To-morrow (Thursday) Evening the Delegates to the Charwomen’s Conference will march to the Statue of John Bright in the Great Market Square to demand a Compulsory Pint of U. P. Stout with the midday meal.
The Right Honorable Sir Augustus Bimley, K.C.M.G., P.C., Britain’s First and Still the Best Bookmaker M.P. will assume the Plinth at nine o’clock precisely (weather permitting).
After the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Blackhampton has offered a short prayer, Dame Agnita Shrubsole, D.B.E. (“Aunt Mittie”) will address the gathering.
N.B. ENDOR MUST GO
“Very pretty!” Again Sir Munt paid involuntary tribute. “Very nice, indeed!” He handed the leaflet to his friend. “What do you think on it, Murrell?”
The Alderman adjusted a pair of gold-rimmed eyeglasses, a replica of the Mayor’s, and read the document with care.
“Charwomen don’t cut much ice, anyway,” was the comment of Alderman Murrell.
The further-seeing man of affairs took him up sharply. “Don’t make any mistake, my boy. Charwomen have all got a vote these days, the same as you and me. That’s where the fun comes in. Aunt Mittie’s Own Journal sells its millions of copies a week. And if you subscribe to it, you get reductions on everything from a nightgown edged with Honiton lace to a bottle of lime juice cordial. You can also ballot for free tickets to the movies, the Christmas Goose Club and the U. P. Burial Society. I tell you, my boy, you get your money’s worth with Aunt Mittie’s Own Journal.”
“How they do it for twopence a week—that’s what gets me!” The mind of the linendraper Imperialist moved in a rather narrow orbit.
“They don’t do it—not on the paper. But what they lose on the swings, they get back on the roundabouts. And don’t forget this, Murrell, if it comes to a showdown the U. P. can afford to lose on the swings and on the roundabouts, because the cocoanuts, my boy, will get them home every time. And why, Murrell?” A touch of forensic passion had begun to work in the veins of Blackhampton’s first citizen. “Because Mugs like you and me are the cocoanuts. We are being milked dry, my boy—we, the Middle Classes, the folk who have a bit to lose and haven’t learnt to defend it. The Charwomen’s Conference is up-to-date Communism, my boy, with a certain newspaper Boss behind it all. He and his Ring, who have corralled the country’s power, are keeping the workers quiet by showing them how to dip their hands in the pockets of you and me.”