The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

by Robert Tressell

  ‘I know it wasn’t my old woman’s face that I was after last night,’ observed Crass; and then he proceeded amid roars of laughter to give a minutely detailed account of what had taken place between himself and his wife after they had retired for the night.

  This story reminded the man on the pail of a very strange dream he had had a few weeks previously: ‘I dreamt I was walkin’ along the top of a ’igh cliff or some sich place, and all of a sudden the ground give way under me feet and I began to slip down and down and to save meself from going over I made a grab at a tuft of grass as was growin’ just within reach of me ’and. And then I thought that some feller was ’ittin me on the ’ead with a bl—y great stick, and tryin’ to make me let go of the tuft of grass. And then I woke up to find my old woman shouting out and punchin’ me with ’er fists. She said I was pullin’ ’er ’air!’

  While the room was in an uproar with the merriment induced by these stories, Crass rose from his seat and crossed over to where his overcoat was hanging on a nail in the wall, and took from the pocket a piece of card about eight inches by about four inches. One side of it was covered with printing, and as he returned to his seat Crass called upon the others to listen while he read it aloud. He said it was one of the best things he had ever seen: it had been given to him by a bloke at the Cricketers the other night.

  Crass was not a very good reader, but he was able to read this all right because he had read it so often that he almost knew it by heart. It was entitled ‘The Art of Flatulence’, and it consisted of a number of rules and definitions. Shouts of laughter greeted the reading of each paragraph, and when he had ended, the piece of dirty card was handed round for the benefit of those who wished to read it for themselves. Several of the men, however, when it was offered to them, refused to take it, and with evident disgust suggested that it should be put into the fire. This view did not commend itself to Crass, who, after the others had finished with it, put it back again in the pocket of his coat.

  Meanwhile, Bundy stood up to help himself to some more tea. The cup he was drinking from had a large piece broken out of one side and did not hold much, so he usually had to have three or four helpings.

  ‘Anyone else want any?’ he asked.

  Several cups and jars were passed to him. These vessels had been standing on the floor, and the floor was very dirty and covered with dust, so before dipping them into the pail, Bundy – who had been working at the drains all morning – wiped the bottoms of the jars upon his trousers, on the same place where he was in the habit of wiping his hands when he happened to get some dirt on them. He filled the jars so full that as he held them by the rims and passed them to their owners part of the contents slopped over and trickled through his fingers. By the time he had finished the floor was covered with little pools of tea.

  ‘They say that Gord made everything for some useful purpose,’ remarked Harlow, reverting to the original subject, ‘but I should like to know what the hell’s the use of sich things as bugs and fleas and the like.’

  ‘To teach people to keep theirselves clean, of course,’ said Slyme.

  ‘That’s a very funny subject, ain’t it?’ continued Harlow, ignoring Slyme’s answer. ‘They say as all diseases is caused by little insects. If Gord ’adn’t made no cancer germs or consumption microbes there wouldn’t be no cancer or consumption.’

  ‘That’s one of the proofs that there isn’t an individual God,’ said Owen. ‘If we were to believe that the universe and everything that lives was deliberately designed and created by God, then we must also believe that He made the disease germs you are speaking of for the purpose of torturing His other creatures.’

  ‘You can’t tell me a bloody yarn like that,’ interposed Crass, roughly. ‘There’s a Ruler over us, mate, and so you’re likely to find out.’

  ‘If Gord didn’t create the world, ’ow did it come ’ere?’ demanded Slyme.

  ‘I know no more about that than you do,’ replied Owen. ‘That is – I know nothing. The only difference between us is that you think you know. You think you know that God made the universe; how long it took Him to do it; why He made it; how long it’s been in existence and how it will finally pass away. You also imagine you know that we shall live after we’re dead; where we shall go, and the kind of existence we shall have. In fact, in the excess of your “humility”, you think you know all about it. But really you know no more of these things than any other human being does: that is, you know nothing.’

  ‘That’s only your opinion,’ said Slyme.

  ‘If we care to take the trouble to learn,’ Owen went on, ‘we can know a little of how the universe has grown and changed; but of the beginning we know nothing.’

  ‘That’s just my opinion, matey,’ observed Philpot. ‘It’s just a bloody mystery, and that’s all about it.’

  ‘I don’t pretend to ’ave no ’ead knowledge,’ said Slyme, ‘but ’ead knowledge won’t save a man’s soul: it’s ’eart knowledge as does that. I knows in my ’eart as my sins is all hunder the Blood, and it’s knowin’ that, wot’s given ’appiness and the peace which passes all understanding to me ever since I’ve been a Christian.’

  ‘Glory, glory, hallelujah!’ shouted Bundy, and nearly everyone laughed.

  ‘“Christian” is right,’ sneered Owen. ‘You’ve got some title to call yourself a Christian, haven’t you? As for the happiness that passes all understanding, it certainly passes my understanding how you can be happy when you believe that millions of people are being tortured in Hell; and it also passes my understanding why you are not ashamed of yourself for being happy under such circumstances.’

  ‘Ah, well, you’ll find it all out when you come to die, mate,’ replied Slyme in a threatening tone. ‘You’ll think and talk different then!’

  ‘That’s just wot gets over me,’ observed Harlow. ‘It don’t seem right that after living in misery and poverty all our bloody lives, workin’ and slavin’ all the hours that Gord A’mighty sends, that we’re to be bloody well set fire to and burned in ’ell for all eternity! It don’t seem feasible to me, you know.’

  ‘It’s my belief,’ said Philpot, profoundly, ‘that when you’re dead, you’re done for. That’s the end of you.’

  ‘That’s what I say,’ remarked Easton. ‘As for all this religious business, it’s just a money-making dodge. It’s the parson’s trade, just the same as painting is ours, only there’s no work attached to it and the pay’s a bloody sight better than ours is.’

  ‘It’s their livin’, and a bloody good livin’ too, if you ask me,’ said Bundy.

  ‘Yes,’ said Harlow; ‘they lives on the fat o’ the land, and wears the best of everything, and they does nothing for it but talk a lot of twaddle two or three times a week. The rest of the time they spend cadgin’ money orf silly old women who thinks it’s a sorter fire insurance.’

  ‘It’s an old sayin’ and a true one,’ chimed in the man on the upturned pail. ‘Parsons and publicans is the worst enemies the workin’ man ever ’ad. There may be some good ’uns, but they’re few and far between.’

  ‘If I could only get a job like the Harchbishop of Canterbury,’ said Philpot, solemnly, ‘I’d leave this firm.’

  ‘So would I,’ said Harlow, ‘if I was the Harchbishop of Canterbury, I’d take my pot and brushes down the office and shy ’em through the bloody winder and tell ole Misery to go to ’ell.’

  ‘Religion is a thing that don’t trouble me much,’ remarked Newman; ‘and as for what happens to you after death, it’s a thing I believe in leavin’ till you comes to it – there’s no sense in meetin’ trouble ’arfway. All the things they tells us may be true or they may not, but it takes me all my time to look after this world. I don’t believe I’ve been to church more than arf a dozen times since I’ve been married – that’s over fifteen years ago now – and then it’s been when the kids ’ave been christened. The old woman goes sometimes and of course the young ’uns goes; you’ve got to tell ’em something or other,
and they might as well learn what they teaches at the Sunday School as anything else.’

  A general murmur of approval greeted this. It seemed to be the almost unanimous opinion, that, whether it were true or not, ‘religion’ was a nice thing to teach children.

  ‘I’ve not been even once since I was married,’ said Harlow, ‘and I sometimes wish to Christ I ’adn’t gorn then.’

  ‘I don’t see as it matters a dam wot a man believes,’ said Philpot, ‘as long as you don’t do no ’arm to nobody. If you see a poor b—r wot’s down on ’is luck, give ’im a ’elpin’ ’and. Even if you ain’t got no money you can say a kind word. If a man does ’is work and looks arter ’is ’ome and ’is young ’uns, and does a good turn to a fellow creature when ’e can, I reckon ’e stands as much chance of getting into ’eaven – if there is sich a place – as some of these ’ere Bible-busters, whether ’e ever goes to church or chapel or not.’

  These sentiments were echoed by everyone with the solitary exception of Slyme, who said that Philpot would find out his mistake after he was dead, when he would have to stand before the Great White Throne for judgement!

  ‘And at the Last Day, when yer sees the moon turned inter Blood, you’ll be cryin’ hout for the mountings and the rocks to fall on yer and ’ide yer from the wrath of the Lamb!’

  The others laughed derisively.

  ‘I’m a Bush Baptist meself,’ remarked the man on the upturned pail. This individual, Dick Wantley by name, was of what is usually termed a ‘rugged’ cast of countenance. He reminded one strongly of an ancient gargoyle, or a dragon.

  Most of the hands had by now lit their pipes, but there were a few who preferred chewing their tobacco. As they smoked or chewed they expectorated upon the floor or into the fire. Wantley was one of those who preferred chewing and he had been spitting upon the floor to such an extent that he was by this time partly surrounded by a kind of semicircular moat of dark brown spittle.

  ‘I’m a Bush Baptist!’ he shouted across the moat, ‘and you all knows wot that is.’

  This confession of faith caused a fresh outburst of hilarity, because of course everyone knew what a Bush Baptist was.

  ‘If ’evven’s goin’ to be full of sich b—r’s as Hunter,’ observed Easton, ‘I think I’d rather go to the other place.’

  ‘If ever ole Misery does get into ’eaven,’ said Philpot, ‘’e won’t stop there very long. I reckon ’e’ll be chucked out of it before ’e’s been there a week, because ’e’s sure to start pinchin’ the jewels out of the other saints’ crowns.’

  ‘Well, if they won’t ’ave ’im in ’eaven, I’m sure I don’t know wot’s to become of ’im,’ said Harlow with pretended concern, ‘because I don’t believe ’e’d be allowed into ’ell, now.’

  ‘Why not?’ demanded Bundy. ‘I should think it’s just the bloody place for sich b—r’s as ’im.’

  ‘So it used to be at one time o’ day, but they’ve changed all that now. They’ve ’ad a revolution down there: deposed the Devil, elected a parson as President, and started puttin’ the fire out.’

  ‘From what I hears of it,’ continued Harlow when the laughter had ceased, ‘’ell is a bloody fine place to live in just now. There’s underground railways and ’lectric trams, and at the corner of nearly every street there’s a sort of pub where you can buy ice-cream, lemon squash, four ale, and American cold drinks; and you’re allowed to sit in a refrigerator for two hours for a tanner.’

  Although they laughed at and made fun of these things the reader must not think that they really doubted the truth of the Christian religion, because – although they had all been brought up by ‘Christian’ parents and had been ‘educated’ in ‘Christian’ schools – none of them knew enough about Christianity to either really believe it or disbelieve it. The imposters who obtain a comfortable living by pretending to be the ministers and disciples of the Workman of Nazareth are too cunning to encourage their dupes to acquire anything approaching an intelligent understanding of the subject. They do not want people to know or understand anything: they want them to have Faith – to believe without knowledge, understanding, or evidence. For years Harlow and his mates – when children – had been ‘taught’ ‘Christianity’ in day school, Sunday School and in church or chapel, and now they knew practically nothing about it! But they were ‘Christians’ all the same. They believed that the Bible was the word of God, but they didn’t know where it came from, how long it had been in existence, who wrote it, who translated it or how many different versions there were. Most of them were almost totally unacquainted with the contents of the book itself. But all the same, they believed it – after a fashion.

  ‘But puttin’ all jokes aside,’ said Philpot, ‘I can’t believe there’s sich a place as ’ell. There may be some kind of punishment, but I don’t believe it’s a real fire.’

  ‘Nor nobody else, what’s got any sense,’ replied Harlow, contemptuously.

  ‘I believe as this world is ’ell,’ said Crass, looking around with a philosophic expression. This opinion was echoed by most of the others, although Slyme remained silent and Owen laughed.

  ‘Wot the bloody ’ell are you laughin’ at?’ Crass demanded in an indignant tone.

  ‘I was laughing because you said you think this world is hell.’

  ‘Well, I don’t see nothing to laugh at in that,’ said Crass.

  ‘So it is a ’ell,’ said Easton. ‘There can’t be anywheres much worse than this.’

  ‘’Ear, ’ear,’ said the man behind the moat.

  ‘What I was laughing at is this,’ said Owen. ‘The present system of managing the affairs of the world is so bad and has produced such dreadful results that you are of opinion that the earth is a hell: and yet you are a Conservative! You wish to preserve the present system – the system which has made the world into a hell!’

  ‘I thought we shouldn’t get through the dinner hour without politics if Owen was ’ere,’ growled Bundy. ‘Bloody sickenin’ I call it.’

  ‘Don’t be ’ard on ’im,’ said Philpot. ‘’E’s been very quiet for the last few days.’

  ‘We’ll ’ave to go through it today, though,’ remarked Harlow despairingly. ‘I can see it comin’.’

  ‘ I’m not goin’ through it,’ said Bundy, ‘I’m orf!’ And he accordingly drank the remainder of his tea, closed his empty dinner basket and, having placed it on the mantelshelf, made for the door.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said as he went out. The others laughed.

  Crass, remembering the cutting from the Obscurer that he had in his pocket, was secretly very pleased at the turn the conversation was taking. He turned roughly on Owen:

  ‘The other day, when we was talkin’ about the cause of poverty, you contradicted everybody. Everyone else was wrong! But you yourself couldn’t tell us what’s the cause of poverty, could yer?’

  ‘I think I could.’

  ‘Oh, of course, you think you know,’ sneered Crass, ‘and of course you think your opinion’s right and everybody else’s is wrong.’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Owen.

  Several men expressed their abhorrence of this intolerant attitude of Owen’s, but the latter rejoined:

  ‘Of course I think that my opinions are right and that everyone who differs from me is wrong. If I didn’t think their opinions were wrong I wouldn’t differ from them. If I didn’t think my own opinions right I wouldn’t hold them.’

  ‘But there’s no need to keep on arguin’ about it day after day,’ said Crass. ‘You’ve got your opinion and I’ve got mine. Let everyone enjoy his own opinion, I say.’

  A murmur of approbation from the crowd greeted these sentiments; but Owen rejoined:

  ‘But we can’t both be right; if your opinions are right and mine are not, how am I to find out the truth if we never talk about them?’

  ‘Well, wot do you reckon is the cause of poverty, then?’ demanded Easton.

  ‘The present system – competition – capita
lism.’

  ‘It’s all very well to talk like that,’ snarled Crass, to whom this statement conveyed no meaning whatever. ‘But ’ow do you make it out?’

  ‘Well, I put it like that for the sake of shortness,’ replied Owen. ‘Suppose some people were living in a house –’

  ‘More supposin’!’ sneered Crass.

  ‘And suppose they were always ill, and suppose that the house was badly built, the walls so constructed that they drew and retained moisture, the roof broken and leaky, the drains defective, the doors and windows ill-fitting and the rooms badly shaped and draughty. If you were asked to name, in a word, the cause of the ill-health of the people who lived there you would say – the house. All the tinkering in the world would not make that house fit to live in; the only thing to do with it would be to pull it down and build another. Well, we’re all living in a house called the Money System; and as a result most of us are suffering from a disease called poverty. There’s so much the matter with the present system that it’s no good tinkering at it. Everything about it is wrong and there’s nothing about it that’s right. There’s only one thing to be done with it and that is to smash it up and have a different system altogether. We must get out of it.’

  ‘It seems to me that that’s just what you’re trying to do,’ remarked Harlow, sarcastically. ‘You seem to be tryin’ to get out of answering the question what Easton asked you.’

  ‘Yes!’ cried Crass, fiercely. ‘Why don’t you answer the bloody question? Wot’s the cause of poverty?’

  ‘What the ’ell’s the matter with the present system?’ demanded Sawkins.

  ‘’Ow’s it goin’ to be altered?’ said Newman.

  ‘Wot the bloody ’ell sort of a system do you think we ought to ’ave?’ shouted the man behind the moat.

  ‘It can’t never be altered,’ said Philpot. ‘Human nature’s human nature and you can’t get away from it.’

  ‘Never mind about human nature,’ shouted Crass. ‘Stick to the point. Wot’s the cause of poverty?’