Chapter IV

In two previous lectures, Gentlemen, I have given you--it may well be _ad nauseam_--the conditions of life among the industrial poor of that period as they can be gathered from Blue Books and out of Hansard. In my last lecture I tried to indicate how they affected the ambitious (and to that extent selfish) but yet chivalrous mind of Disraeli. I shall be shorter with Mrs. Gaskell, who invents no political novel, but just tells the tale and passes on. But she tells it, and I select here to read to you a passage to illustrate rather how gently and charitably she tells it than to make out the worst of the case, which yet may be found in her pages.

At all times it is a bewildering thing to the poor weaver to see
his employer removing from house to house, each one grander than
the last, till he ends in building one more magnificent than all,
or withdraws his money from the concern, or sells his mill, to
buy an estate in the country, while all the time the weaver, who
thinks he and his fellows are the real makers of this wealth, is
struggling on for bread for his children, through the vicissitudes
of lowered wages, short hours, fewer hands employed, etc. And when
he knows trade is bad, and could understand (at least partially)
that there are not buyers enough in the market to purchase the
goods already made, and consequently that there is no demand for
more; when he would bear and endure much without complaining, could
he also see that his employers were bearing their share; he is,
I say, bewildered and (to use his own word) “aggravated” to see
that all goes on just as usual with the mill-owners. Large houses
are still occupied, while spinners’ and weavers’ cottages stand
empty, because the families that once filled them are obliged to
live in rooms or cellars. Carriages still roll along the streets,
concerts are still crowded by subscribers, the shops for expensive
luxuries still find daily customers while the workman loiters away
his unemployed time in watching these things, and thinking of the
pale, uncomplaining wife at home, and the wailing children asking
in vain for enough of food,--of the sinking health, of the dying
life, of those near and dear to him. The contrast is too great. Why
should he alone suffer from bad times?

I know that this is not really the case; and I know what is the
truth in such matters: but what I wish to impress is what the
workman feels and thinks.

But there are earnest men among these people, men who have endured
wrongs without complaining, but without ever forgetting or
forgiving those whom (they believe) have caused all this woe.

Among these was John Barton. His parents had suffered; his mother
had died from absolute want of the necessaries of life. He himself
was a good, steady workman, and, as such, pretty certain of steady
employment. But he spent all he got with the confidence (you may
also call it improvidence) of one who was willing, and believed
himself able, to supply all his wants by his own exertions. And
when his master suddenly failed, and all hands in the mill were
turned back, one Tuesday morning, with the news that Mr. Hunter had
stopped, Barton had only a few shillings to rely on; but he had
good heart of being employed at some other mill, and accordingly,
before returning home, he spent some hours in going from factory
to factory, asking for work. But at every mill was some sign of
depression of trade! Some were working short hours, some were
turning off hands, and for weeks Barton was out of work, living on
credit. It was during this time that his little son, the apple of
his eye, the cynosure of all his strong power of love, fell ill
of the scarlet fever. They dragged him through the crisis, but
his life hung on a gossamer thread. Everything, the doctor said,
depended on good nourishment, on generous living, to keep up the
little fellow’s strength, in the prostration in which the fever
had left him. Mocking words! when the commonest food in the house
would not furnish one little meal. Barton tried credit; but it was
worn out at the little provision shops, which were now suffering
in their turn. He thought it would be no sin to steal, and would
have stolen; but he could not get the opportunity in the few days
the child lingered. Hungry himself, almost to an animal pitch
of ravenousness, but with bodily pain swallowed up in anxiety
for his little sinking lad, he stood at one of the shop windows,
where all edible luxuries are displayed; haunches of venison,
Stilton cheeses, moulds of jelly--all appetising sights to the
common passer by. And out of this shop came Mrs. Hunter, his late
employer’s wife! She crossed to her carriage, followed by the
shopman loaded with purchases for a party. The door was quickly
slammed to, and she drove way; and Barton returned home with a
bitter spirit of wrath in his heart, to see his only boy a corpse!

You can fancy, now, the hoards of vengeance in his heart against
the employers. For there are never wanting those who, either
in speech or in print, find it their interest to cherish such
feelings in the working classes; who know how and when to rouse the
dangerous power at their command; and who use their knowledge with
unrelenting purpose to either party.

Now you know from actual evidence given you in my two previous lectures that this account is not overstrained. You see how the writer makes allowances; and how, all allowances made, her thrust is as deadly as any in Disraeli’s _Sybil_.