The O.B.S.
One of the most important agencies for the relief of distress was the
Organized Benevolence Society. This association received money from
many sources. The proceeds of the fancy-dress carnival; the collections
from different churches and chapels which held special services in aid
of the unemployed; the weekly collections made by the employees of
several local firms and business houses; the proceeds of concerts,
bazaars, and entertainments, donations from charitable persons, and the
subscriptions of the members. The society also received large
quantities of cast-off clothing and boots, and tickets of admission to
hospitals, convalescent homes and dispensaries from subscribers to
those institutions, or from people like Rushton & Co., who had
collecting-boxes in their workshops and offices.
Altogether during the last year the Society had received from various
sources about three hundred pounds in hard cash. This money was devoted
to the relief of cases of distress.
The largest item in the expenditure of the Society was the salary of
the General Secretary, Mr Sawney Grinder—a most deserving case—who was
paid one hundred pounds a year.
After the death of the previous secretary there were so many candidates
for the vacant post that the election of the new secretary was a rather
exciting affair. The excitement was all the more intense because it was
restrained. A special meeting of the society was held: the Mayor,
Alderman Sweater, presided, and amongst those present were Councillors
Rushton, Didlum and Grinder, Mrs Starvem, Rev. Mr Bosher, a number of
the rich, semi-imbecile old women who had helped to open the Labour
Yard, and several other “ladies”. Some of these were the district
visitors already alluded to, most of them the wives of wealthy citizens
and retired tradesmen, richly dressed, ignorant, insolent, overbearing
frumps, who—after filling themselves with good things in their own
luxurious homes—went flouncing into the poverty-stricken dwellings of
their poor “sisters” and talked to them of “religion”, lectured them
about sobriety and thrift, and—sometimes—gave them tickets for soup or
orders for shillingsworths of groceries or coal. Some of these overfed
females—the wives of tradesmen, for instance—belonged to the Organized
Benevolence Society, and engaged in this “work” for the purpose of
becoming acquainted with people of superior social position—one of the
members was a colonel, and Sir Graball D’Encloseland—the Member of
Parliament for the borough—also belonged to the Society and
occasionally attended its meetings. Others took up district visiting as
a hobby; they had nothing to do, and being densely ignorant and of
inferior mentality, they had no desire or capacity for any intellectual
pursuit. So they took up this work for the pleasure of playing the
grand lady and the superior person at a very small expense. Other of
these visiting ladies were middle-aged, unmarried women with small
private incomes—some of them well-meaning, compassionate, gentle
creatures who did this work because they sincerely desired to help
others, and they knew of no better way. These did not take much part in
the business of the meetings; they paid their subscriptions and helped
to distribute the cast-off clothing and boots to those who needed them,
and occasionally obtained from the secretary an order for provisions or
coal or bread for some poverty-stricken family; but the poor, toil-worn
women whom they visited welcomed them more for their sisterly sympathy
than for the gifts they brought. Some of the visiting ladies were of
this character—but they were not many. They were as a few fragrant
flowers amidst a dense accumulation of noxious weeds. They were
examples of humility and kindness shining amidst a vile and loathsome
mass of hypocrisy, arrogance, and cant.
When the Chairman had opened the meeting, Mr Rushton moved a vote of
condolence with the relatives of the late secretary whom he eulogized
in the most extraordinary terms.
“The poor of Mugsborough had lost a kind and sympathetic friend”, “One
who had devoted his life to helping the needy”, and so on and so forth.
(As a matter of fact, most of the time of the defunct had been passed
in helping himself, but Rushton said nothing about that.)
Mr Didlum seconded the vote of condolence in similar terms, and it was
carried unanimously. Then the Chairman said that the next business was
to elect a successor to the departed paragon; and immediately no fewer
than nine members rose to propose a suitable person—they each had a
noble-minded friend or relative willing to sacrifice himself for the
good of the poor.
The nine Benevolent stood looking at each other and at the Chairman
with sickly smiles upon their hypocritical faces. It was a dramatic
moment. No one spoke. It was necessary to be careful. It would never do
to have a contest. The Secretary of the OBS was usually regarded as a
sort of philanthropist by the outside public, and it was necessary to
keep this fiction alive.
For one or two minutes an awkward silence reigned. Then, one after
another they all reluctantly resumed their seats with the exception of
Mr Amos Grinder, who said he wished to propose his nephew, Mr Sawney
Grinder, a young man of a most benevolent disposition who was desirous
of immolating himself upon the altar of charity for the benefit of the
poor—or words to that effect.
Mr Didlum seconded, and there being no other nomination—for they all
knew that it would give the game away to have a contest—the Chairman
put Mr Grinder’s proposal to the meeting and declared it carried
unanimously.
Another considerable item in the expenditure of the society was the
rent of the offices—a house in a back street. The landlord of this
place was another very deserving case.
There were numerous other expenses: stationery and stamps, printing,
and so on, and what was left of the money was used for the purpose for
which it had been given—a reasonable amount being kept in hand for
future expenses. All the details were of course duly set forth in the
Report and Balance Sheet at the annual meetings. No copy of this
document was ever handed to the reporters for publication; it was read
to the meeting by the Secretary; the representatives of the Press took
notes, and in the reports of the meeting that subsequently appeared in
the local papers the thing was so mixed up and garbled together that
the few people who read it could not make head or tail of it. The only
thing that was clear was that the society had been doing a great deal
of good to someone or other, and that more money was urgently needed to
carry on the work. It usually appeared something like this:
HELPING THE NEEDY
Mugsborough Organized Benevolence Society
Annual Meeting at the Town Hall
A Splendid record of Miscellaneous and Valuable Work.
The annual meeting of the above Society was held yesterday at the Town
Hall. The Mayor, Alderman Sweater, presided, and amongst those present
were Sir Graball D’Encloseland, Lady D’Encloseland, Lady Slumrent. Rev.
Mr Bosher, Mr Cheeseman, Mrs Bilder, Mrs Grosare, Mrs Daree, Mrs
Butcher, Mrs Taylor, Mrs Baker, Mrs Starvem, Mrs Slodging, Mrs M. B.
Sile, Mrs Knobrane, Mrs M. T. Head, Mr Rushton, Mr Didlum, Mr Grinder
and (here followed about a quarter of a column of names of other
charitable persons, all subscribers to the Society).
The Secretary read the annual report which contained the following
amongst other interesting items:
During the year, 1,972 applications for assistance have been received,
and of this number 1,302 have been assisted as follows: Bread or
grocery orders, 273. Coal or coke orders, 57. Nourishment 579.
(Applause.) Pairs of boots granted, 29. Clothing, 105. Crutch granted
to poor man, 1. Nurses provided, 2. Hospital tickets, 26. Sent to
Consumption Sanatorium, 1. Twenty-nine persons, whose cases being
chronic, were referred to the Poor Law Guardians. Work found for 19
persons. (Cheers.) Pedlar’s licences, 4. Dispensary tickets, 24.
Bedding redeemed, 1. Loans granted to people to enable them to pay
their rent, 8. (Loud cheers.) Dental tickets, 2. Railway fares for men
who were going away from the town to employment elsewhere, 12. (Great
cheering.) Loans granted, 5. Advertisements for employment, 4— and so
on.
There was about another quarter of a column of these details, the
reading of which was punctuated with applause and concluded with:
“Leaving 670 cases which for various reasons the Society was unable to
assist”. The report then went on to explain that the work of inquiring
into the genuineness of the applications entailed a lot of labour on
the part of the Secretary, some cases taking several days. No fewer
than 649 letters had been sent out from the office, and 97 postcards.
(Applause.) Very few cash gifts were granted, as it was most necessary
to guard against the Charity being abused. (Hear, hear.)
Then followed a most remarkable paragraph headed “The Balance Sheet”,
which—as it was put—“included the following”. “The following” was a
jumbled list of items of expenditure, subscriptions, donations,
legacies, and collections, winding up with “the general summary showed
a balance in hand of £178.4.6’. (They always kept a good balance in
hand because of the Secretary’s salary and the rent of the offices.)
After this very explicit financial statement came the most important
part of the report: “Thanks are expressed to Sir Graball D’Encloseland
for a donation of 2 guineas. Mrs Grosare, 1 guinea. Mrs Starvem,
Hospital tickets. Lady Slumrent, letter of admission to Convalescent
Home. Mrs Knobrane, 1 guinea. Mrs M.B. Sile, 1 guinea. Mrs M.T. Head, 1
guinea. Mrs Sledging, gifts of clothing”—and so on for another quarter
of a column, the whole concluding with a vote of thanks to the
Secretary and an urgent appeal to the charitable public for more funds
to enable the Society to continue its noble work.
Meantime, in spite of this and kindred organizations the conditions of
the under-paid poverty stricken and unemployed workers remained the
same. Although the people who got the grocery and coal orders, the
“Nourishment”, and the cast-off clothes and boots, were very glad to
have them, yet these things did far more harm than good. They
humiliated, degraded and pauperized those who received them, and the
existence of the societies prevented the problem being grappled with in
a sane and practical manner. The people lacked the necessaries of life:
the necessaries of life are produced by Work: these people were willing
to work, but were prevented from doing so by the idiotic system of
society which these “charitable” people are determined to do their best
to perpetuate.
If the people who expect to be praised and glorified for being
charitable were never to give another farthing it would be far better
for the industrious poor, because then the community as a whole would
be compelled to deal with the absurd and unnecessary state of affairs
that exists today—millions of people living and dying in wretchedness
and poverty in an age when science and machinery have made it possible
to produce such an abundance of everything that everyone might enjoy
plenty and comfort. It if were not for all this so-called charity the
starving unemployed men all over the country would demand to be allowed
to work and produce the things they are perishing for want of, instead
of being—as they are now—content to wear their masters’ cast-off
clothing and to eat the crumbs that fall from his table.