployed.
If you have any articles of any description which are of no further use
to you, we should be grateful for them, and if you will kindly fill in
annexed form and post it to us, we will send and collect them.
On the day of the sale the parish room was transformed into a kind of
Marine Stores, filled with all manner of rubbish, with the parson and
the visiting ladies grinning in the midst. The things were sold for
next to nothing to such as cared to buy them, and the local
rag-and-bone man reaped a fine harvest. The proceeds of these sales
were distributed in “charity” and it was usually a case of much cry and
little wool.
There was a religious organization, called “The Mugsborough Skull and
Crossbones Boys”, which existed for the purpose of perpetuating the
great religious festival of Guy Fawkes. This association also came to
the aid of the unemployed and organized a Grand Fancy Dress Carnival
and Torchlight Procession. When this took place, although there was a
slight sprinkling of individuals dressed in tawdry costumes as
cavaliers of the time of Charles I, and a few more as highwaymen or
footpads, the majority of the processionists were boys in women’s
clothes, or wearing sacks with holes cut in them for their heads and
arms, and with their faces smeared with soot. There were also a number
of men carrying frying-pans in which they burnt red and blue fire. The
procession—or rather, mob—was headed by a band, and the band was headed
by two men, arm in arm, one very tall, dressed to represent Satan, in
red tights, with horns on his head, and smoking a large cigar, and the
other attired in the no less picturesque costume of a bishop of the
Established Church.
This crew paraded the town, howling and dancing, carrying flaring
torches, burning the blue and red fire, and some of them singing silly
or obscene songs; whilst the collectors ran about with the boxes
begging for money from people who were in most cases nearly as
poverty-stricken as the unemployed they were asked to assist. The money
thus obtained was afterwards handed over to the Secretary of the
Organized Benevolence Society, Mr Sawney Grinder.
Then there was the Soup Kitchen, which was really an inferior
eating-house in a mean street. The man who ran this was a relative of
the secretary of the OBS. He cadged all the ingredients for the soup
from different tradespeople: bones and scraps of meat from butchers:
pea meal and split peas from provision dealers: vegetables from
greengrocers: stale bread from bakers, and so on. Well-intentioned,
charitable old women with more money than sense sent him donations in
cash, and he sold the soup for a penny a basin—or a penny a quart to
those who brought jugs.
He had a large number of shilling books printed, each containing
thirteen penny tickets. The Organized Benevolence Society bought a lot
of these books and resold them to benevolent persons, or gave them away
to “deserving cases”. It was this connection with the OBS that gave the
Soup Kitchen a semi-official character in the estimation of the public,
and furnished the proprietor with the excuse for cadging the materials
and money donations.
In the case of the Soup Kitchen, as with the unemployed processions,
most of those who benefited were unskilled labourers or derelicts: with
but few exceptions the unemployed artisans—although their need was just
as great as that of the others—avoided the place as if it were infected
with the plague. They were afraid even to pass through the street where
it was situated lest anyone seeing them coming from that direction
should think they had been there. But all the same, some of them
allowed their children to go there by stealth, by night, to buy some of
this charity-tainted food.
Another brilliant scheme, practical and statesmanlike, so different
from the wild projects of demented Socialists, was started by the Rev.
Mr Bosher, a popular preacher, the Vicar of the fashionable Church of
the Whited Sepulchre. He collected some subscriptions from a number of
semi-imbecile old women who attended his church. With some of this
money he bought a quantity of timber and opened what he called a Labour
Yard, where he employed a number of men sawing firewood. Being a
clergyman, and because he said he wanted it for a charitable purpose,
of course he obtained the timber very cheaply—for about half what
anyone else would have had to pay for it.
The wood-sawing was done piecework. A log of wood about the size of a
railway sleeper had to be sawn into twelve pieces, and each of these
had to be chopped into four. For sawing and chopping one log in this
manner the worker was paid ninepence. One log made two bags of
firewood, which were sold for a shilling each—a trifle under the usual
price. The men who delivered the bags were paid three half-pence for
each two bags.
As there were such a lot of men wanting to do this work, no one was
allowed to do more than three lots in one day—that came to two
shillings and threepence—and no one was allowed to do more than two
days in one week.
The Vicar had a number of bills printed and displayed in shop windows
calling attention to what he was doing, and informing the public that
orders could be sent to the Vicarage by post and would receive prompt
attention and the fuel could be delivered at any address—Messrs Rushton
& Co. having very kindly lent a handcart for the use of the men
employed at the Labour Yard.
As a result of the appearance of this bill, and of the laudatory
notices in the columns of the Ananias, the Obscurer, and the
Chloroform—the papers did not mind giving the business a free
advertisement, because it was a charitable concern—many persons
withdrew their custom from those who usually supplied them with
firewood, and gave their orders to the Yard; and they had the
satisfaction of getting their fuel cheaper than before and of
performing a charitable action at the same time.
As a remedy for unemployment this scheme was on a par with the method
of the tailor in the fable who thought to lengthen his cloth by cutting
a piece off one end and sewing it on to the other; but there was one
thing about it that recommended it to the Vicar—it was self-supporting.
He found that there would be no need to use all the money he had
extracted from the semi-imbecile old ladies for timber, so he bought
himself a Newfoundland dog, an antique set of carved ivory chessmen,
and a dozen bottles of whisky with the remainder of the cash.
The reverend gentleman hit upon yet another means of helping the poor.
He wrote a letter to the Weekly Chloroform appealing for cast-off boots
for poor children. This was considered such a splendid idea that the
editors of all the local papers referred to it in leading articles, and
several other letters were written by prominent citizens extolling the
wisdom and benevolence of the profound Bosher. Most of the boots that
were sent in response to this appeal had been worn until they needed
repair—in a very large proportion of instances, until they were beyond
repair. The poor people to whom they were given could not afford to
have them mended before using them, and the result was that the boots
generally began to fall to pieces after a few days’ wear.
This scheme amounted to very little. It did not increase the number of
cast-off boots, and most of the people who “cast off” their boots
generally gave them to someone or other. The only difference it can
have made was that possibly a few persons who usually threw their boots
away or sold them to second-hand dealers may have been induced to send
them to Mr Bosher instead. But all the same nearly everybody said it
was a splendid idea: its originator was applauded as a public
benefactor, and the pettifogging busybodies who amused themselves with
what they were pleased to term “charitable work” went into imbecile
ecstasies over him.