WHERE ARE THE “NUTS”?
He has been an ardent advocate of the Agricultural Labourers’ Union. He and his wife are both members of the N.U.T. to-day, and have been during the past eight years. Mrs. Higdon was this year made honorary member by her Association, East Dereham, in order to ensure her continuance of her qualification for support could she not afford to pay.
In order to relieve the anxiety of a few up-to-date doubting Thomases I here insert certificate of membership:
No. 44,784.
Received of Mrs. Higdon (1913), of Burston, Diss., following amounts on behalf of N.U.T. and the East Dereham Association.
Subscription. | ||
| s. | d. |
Annual to Local Association | 3 | 0 |
Annual to N.U.T | 12 | 0 |
Signature of Local Secretary or Treasurer, A.E. Tripp. | ||
Mr. Higdon’s 1914 membership card is 41,534. He possesses similar receipts right up to date.
In order also to relieve the minds of a few gentlemen who know so much that is not so, Mr. and Mrs. Higdon have not received one penny piece from the “nuts” of the N.U.T. Executive. They have taught during the last sixteen months without fee, and the villagers, having understudied Elijah’s raven, have, out of their humble cupboards, supplied the Higdons. Pardon this digression.
Now to come to the root cause of the persecutions.
Those in authority like not the cold, clear light of public opinion to be focussed upon their apathy and neglect.
For centuries have squire and parson held the countryside in subjection. “Ye shall know them by their fruits.”
Low standards of living, emigration, insanitary hovels, and servility—these are the fruits. The Parish Council Elections, both at Wood Dalling and Burston, gave the owners of the people’s lives a severe shock.
At each place, Assistant-Master Higdon and the agricultural labourers topped the poll. At Burston, Higdon defeated the very Reverend Rector, C. T. Eland. An unpardonable offence. He topped the poll, and with him five labourers were elected, thus displacing the parson and the landowners. After these victories, the persecutions commenced, both at Wood Dalling and Burston.
“Go, Tubal, fee me an officer, I will have the heart of him.”
I am also proud to add that in spite of the most strenuous (or strenuseless) opposition, spite of clergy and farmers’ malice, Higdon and his friends have carried their housing agitation to victory—the Local Government Board having just given their decision in favour of the Burston Parish Council against the District Council, that the houses must be proceeded with forthwith. No wonder the villagers are gratified.
Often have the younger end to wait until their elders die off ere they can get married, and the funeral-baked meats oft furnish the Matrimonial Passover.
When we learn of people crowded in small sleeping rooms, and Barnardo children occupying one-storied insanitary hovels, with outside walls only seven feet high, and damp rooms on ground floor, unfit for sleeping in, we may easily guess the fight the schoolmaster had to make.
Strange is it not that gentlemen living in the best house in the village—as clergymen generally do—should be such strong opponents of good homes for other Christians?
The only faults Mrs. Higdon had to find at school were simply faults which every lady inhabiting a house would seek to remedy. Faults of lighting, heating, drainage, and schoolhouse pump which were essential matters to the health of even labourers’ offspring.
The reverend manager and his local committee, however, objected.
The schoolroom fire was lit upon wet mornings to dry the children’s clothes, as the third radiator of the heating apparatus did not sufficiently warm the room. The Reverend Eland visited the school and the mistress explained to him her reasons for lighting this fire occasionally. Strange to say, he agreed with her, and advised her to write Mr. Wade, of Shimpling. He not replying (according to his usual practice) silence was taken as consent.
Not before a new body of managers was formed, with the reverend gentleman, who had previously given his permission as chairman (C. T. Eland), was the complaint re fire re-resurrected.
So much for the fire, the whole fire, and nothing but the fire, so help your wet clothes.
“Trivialities oft usher in tragedies, however.”
WHAT “JOHN BULL” HAD TO SAY.
The next complaint was more successful. Mrs. Higdon was accused of caning two Barnardo children, discourtesy to the managers, and our dear old friendly complaint, fire-lighting, once more. These complaints, like the previous ones, were completely false and unfounded. During these complaints Mrs. Higdon was helping the reverend gentleman with his lantern entertainments.
John Bull, referring to the matter, says: “The role of scape-goat was reserved for the schoolmaster’s wife.”
At the last election the schoolmaster, with five labourers of his own way of thinking, was triumphantly returned to the Parish Council. Room was made for them by the unseating of the rector and the leading farmers. In these striking circumstances, it is perhaps not surprising that the managers of the school should have entreated the County Education Committee to remove them “to a more genial sphere of work.”
An early opportunity was found to charge her with the ill-treatment of two of her pupils and—whisper it with bated breath—“intentional discourtesy to the rector’s wife.”
That two respectable teachers should be hounded out of house and home simply upon the testimony of a poor Barnardo waif—who privately denied what she publicly confessed, excusing herself by saying “she would have been thrashed by her foster-mother if she had not said so” seems beyond belief.
Still the fact remains that Mrs. Higdon did not cane the child, as the whole of the school children can prove. She does not belong to the cane family. Furthermore, the sequel to this complaint proves her entire innocence. Pity, indeed, is it that those who were seeking excuses for her removal could not find a single parent or child belonging to the village to complain of Mrs. Higdon’s treatment of them.
1. That the head teacher has been discourteous to the managers.
2. (a) That in view of the direct conflict of evidence with respect to the caning of the Barnardo children they are not able to give a decision on this matter; but they are strongly of opinion that there is no evidence at all that the girl (E.C.) is mentally and morally deficient, or a danger to the school, as stated in the letters of the head teacher and her husband. (The head teacher said she was “somewhat” mentally deficient, which, of course, alters the context).
(b) That, in their opinion, these children are well treated and cared for by their foster-mother, and that the children are not afraid of being beaten by her.
(c) That in their opinion the communications sent by the head teacher and her husband to Dr. Barnardo’s Institution were not warranted by the facts of the case.
The sub-committee, after most carefully reviewing the whole of the evidence, advise: “That it is to the interest of elementary education in this village that the head teacher should seek other employment with as little delay as possible. That no punishment book having been kept in this school by the head teacher prior to this occurrence she be directed faithfully to keep such book.”
So the forces of reaction had triumphed. First, accused and condemned by false stories put in the mouths of babes, eight and nine years’ old respectively; secondly, because the Higdons had written to the Barnardo Institution hoping to receive real justice from an impartial tribunal, not local village justice; thirdly, insulted about an ancient rule of Sir John Gorst’s re punishment book, which other teachers in the county did not possess. Thus they were supposed to have received their quietus.
The inquiry was practically a funless farce. Higdon and his wife received short notice to vacate the schoolhouse (left in the lurch by the N.U.T., as at Wood Dalling and at Burston, where the representative, after promising that a slander action would take place as soon as possible, became frightened at his own bravery, and thought better of it), they felt inclined to understudy poor Joe, and move on.
At this juncture all seemed lost. The Higdons, poor financially and politically, having no rich Liberal nor Tory champion, were confronted with that “remove to a sphere more genial,” which their most Christian friends desired.
The Burston Dyaks seemed to have succeeded, when all at once a change came o’er the scene. Here entereth the school children. Not meaningless are the beautiful words, “A little child shall lead them.”