A CITY'S DESOLATION.
Henry Arkell had been in the college school rather more than a year, and
also in the choir--for he entered the two almost simultaneously, his
fine voice obtaining him the place before any other candidate--when the
rank and fashion of Westerbury found itself in a state of internal,
pleasurable commotion, touching an amateur concert about to be given for
the benefit of the distressed Poles.
Mrs. Lewis, the daughter of the late Squire Carr, Mrs. Aultane, and a
few more of the lesser satellites residing near the cathedral clergy,
suddenly found themselves, from some cause never clearly explained to
Westerbury, aroused into a state of sympathy and compassion for that
ill-starred country, Poland, and its ill-used inhabitants. Casting about
in their minds what they could do to help those _miserables_--the French
word slipped out at my pen's end--they alighted on the idea of an
amateur morning concert, and forthwith set about organizing one.
Painting in glowing colours the sufferings and hardships of this distant
people, they contrived to gain the ear of the good-natured dean, and of
Mrs. St. John of the Palmery, and the rest was easy. Canons and minor
canons followed suit; all the gentry of the place took the concert under
their especial patronage; and everybody with the slightest pretension to
musical skill, intimated that they were ready to assist in the
performances, if called upon. In fact, the miniature scheme grew into a
gigantic undertaking; and no expense, trouble, or time was spared in the
getting up of this amateur concert. Ladies of local rank and fashion
were to sing at it; the mayor accorded the use of the guildhall; and
Westerbury had not been in so delightful a state of excited anticipation
for years and years.
But it is impossible to please everybody--as I dare say you have found
out for yourselves at odd moments, in going through life. So it proved
with this concert; and though it was productive of so much satisfaction
to some, it gave great dissatisfaction to others. This arose from a
cause which has been a bone of contention even down to our own days: the
overlooking near distress, to assist that very far off. There are
ill-conditioned spirits amidst us who protest that the dear little
interesting black Ashantees should not be presented with nice fine warm
stockings, while our own common-place young Arabs have to go without
shoes. While the destitution in Westerbury was palpably great, crying
aloud to Heaven in its extent and helplessness, it seemed to some
inhabitants of the city--influential ones, too--that the movement for
the relief of the far-off Poles was strangely out of place; that the
amateur concert, if got up at all, ought to have been held for the
relief of the countrymen at home. This opinion gained ground, even
amidst the supporters of the concert. The dean himself was heard to say,
that had he given the matter proper consideration, he should have
advised postponement of this concert for the foreigners to a less
inopportune moment.
You, my readers, may know nothing of the results following the opening
of the British ports for the introduction of French goods, as they fell
on certain local places. When the bill was brought into the House of
Commons by Mr. Huskisson, these results--ruin and irrecoverable
distress--were foreseen by some of the members, and urged as an argument
against its passing. Its defenders did not deny the probable fact; but
said that in all great political changes the FEW must be content to
suffer for the good of the MANY. An unanswerable argument; all the more
plain that those who had to discuss it were not of the few. That the few
did suffer, and suffered to an extremity, none will believe who did not
witness it, is a matter of appalling history. Ask Coventry what that
bill did for it. Ask Worcester. Ask Yeovil. Ask other places that might
be named. These towns lived by their staple trade; their respective
manufactures; and when a cheaper, perhaps better article was introduced
from France, so as to supersede, or nearly so, their own, there was
nothing to stand between themselves and ruin.
Ah! my aged friends! if you were living in those days, you may have
taken part in the congratulations that attended the opening of the
British ports to French goods. The popular belief was, that the passing
of the measure was as a boon falling upon England; but you had been awed
into silence had you witnessed, but for a single day, the misery and
confusion it entailed on these local isolated places. Take Westerbury:
half the manufacturers went to total ruin, their downfall commencing
with that year, and going on with the following years, until it was
completed. It was but a question of the extent of private means. Those
who had none to fly to, sunk at once in a species of general wreck;
their stock of goods was sold for what it would fetch; their
manufactories and homes were given up; their furniture was seized; and
with beggary staring them in the face, they went adrift upon the cold
world. Some essayed other means of making their living; essayed it as
they best could without money and without hope, and struggled on from
year to year, getting only the bread that nourished them. Others, more
entirely overwhelmed with the blow, made a few poor efforts to recover
themselves, in vain, in vain; and their ending was the workhouse.
Honourable citizens once, good men, as respectable and respected as you
are, who had been reared and lived in comfort, bringing up their
families as well-to-do manufacturers ought; these were reduced to utter
destitution. Some drifted away, seeking only a spot where they might
die, out of sight of men; others found an asylum in their old age in the
paupers' workhouse! You do not believe me? you do not think it could
have been quite so bad as this? As surely as that this hand is penning
the words, I tell you but the truth. For no fault of theirs did they
sink to ruin; by no prudence could they have averted it.
The manufacturers who had private property--that is, property and money
apart from the capital employed in their business--were in a different
position, and could either retire from business, and make the best of
what they had left, or keep on manufacturing in the hope that they
should retrieve their losses, and that times would mend. For a very,
very long time--for years and years--a great many cherished the
delusive hope that the ports would be reclosed, and English goods again
fill the markets. They kept on manufacturing; content, perforce, with
the small profit they made, and drawing upon their private funds for
what more they required for their yearly expenditure. How they could
have gone on for so many years, hoping in this manner, is a marvel to
them now. But the fact was so. There were but very few who did this, or
who, indeed, had money to do it; but amidst them must be numbered Mr.
Arkell.
But, if the masters suffered, what can you expect was the fate of the
workmen? Hundreds upon hundreds were thrown out of employment, and those
who were still retained in the few manufactories kept open, earned
barely sufficient to support existence; for the wages were, of
necessity, sadly reduced, and they were placed on short work besides.
What was to become of this large body of men? What did become of them?
God only knew. Some died of misery, of prolonged starvation, of broken
hearts. _Their_ end was pretty accurately ascertained; but those who
left their native town to be wanderers on the face of the land, seeking
for employment to which they were unaccustomed, and perhaps finding
none--who can tell what was their fate? The poor rates increased
alarmingly, little able as were the impoverished population to bear an
increase; the workhouses were filled, and lamentations were heard in the
streets. Poor men! They only asked for work, work; and of work there was
none. Small bodies of famished wretches, deputations from the main body,
perambulated the town daily, calling in timidly at the manufactories
still open, and praying for a little work. How useless! when those
manufactories had been obliged to turn off many of their own hands.
It will not be wondered at, then, if, in the midst of this bitter
distress, the grand scheme for the relief of the Poles, which was
turning the town mad with excitement, did not find universal favour. The
workmen, in particular, persisted in cherishing all sorts of obstinate
notions about it. Why should them there foreign Poles be thought of and
relieved, while _they_ were starving? Would the Polish clergy and the
grand folks, over there, think of _them_, the Westerbury workmen, and
get up a concert for 'em, and send 'em the proceeds? There was certainly
rough reason in this. The discontent began to be spoken aloud, and
altogether the city was in a state of semi-rebellion.
Some of the men were gathered one evening at a public-house they used;
their grievances, as a matter of course, the theme of discussion. So
many years had elapsed since the blow had first fallen on the city by
the passing of the bill, almost a generation as it seemed, that the
worn-out theme of closing the ports was used threadbare; and the men
chiefly confined themselves to the hardships of the present time. Bad as
the trade was at Westerbury, it was expected to be worse yet, for the
more wealthy of the manufacturers were beginning to say they should be
forced at last to close their works. The men lighted their pipes, and
called for pints or half pints of ale. Those who were utterly penniless,
and could, in addition, neither beg nor borrow money for this luxury,
sat gloomily by, their brows lowering over their gaunt and famished
cheeks.
"James Jones," said the landlord, a surly sort of man, speaking in reply
to a demand for a half pint of ale, "I can't serve you. You owe five and
fourpence already."
What Mr. James Jones might have retorted in his disappointment, was
stopped by the entrance of several men who came in together. It was the
"deputation;" the men chosen to go round the city that day and ask for
work or alms. The interest aroused by their appearance overpowered petty
warfare.
"Well, and how have ye sped?" was the eager general question, as the men
found seats.
"We went round, thirteen of us, upon empty stomachs, and we left them at
home empty too," replied a tidy-looking man with a stoop in his
shoulders; "but we've done next to no good. Thorp, he has gone home; we
gave him the money out of what we've collected for a loaf o' bread, for
his wife and children's bad a-bed, and nigh clammed besides. The tale
goes, too, that things are getting worse."
"They can't get worse, Read."
"Yes, they can; there was a meeting to-day of the masters. Did you hear
of it?"
Of course the men had heard of it. Little took place in the town,
touching on their interests, that they did not hear of.
"Then perhaps you've heard the measure that was proposed at it--to
reduce the wages again. It was carried, too. George Arkell & Son's was
the only firm that held out against it."
"Nobody has held out for us all along like Mr. Arkell," observed one who
had not yet spoken. "He was a young man when these troubles first fell
on the city, and he's middle-aged now, but never once throughout all the
years has his voice been raised against us."
"True," said Read; "and when he speaks to us it is kindly and
sympathizingly, like the gentleman he is, and as if _we_ were fellow
human beings, which they don't all do. Some of the masters don't care
whether we starve or live; they are as selfish as they are high. Mr.
Arkell has large means and an open hand; it's said he has the interests
of us operatives at heart as much as he has his own; for my part, I
believe it. His contribution to-day was a sovereign--more than twice as
much as anybody else gave us."
"And why not!" broke in Mr. James Jones "If Arkells have got plenty--and
it's well known they have--it's only right they should help us."
"As to their having such plenty, I can't say about that," dissented
Markham--a superior man, and the manager of a large firm. "They have
kept on making largely, and they must lose at times. It stands to
reason, as things have been. Of course they had plenty of money to fall
back upon. Everybody knows that; and Mr. Arkell has preferred to
sacrifice some of that money--all honour to him--rather than turn off to
destitution the men who have grown old in his service, and in his
father's before him."
"It's true, it's true," murmured the men. "God bless Mr. William
Arkell!"
"It's said that young Mr. Travice is to be brought up to the business,
so things can't be very bad with them."
"Yah! bad with 'em!" roared a broad-shouldered old man. "It riles me to
sit here and hear you men talk such foolery. Haven't he got his close
carriage and his horses? and haven't he got his fine house and his
servants? Things bad with the Arkells!"
"You should not cast blame to the masters," continued Markham. "How many
of them are there who still keep on making, but whose resources are
nearly exhausted!"
"No, no, 'taint right," murmured some of the more just-thinking of the
men. "The masters' troubles must be ten-fold greater than ours."
"I should be glad to hear how you make that out?" grumbled a malcontent.
"I have got seven mouths to feed at home, and how am I to feed 'em, not
earning a penny? We was but six, but our Betsey, as was in service as
nuss-girl at Mrs. Omer's, came home to-day. I won't deny that Mrs. Omer
have been kind to her, keeping her on after they failed, and that; but
she up and told her yesterday that she couldn't afford it any longer. I
remember, brethren, when Mr. and Mrs. Omer held up their heads, and paid
their way as respectable as the first manufacturer in Westerbury. Good
people they was."
"Mr. Omer came to our place to-day," interrupted Markham, "to pray the
governor to give him a little work at his own home, as a journeyman. But
we had none to give, without robbing them that want it worse than he. I
think I never saw our governor so cut up as he was, after being obliged
to refuse him."
"Ay," returned the former speaker; "and our Betsey declares that her
missis cried to her this morning, and said she didn't know but what they
should come to the parish. Betsey, poor girl," he continued, "can't bear
to be a burden upon us; but there ain't no help for it. There be no
places to be had; what with so many of the girls being throwed out of
employment, and the families as formerly kept two or three servants
keeping but one, and them as kept one keeping none. There's nothing that
she can do, brethren, for herself or for us."
"The Lord keep her from evil courses!" uttered a deep, earnest voice.
"If I thought as her, or any of my children, was capable of taking to
_them_," thundered the man, his breast heaving as he raised his sinewy,
lean arm in a threatening attitude, "I'd strike her flat into the earth
afore me!"
"Things as bad with the masters as they be with us!" derisively resumed
the broad-shouldered old man. "Yah! Some on you would hold a candle to
the devil himself, though he appeared among ye horned and tailed! Why, I
mind the time--I'm older nor some o' you be--when there warn't folks
wanting to defend Huskisson! And I mind," he added, dropping his voice,
"the judgment that come upon him for what he done."
"It's of no good opening up that again," cried Thomas Markham. "What
Huskisson did, he did for his country's good, and he never thought it
would bring the ill upon us that it did bring. I have told you over and
over again of an interview our head governor--who has now been dead
these ten years, as you know--had with Huskisson in London. It was on a
Sunday evening in summer; and when the governor went in, Huskisson was
seated at his library table, with one of the petitions sent up from
Westerbury to the House of Commons, spread out before him. It was the
one sent up in the May of that year, praying that the ports might be
closed again--some of you are old enough to recollect it, my
friends--the one in which our sufferings and wrongs were represented in
truer and more painful colours than they were, perhaps, in any other of
the memorials that went up. It was reported, I remember, that Mr.
William Arkell had the chief hand in drawing out that petition: but I
don't know how that might have been. Any way, it told on Mr. Huskisson;
and the governor said afterwards, that if ever he saw remorse and care
seated on a brow, it was on his."
"As it had cause to be!" was echoed from all parts of the room.
"Mr. Huskisson began speaking at once about the petition," continued the
manager. "He asked if the sufferings described in it were not
exaggerated; but the governor assured him upon his word of honour, as a
resident in Westerbury and an eye-witness, that they were underdrawn
rather than the contrary; for that no pen, no description, could
adequately describe the misery and distress which had been rife in
Westerbury ever since the bill had passed. And he used to say that, live
as long as he would, he should never forget the look of perplexity and
care that overshadowed Mr. Huskisson's face as he listened to him."
"It was repentance pressing sore upon him," growled a deep bass voice.
"It's to be hoped our famished and homeless children haunted his
dreams."
"The next September he met with the accident that killed him," continued
Thomas Markham; "and though I know some of us poor sufferers were free
in saying it was a judgment upon him, I've always held to my opinion
that if he had foreseen the misery the bill wrought, he would never have
brought it forward in the House of Commons."
"Here's Shepherd a coming in! I wonder how his child is? Last night he
thought it was dying. Shepherd, how's the child?"
A care-worn, pale man made his way amid the throng. He answered quietly
that the child was well.
"Well! why, you said last night that it was as bad as it could be,
Shepherd! You was going off for the doctor then. Did he come to it?"
"One doctor came, from up there," answered Shepherd, pointing to the
sky. "He came, and He took the child."
The words could not be misunderstood, and the room hushed itself in
sympathy. "When did the boy die, Shepherd?"
"To-day, at one; and it's a mercy. Death in childhood is better than
starvation in manhood."
"Could Dr. Barnes do nothing for him?" inquired a compassionate voice.
"He didn't try; he opened his winder to look out at me--he was
undressing to go to bed--and asked whether I had got the money to pay
him if he came."
"Hiss--iss--ss!" echoed from the room.
"I answered that I had not; but I would pay him with the very first
money that I could scrape together; and I said he might take my word for
it, for that had never been broken yet."
"And he would not come?"
"No. He said he knew better than to trust to promises. And when I told
him that the boy was dying, and very precious to me, the rest being
girls, he said it was not my word he doubted but my ability, for he
didn't believe that any of us men would ever be in work again. So he
shut down his winder and doused his candle, and I went home to my boy,
powerless to help him, and I watched him die."
"Drink a glass of ale, Shepherd," said Markham, getting a glass from the
landlord, and filling it from his own jug.
"Thank ye kindly, but I shall drink nothing to-night," replied Shepherd,
motioning back the glass. "There's a sore feeling in my breast,
comrades," he continued, sighing heavily; "it has been there a long
while past, but it's sorer far to-day. I don't so much blame the
surgeon, for there has been a deal of sickness among us, and the doctors
have been unable to get their pay. Hundreds of us are nigh akin to
starvation; there's scarcely a crust between us and death; we desire
only to work honestly, and we can't get work to do. As I sat to-day,
looking at my dead boy, I asked what we had done to have this fate
thrust upon us?"
"What have we done? That's it!--what have we done?"
"But I did not come here to-night to grumble," resumed Shepherd, "I came
for a specific purpose, though perhaps I mayn't succeed in it. I went
down to Jasper, the carpenter, to-day, to ask him to come and take the
measure for the little coffin. Well, he's like all the rest, he won't
trust me; at last he said, if anybody would go bail he should be paid
later, he'd make it; and I have come down to ye, friends, to ask who'll
stand by me in this?"
A score of voices answered, each that he would--eager, sympathizing
voices--but Shepherd shook his head. There was not one among them whose
word the carpenter would take, for they were all out of work. In the
silence that ensued, Shepherd rose to leave.
"Many thanks for the good-will, neighbours," he said. "And I don't
grumble at my unsuccess, for I know how powerless many of ye are to aid
me. But it's a bitter trial. I would rather my boy had never been born
than that he should come to be buried by the parish. God knows we have
heavy burdens to bear."
"Shepherd!" cried the clear voice of Thomas Markham, "I will stand by
you in this. Tell Jasper I pass my word to see him paid."
Shepherd turned back and grasped the hand of Thomas Markham.
"I can't thank you as I ought, sir," he said; "but you have took a load
from my heart. Though you were never repaid here, you would be
hereafter; for I have come to feel a certainty that if our good deeds
are not brought home to us in this world, they are only kept to speak
for us in the next."
"I say, stop a minute, Shepherd," called out James Jones, as the man was
again making his way to the door. "What made you go to Jasper? He's
always cross-grained after his money, he is. Why didn't you go to
White?"
"I did go to White first," answered Shepherd, turning to speak; "but
White couldn't take it. He has got the job for all the new wooden chairs
that are wanted for this concert at the town-hall, and hadn't time for
coffins."
The mention was the signal for an outburst. It came from all parts of
the room, one noise drowning another. Why couldn't a concert be got up
for them? Weren't they as good as the Poles? Hadn't they bodies and
souls to be saved as well as the Poles? Wasn't there a whole town of 'em
starving under the very noses of them as had got up the concert? They
could tell the company that French revolutions had growed out of less
causes.
"And _I_'ll tell ye what," roared out the old man with the broad
shoulders, bringing his fist down on the table with such force that the
clatter amidst the cups and glasses caused a sudden silence. "Every
gentleman that puts his foot inside that there concert room, is no true
man, and I'd tell him so to his face, if 'twas the Lord Lieutenant.
What do our people want a fattening up of them there Poles, while we be
starving? I wish the Poles was----"
"Hold your tongue, Lloyd," interposed Markham. "It's not the fault of
the Poles, any more than it's ours; so where's the use of abusing them?"
"Yah!" responded Mr. Lloyd.