From Workhouse to Westminster Part 8

"At last he makes someone hear.

"'Is the captain aboard?' says he.

"'What d'yer want with the captain?' asks a bluejacket.

"'Feller,' says the taxpayer, big-like, 'just tell your captain that one of the owners of this 'ere ship wants to come aboard, and look slippy about it.'

"The captain invites him on the deck, and he goes round the ship sniffing at this and complaining about that until the ship's carpenter gets riled.

"'Don't you know that I have a share in this ship, feller?' says the taxpayer.

"'Oh, have yer?' says the carpenter, handing him a chip. 'You just take your share then, and get over the side double quick, or I shall be under the necessity of showing you the way.'"

When the East End was suffering from one of the water famines that used to be fairly common before the supply was taken over by a public authority, he never tired of calling the attention of his Dock Gate meetings to the fact that the company went on charging the same rates, whether there was water or not.

"When I got home last night, my wife said, 'Will, the water's come on at last; but just look at it--it's not fit to drink!' So I went to the tap and saw a lot of little things swimming about in the water. The wife was alarmed, and asked what we should do. 'My dear,' I replied, 'for goodness sake don't say anything about it to anybody. If this gets to the ears of the company they might charge us for the fish as well as for the water.'"

Never was instruction at college imparted with so many human touches and humorous sallies. He noticed that many of the men slunk away when the public-houses opened. He made it a practice to commence his own address a few minutes before the public-houses threw open their doors. In this way he kept most of the men about him. The waverers among them were shamed into staying by little thrusts like these:--

"Some of you chaps imagine you can only be men by taking the gargle. If you could see yourselves sometimes after you've been indulging you would jolly soon change your opinion. Perhaps you've heard of the man who asked for a ticket at the railway junction.

"'What station?' asked the booking clerk.

"'What stations have you got?' he stammered, clinging to the ledge for support.

"But even that chap was not so bad as the railway guard who went home a bit elevated. He saw the cat lying on the hearthrug, and chucked it in the oven, slamming the door and yelling, 'Take yer seats for Nottingham.'

"I've heard men say they only take it because the doctor orders it. One of these chaps was caught having secret nips of whiskey. 'Bless yer heart!' he says. 'Don't yer know I has ter take it for me health? I suffers wiv tape worms.'

"One of the chief reasons some of you chaps booze is because you are too sociable-like in standing treat. A rattling boozer was once screwed up to the point of signing the pledge. He writes his name, puts his hand in his pocket, and asks how much?

"'Nothing to pay,' says the young lady, smiling.

"'What? Nothing to pay?' he repeats in amazement. 'Do I get it for nothing? Do you mean to say that I, a working man, am offered something for nothing?'

"'Nothing to pay,' repeats the young lady.

"'Well, 'pon my honour, this is the first time I've ever got anything for nothing. Come and have a drink.'"

"Some of you fellows who live on the Isle of Dogs have seen the allotment system started there. I asked one of the publicans of the neighbourhood why he complained about the allotments. 'Why,' said he, 'the men used to come in and have a gargle on Sat.u.r.day afternoons, but now they go and dig clay.'

"But ask the men's wives what they say about the allotments, and you will hear a different story. The men now have time not only to cultivate their plots, but to look after their families.

"How many of our poor women who give way to drink can trace their descent to the neglect of the men who married them. It may be hard to be burdened with a drunken wife, but often enough a good deal of the fault is on the side of the husband because of his early neglect. He should have strengthened her. He should have shared her sorrows as well as her joys. We ought not to leave a woman to bear all her own burdens. Many a young wife breaks down because of early neglect at a time when she ought to be built up, when it would be real manliness on the husband's part to put up with a little trouble for her sake.

"Some of you giggle when you see a man nursing a baby in long clothes.

What is there to giggle at? I carried a baby in long clothes up the stairs of Shadwell Station the other day, because I saw it was too much for the poor mother who was struggling along.

"'Here,' I said, 'hand it over; I'm used to that sort of job.'

"My wife heard of it before I got home, and she said to those who told her, 'Well, if the woman didn't thank him, I shall when he comes home.'

"Perhaps you thought I looked a fool clambering up the stairs with a baby in long clothes. I don't think so. I satisfied myself by doing what evidently wanted doing."

He hurried away from his college by the Dock Gates one Sunday morning to keep an appointment to address the Isle of Dogs Progressive Club. He found less than a dozen men in the lecture hall, while the bar and the billiard room were crowded. He walked out without a word and sat down in the club garden.

"This is all right. I'm enjoying myself perfectly here," he told the bewildered secretary. "If they prefer to play at billiards and to drink beer, let them. I am quite content to enjoy this garden."

In ten minutes time not a man remained in the bar or billiard room. The lecture hall was filled.

"We deserve your reproach, Will," shouted someone from the audience when at last he stepped on to the platform.

If he was severe on drink he was more severe on betting.

"Many a man here," he told one of his Sunday morning audiences at the Dock Gates, "can tell me the pedigree of half-a-dozen race-horses. It shows you can think if you like. But that kind of thinking is what I call thinking off-side."

Crooks had a hundred happy ill.u.s.trations for urging upon his working-cla.s.s hearers the duty of citizenship and co-operation.

"We chaps are like the old lady's cow that gave a good pail of milk regular, but often kicked it over. We have built up trade unions and friendly societies and co-operative societies that stand for the best working cla.s.s organisations in the world. But we have a weakness for kicking the pail over. How? Because we are constantly spoiling our own good work by allowing other cla.s.ses to do all the governing of the country.

"It reminds me of a group of boys I saw coming home from a football match.

"'How did yer get on?' they were asked by other lads in the street.

"'Won.'

"'How many?'

"'Seven to nothing.'

"'Been playing a blind school?'"

And then Crooks would go on: "Well, we workers have been the blind school, and we have been allowing other cla.s.ses to score goals against us all the time. If we haven't been blind we've certainly been blindfold. Tear the bandage off your eyes. Be men."

Behind all his banter there was a serious message in all his Sunday morning addresses.

"Labour may be the new force by which G.o.d is going to help forward the regeneration of the world," he told his hearers. "Heaven knows we need a little more earnestness in our national life to-day, and if the best-born cannot give it, the so-called base-born may. We common people have done it before. Who knows but what it is G.o.d's will that we should do it again? We can all afford to laugh at that dear lady, bless her, who could not bear the idea that some of the Apostles were fishermen, and who solemnly asked her minister whether there was not some authority for believing that they were owners of smacks.

"We working men are gaining power. Let us see that we also gain knowledge to use the power, not to abuse it. Parliament is supposed to protect the weak against the strong. It doesn't pan out like that. After all these years of popular education, isn't it about time we taught the dialectical champions in the House of Commons that the people are the creators of Parliament, and that we demand as its creators that Parliament should be at the service of the people and all the people, instead of at the service of the powerful and the wealthy?

"But don't think that Parliament and munic.i.p.ality can do everything.

They are not going to make the world perfect. What they can do and what we should insist on their doing is to make it easier to do right and more difficult to do wrong. They can deal with those 'who turn aside the needy from judgment and take away the right of the poor of My people,'

but they cannot make good men and good women. That must depend upon ourselves."

That College at the Dock Gates can point to some notable achievements.

The Blackwall Tunnel, which has its entrance at the very spot where the meetings take place, was one of the earliest things the College agitated for. Between the dock wall and the tunnel is a large munic.i.p.al gymnasium and recreation ground, the scheme for which was first unfolded by Crooks at the College, when the ground was a waste and the children were without play-places.

Crooks's College began the campaign for a free library. The well-equipped public library that now stands in the High Street was its first achievement. The College founded the Poplar Labour League, which first introduced Crooks to public life. Crooks's College first created the demand for a technical inst.i.tute for Poplar. The inst.i.tute is now an accomplished fact, comprising the best munic.i.p.al school of marine engineering in the country. Crooks's College started the campaign for the footway tunnel under the Thames between the Isle of Dogs and Greenwich, which now serves the daily convenience of thousands of work-people. Crooks's College began that policy of humane treatment of workhouse inmates which had a great deal to do with improved administration of the Poor Law all over the country. Crooks's College was the originator of the farm colony system in this country. Crooks's College stood out for the welfare of Poor Law children. Crooks's College broke down the corrupt practices on three of the old munic.i.p.al authorities in Poplar.