"Sending their chimbleys up to Bethnal Green to be swept instead of employing local labour!"
The callers at his house were in no sense confined to his neighbours. One day it would be C. B. Fry, the cricketer, another day G. K. Chesterton the critic—neither of them for the first time; and again George R. Sims, Beerbohm Tree, Lord and Lady Denbigh, Miss Gertrude Tuckwell, Father Adderley, Bernard Shaw, Earl Carrington, and the Rev. Charles Sheldon from the United States—to mention but a few of the men and women of widely different walks of life who are pleased to number him among their friends.
Mr. Sheldon called soon after the great boom of "In His Steps." On several occasions Crooks piloted him through the slums of the East End. While looking round a typical court the American minister asked one of the women when they had seen a parson there.
The answer came, "We ain't seen no parson down here since we lived here, fifteen years."
"I don't wonder that people are bad," remarked Mr. Sheldon to Crooks. "The wonder is that people are so good as they are."
Before returning to America Mr. Sheldon sent Crooks a parting note, ending, "I shall always remember you as you stand, 'in the thick of it,' for the rights of little children and brother men."
Outsiders who visit Crooks find him precisely the same man as his neighbours find him. He has personal friends in the Peers' House as well as in the Poor's House, but his manner changes not in the company of either.
This characteristic trait in Crooks led Mr. Chesterton, in his book on "Charles Dickens," into an instructive comparison:—
The English democracy is the most humorous democracy in the world. The Scotch democracy is the most dignified, while the whole abandon and satiric genius of the English populace come from its being quite undignified in every way. A comparison of the two types might be found, for instance, by putting a Scotch Labour leader like Mr. Keir Hardie alongside an English Labour leader like Mr. Will Crooks. Both are good men, honest and responsible and compassionate, but we can feel that the Scotchman carries himself seriously and universally, the Englishman personally and with an obstinate humour. Mr. Keir Hardie wishes to hold up his head as Man, Mr. Crooks wishes to follow his nose as Crooks. Mr. Keir Hardie is very like a poor man in Walter Scott. Mr. Crooks is very like a poor man in Dickens.
A little incident bears out Mr. Chesterton to the letter. While Crooks was showing a party of titled people at their request round some of the dark corners of Poplar he was greeted as usual by all the children playing in the streets. Seizing the blackest of them he presented the youngster to one of the ladies of the party, a well-known peeress.