Sam shook his head, but the manner of the man had attracted him, and eventually he told all his story to him. Reggie North listened earnestly, but the noise of the disputants in the next box was so great that they rose, intending to go to a quieter part of the large room. The words they heard at the moment, however, arrested them. The speaker was, for such a place, a comparatively well-dressed man, and wore a top-coat. He was discoursing on poverty and its causes.
“It is nothing more nor less,” he said, with emphasis, “than the absence of equality that produces so much poverty.”
“Hear! hear!” cried several voices, mingled with which, however, were the scoffing laughs of several men who knew too well and bitterly that the cause of their poverty was not the absence of equality, but, drink with improvidence.
“What right,” asked the man, somewhat indignantly, “what right has Sir Crossly Cowel, for instance, the great capitalist, to his millions that ’e don’t know what to do with, when we’re starvin’?” (Hear!) “He didn’t earn these millions; they was left to ’im by his father, an’ he didn’t earn ’em, nor did his grandfather, or his great-grandfather, and so, back an’ back to the time of the robber who came over with William—the greatest robber of all—an’ stole the money, or cattle, from our forefathers.” (Hear! hear!) “An’ what right has Lord Lorrumdoddy to the thousands of acres of land he’s got?” (‘Ha! you may say that!’ from an outrageously miserable-looking man, who seemed too wretched to think, and only spoke for a species of pastime.) “What right has he, I say, to his lands? The ministers of religion, too, are to be blamed, for they toady the rich and uphold the unjust system. My friends, it is these rich capitalists and landowners who oppress the people. What right have they, I ask again, to their wealth, when the inmates of this house, and thousands of others, are ill-fed and in rags? If I had my way,” (Hear! hear! and a laugh), “I would distribute the wealth of the country, and have no poor people at all such as I see before me—such as this poor fellow,” (laying his hand on the shoulder of the outrageously miserable man, who said ‘Just so’ feebly, but seemed to shrink from his touch). “Do I not speak the truth?” he added, looking round with the air of a man who feels that he carries his audience with him.
“Well, mister, I ain’t just quite clear about that,” said Reggie North, rising up and looking over the heads of those in front of him. There was an immediate and complete silence, for North had both a voice and a face fitted to command attention. “I’m not a learned man, you see, an’ hain’t studied the subjec’, but isn’t there a line in the Bible which says, ‘Blessed are they that consider the poor?’ Now it do seem to me that if we was all equally rich, there would be no poor to consider, an’ no rich to consider ’em!”
There was a considerable guffaw at this, and the argumentative man was about to reply, but North checked him with—
“’Old on, sir, I ain’t done yet. You said that Sir Cowley Cross—”
“Crossly Cowel,” cried his opponent, correcting.
“I ax your pardon; Sir Crossly Cowel—that ’e ’ad no right to ’is millions, ’cause ’e didn’t earn ’em, and because ’is father left ’em to ’im. Now, I ’ad a grandmother with one eye, poor thing—but of coorse that’s nothin’ to do wi’ the argiment—an’ she was left a fi’ pun note by ’er father as ’ad a game leg—though that’s nothin’ to do wi’ the argiment neither. Now, what puzzles me is, that if Sir Cow—Cross—”
A great shout of laughter interrupted North here, for he looked so innocently stupid, that most of the audience saw he was making game of the social reformer.