The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

by Robert Tressell

  In the midst of all the confusion and demoralization there was, however, one man who did not lose his presence of mind, who in this dark hour of disaster remained calm and immovable, and like a vast mountain of flesh reared his head above the storm, whose mighty intellect perceived a way to turn this apparently hopeless defeat into a glorious victory. That man was Adam Sweater, the Chief of the Band.

  21

  The Reign of Terror. The Great Money Trick

  During the next four weeks the usual reign of terror continued at ‘The Cave’. The men slaved like so many convicts under the vigilant surveillance of Crass, Misery and Rushton. No one felt free from observation for a single moment. It happened frequently that a man who was working alone – as he thought – on turning round would find Hunter or Rushton standing behind him: or one would look up from his work to catch sight of a face watching him through a door or a window or over the banisters. If they happened to be working in a room on the ground floor, or at a window on any floor, they knew that both Rushton and Hunter were in the habit of hiding among the trees that surrounded the house, and spying upon them thus.

  There was a plumber working outside repairing the guttering that ran round the bottom edge of the roof. This poor wretch’s life was a perfect misery: he fancied he saw Hunter or Rushton in every bush. He had two ladders to work from, and since these ladders had been in use Misery had thought of a new way of spying on the men. Finding that he never succeeded in catching anyone doing anything wrong when he entered the house by one of the doors, Misery adopted the plan of crawling up one of the ladders, getting in through one of the upper windows and creeping softly downstairs and in and out of the rooms. Even then he never caught anyone, but that did not matter, for he accomplished his principal purpose – every man seemed afraid to cease working for even an instant.

  The result of all this was, of course, that the work progressed rapidly towards completion. The hands grumbled and cursed, but all the same every man tore into it for all he was worth. Although he did next to nothing himself, Crass watched and urged on the others. He was ‘in charge of the job’: he knew that unless he succeeded in making this work pay he would not be put in charge of another job. On the other hand, if he did make it pay he would be given the preference over others and be kept on as long as the firm had any work. The firm would give him the preference only as long as it paid them to do so.

  As for the hands, each man knew that there was no chance of obtaining work anywhere else at present; there were dozens of men out of employment already. Besides, even if there had been a chance of getting another job somewhere else, they knew that the conditions were more or less the same on every firm. Some were even worse than this one. Each man knew that unless he did as much as ever he could, Crass would report him for being slow. They knew also that when the job began to draw to a close the number of men employed upon it would be reduced, and when that time came the hands who did the most work would be kept on and the slower ones discharged. It was therefore in the hope of being one of the favoured few that while inwardly cursing the rest for ‘tearing into it’, everyone as a matter of self-preservation went and ‘tore into it’ themselves.

  They all cursed Crass, but most of them would have been very glad to change places with him: and if any one of them had been in his place they would have been compelled to act in the same way – or lose the job.

  They all reviled Hunter, but most of them would have been glad to change places with him also: and if any one of them had been in his place they would have been compelled to do the same things, or lose the job.

  They all hated and blamed Rushton. Yet if they had been in Rushton’s place they would have been compelled to adopt the same methods, or become bankrupt: for it is obvious that the only way to compete successfully against other employers who are sweaters is to be a sweater yourself. Therefore no one who is an upholder of the present system can consistently blame any of these men. Blame the system.

  If you, reader, had been one of the hands, would you have slogged? Or would you have preferred to starve and see your family starve? If you had been in Crass’s place, would you have resigned rather than do such dirty work? If you had had Hunter’s berth, would you have given it up and voluntarily reduced yourself to the level of the hands? If you had been Rushton, would you rather have become bankrupt than treat your ‘hands’ and your customers in the same way as your competitors treated theirs? It may be that, so placed, you – being the noble-minded paragon that you are – would have behaved unselfishly. But no one has any right to expect you to sacrifice yourself for the benefit of other people who would only call you a fool for your pains.

  It may be true that if any one of the hands – Owen, for instance – had been an employer of labour, he would have done the same as other employers. Some people seem to think that proves that the present system is all right! But really it only proves that the present system compels selfishness. One must either trample upon others or be trampled upon oneself. Happiness might be possible if everyone were unselfish; if everyone thought of the welfare of his neighbour before thinking of his own. But as there is only a very small percentage of such unselfish people in the world, the present system has made the earth into a sort of hell. Under the present system there is not sufficient of anything for everyone to have enough. Consequently there is a fight – called by Christians the ‘Battle of Life’. In this fight some get more than they need, some barely enough, some very little, and some none at all. The more aggressive, cunning, unfeeling and selfish you are the better it will be for you. As long as this ‘Battle of Life’ System endures, we have no right to blame other people for doing the same things that we are ourselves compelled to do. Blame the system.

  But that is just what the hands did not do. They blamed each other; they blamed Crass, and Hunter, and Rushton, but with the Great System of which they were all more or less the victims they were quite content, being persuaded that it was the only one possible and the best that human wisdom could devise. The reason why they all believed this was because not one of them had ever troubled to inquire whether it would not be possible to order things differently. They were content with the present system. If they had not been content they would have been anxious to find some way to alter it. But they had never taken the trouble to seriously inquire whether it was possible to find some better way, and although they all knew in a hazy fashion that other methods of managing the affairs of the world had already been proposed, they neglected to inquire whether these other methods were possible or practicable, and they were ready and willing to oppose with ignorant ridicule or brutal force any man who was foolish or quixotic enough to try to explain to them the details of what he thought was a better way. They accepted the present system in the same way as they accepted the alternating seasons. They knew that there was spring and summer and autumn and winter. As to how these different seasons came to be, or what caused them, they hadn’t the remotest notion, and it is extremely doubtful whether the question had ever occurred to any of them: but there is no doubt whatever about the fact that none of them knew. From their infancy they had been trained to distrust their own intelligence, and to leave the management of the affairs of the world – and for that matter of the next world too – to their betters; and now most of them were absolutely incapable of thinking of any abstract subject whatever. Nearly all their betters – that is, the people who do nothing – were unanimous in agreeing that the present system is a very good one and that it is impossible to alter or improve it. Therefore Crass and his mates, although they knew nothing whatever about it themselves, accepted it as an established, incontrovertible fact that the existing state of things is immutable. They believed it because someone else told them so. They would have believed anything: on one condition – namely, that they were told to believe it by their betters. They said it was surely not for the Likes of Them to think that they knew better than those who were more educated and had plenty of time to study.

  As the wor
k in the drawing-room proceeded, Crass abandoned the hope that Owen was going to make a mess of it. Some of the rooms upstairs being now ready for papering, Slyme was started on that work, Bert being taken away from Owen to assist Slyme as paste boy, and it was arranged that Crass should help Owen whenever he needed someone to lend him a hand.

  Sweater came frequently during these four weeks, being interested in the progress of the work. On these occasions Crass always managed to be present in the drawing-room and did most of the talking. Owen was very satisfied with this arrangement, for he was always ill at ease when conversing with a man like Sweater, who spoke in an offensively patronizing way and expected common people to kowtow to and ‘Sir’ him at every second word. Crass, however, seemed to enjoy doing that kind of thing. He did not exactly grovel on the floor, when Sweater spoke to him, but he contrived to convey the impression that he was willing to do so if desired.

  Outside the house Bundy and his mates had dug deep trenches in the damp ground in which they were laying new drains. This work, like that of the painting of the inside of the house, was nearly completed. It was a miserable job. Owing to the fact that there had been a spell of bad weather the ground was sodden with rain and there was mud everywhere, the men’s clothing and boots being caked with it. But the worst thing about the job was the smell. For years the old drain-pipes had been defective and leaky. The ground a few feet below the surface was saturated with fetid moisture and a stench as of a thousand putrefying corpses emanated from the opened earth. The clothing of the men who were working in the trenches became saturated with this fearful odour, and for that matter, so did the men themselves.

  They said they could smell and taste it all the time, even when they were away from the work at home, and when they were at meals. Although they smoked their pipes all the time they were at work, Misery having ungraciously given them permission, several times Bundy and one or other of his mates were attacked with fits of vomiting.

  But, as they began to realize that the finish of the job was in sight, a kind of panic seized upon the hands, especially those who had been taken on last and who would therefore be the first to be ‘stood still’. Easton, however, felt pretty confident that Crass would do his best to get him kept on till the end of the job, for they had become quite chummy lately, usually spending a few evenings together at the ‘Cricketers’ every week.

  ‘There’ll be a bloody slaughter ’ere soon,’ remarked Harlow to Philpot one day as they were painting the banisters of the staircase. ‘I reckon next week will about finish the inside.’

  ‘And the outside ain’t goin’ to take very long, you know,’ replied Philpot.

  ‘They ain’t got no other work in, have they?’

  ‘Not that I knows of,’ replied Philpot gloomily; ‘and I don’t think anyone else has either.’

  ‘You know that little place they call the “Kiosk” down the Grand Parade, near the bandstand,’ asked Harlow after a pause.

  ‘Where they used to sell refreshments?’

  ‘Yes; it belongs to the Corporation, you know.’

  ‘It’s been closed up lately, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes; the people who ’ad it couldn’t make it pay; but I ’eard last night that Grinder the fruit-merchant is goin’ to open it again. If it’s true, there’ll be a bit of a job there for someone, because it’ll ’ave to be done up.’

  ‘Well, I hope it does come orf,’ replied Philpot. ‘It’ll be a job for some poor b—rs.’

  ‘I wonder if they’ve started anyone yet on the venetian blinds for this ’ouse?’ remarked Easton after a pause.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Philpot.

  They relapsed into silence for a while.

  ‘I wonder what time it is?’ said Philpot at length. ‘I don’t know ’ow you feel, but I begin to want my dinner.’

  ‘That’s just what I was thinking; it can’t be very far off it now. It’s nearly ’arf an hour since Bert went down to make the tea. It seems a ’ell of a long morning to me.’

  ‘So it does to me,’ said Philpot; ‘slip upstairs and ask Slyme what time it is.’

  Harlow laid his brush across the top of his paint-pot and went upstairs. He was wearing a pair of cloth slippers, and walked softly, not wishing that Crass should hear him leaving his work, so it happened that without any intention of spying on Slyme, Harlow reached the door of the room in which the former was working without being heard and, entering suddenly, surprised Slyme – who was standing near the fireplace – in the act of breaking a whole roll of wallpaper across his knee as one might break a stick. On the floor beside him was what had been another roll, now broken into two pieces. When Harlow came in, Slyme started, and his face became crimson with confusion. He hastily gathered the broken rolls together and, stooping down, thrust the pieces up the flue of the grate and closed the register.

  ‘Wot’s the bloody game?’ inquired Harlow.

  Slyme laughed with an affectation of carelessness, but his hands trembled and his face was now very pale.

  ‘We must get our own back somehow, you know, Fred,’ he said.

  Harlow did not reply. He did not understand. After puzzling over it for a few minutes, he gave it up.

  ‘What’s the time?’ he asked.

  ‘Fifteen minutes to twelve,’ said Slyme and added, as Harlow was going away: ‘Don’t mention anything about that paper to Crass or any of the others.’

  ‘I shan’t say nothing,’ replied Harlow.

  Gradually, as he pondered over it, Harlow began to comprehend the meaning of the destruction of the two rolls of paper. Slyme was doing the paperhanging piecework – so much for each roll hung. Four of the rooms upstairs had been done with the same pattern, and Hunter – who was not over-skilful in such matters – had evidently sent more paper than was necessary. By getting rid of these two rolls, Slyme would be able to make it appear that he had hung two rolls more than was really the case. He had broken the rolls so as to be able to take them away from the house without being detected, and he had hidden them up the chimney until he got an opportunity of so doing. Harlow had just arrived at this solution of the problem when, hearing the lower flight of stairs creaking, he peeped over and observed Misery crawling up. He had come to see if anyone had stopped work before the proper time. Passing the two workmen without speaking, he ascended to the next floor, and entered the room where Slyme was.

  ‘You’d better not do this room yet,’ said Hunter. ‘There’s to be a new grate and mantelpiece put in.’

  He crossed over to the fireplace and stood looking at it thoughtfully for a few minutes.

  ‘It’s not a bad little grate, you know, is it?’ he remarked. ‘We’ll be able to use it somewhere or other.’

  ‘Yes; it’s all right,’ said Slyme, whose heart was beating like a steam-hammer.

  ‘Do for a front room in a cottage,’ continued Misery, stooping down to examine it more closely. ‘There’s nothing broke that I can see.’

  He put his hand against the register and vainly tried to push it open.

  ‘H’m, there’s something wrong ’ere,’ he remarked, pushing harder.

  ‘Most likely a brick or some plaster fallen down,’ gasped Slyme, coming to Misery’s assistance. ‘Shall I try to open it?’

  ‘Don’t trouble,’ replied Nimrod, rising to his feet. ‘It’s most likely what you say. I’ll see that the new grate is sent up after dinner. Bundy can fix it this afternoon and then you can go on papering as soon as you like.’

  With this, Misery went out of the room, downstairs and away from the house, and Slyme wiped the sweat from his forehead with his handkerchief. Then he knelt down and, opening the register, he took out the broken rolls of paper and hid them up the chimney of the next room. While he was doing this the sound of Crass’s whistle shrilled through the house.

  ‘Thank Gord!’ exclaimed Philpot fervently as he laid his brushes on the top of his pot and joined in the general rush to the kitchen. The scene here is already familiar to the read
er. For seats, the two pairs of steps laid on their sides parallel to each other, about eight feet apart and at right angles to the fireplace, with the long plank placed across; and the upturned pails and the drawers of the dresser. The floor unswept and littered with dirt, scraps of paper, bits of plaster, pieces of lead pipe and dried mud; and in the midst, the steaming bucket of stewed tea and the collection of cracked cups, jam-jars and condensed milk tins. And on the seats the men in their shabby and in some cases ragged clothing sitting and eating their coarse food and cracking jokes.

  It was a pathetic and wonderful and at the same time a despicable spectacle. Pathetic that human beings should be condemned to spend the greater part of their lives amid such surroundings, because it must be remembered that most of their time was spent on some job or other. When ‘The Cave’ was finished they would go to some similar ‘job’, if they were lucky enough to find one. Wonderful, because although they knew that they did more than their fair share of the great work of producing the necessaries and comforts of life, they did not think they were entitled to a fair share of the good things they helped to create! And despicable, because although they saw their children condemned to the same life of degradation, hard labour and privation, yet they refused to help to bring about a better state of affairs. Most of them thought that what had been good enough for themselves was good enough for their children.

  It seemed as if they regarded their own children with a kind of contempt, as being only fit to grow up to be the servants of the children of such people as Rushton and Sweater. But it must be remembered that they had been taught self-contempt when they were children. In the so-called ‘Christian’ schools they attended then, they were taught to ‘order themselves lowly and reverently towards their betters’, and they were now actually sending their own children to learn the same degrading lessons in their turn! They had a vast amount of consideration for their betters, and for the children of their betters, but very little for their own children, for each other, or for themselves.