SETH THOMPSON, THE STOCKINGER; OR, "WHEN THINGS ARE AT THE WORST, THEY BEGIN TO MEND."

Leicestershire stockingers call that a false proverb. "People have said so all our lives," say they; "but, although we have each and all agreed, every day, that things were at the worst, they never begun to mend yet!" This was not their language sixty years ago, but it is their daily language now; and the story that follows is but, as it were, of yesterday.

Seth Thompson was the only child of a widow, by the time that he was six years old, and became a "winding boy," in a shop of half-starved framework-knitters at Hinckley,—a kindred lot with hundreds of children of the same age, in Leicestershire. Seth's mother was a tender mother to her child; but he met tenderness in no other quarter. He was weakly, and since that rendered him unable to get on with his winding of the yarn as fast as stronger children, he was abused and beaten by the journeymen, while the master stockinger, for every slight flaw in his work,—though it always resulted from a failure of strength rather than carelessness,—unfeelingly took the opportunity to "dock" his paltry wages.

Since her child could seldom add more than a shilling or fifteen-pence to the three, or, at most, four shillings, she was able to earn herself,—and she had to pay a heavy weekly rent for their humble home,—it will readily be understood that neither widow Thompson nor Seth were acquainted with the meaning of the word "luxury," either in food or habits. A scanty allowance of oatmeal and water formed their breakfast, potatoes and salt their dinner, and a limited portion of bread, with a wretchedly diluted something called "tea" as an accompaniment, constituted their late afternoon, or evening meal; and they knew no variety for years, winter or summer. The widow's child went shoeless in the warm season, and the cast-off substitutes he wore in winter, together with lack of warmth in his poor mother's home, and repulses from the shop fire by the master and men while at work, subjected him, through nearly the whole of every winter, to chilblains and other diseases of the feet. Rags were his familiar acquaintances, and, boy-like, he felt none of the aching shame and sorrow experienced by his mother when she beheld his destitute covering, and reflected that her regrets would not enable her to amend his tattered condition.

Seth's mother died when he reached fifteen, and expressed thankfulness, on her death-bed, that she was about to quit a world of misery, after being permitted to live till her child was in some measure able to struggle for himself. In spite of hard usage and starvation, Seth grew up a strong lad, compared with the puny youngsters that form the majority of the junior population in manufacturing districts. He was quick-witted, too, and had gathered a knowledge of letters and syllables, amidst the references to cheap newspapers and hourly conversation on politics by starving and naturally discontented stockingers. From a winding-boy, Seth was advanced to the frame, and, by the time he had reached seventeen, was not only able to earn as much as any other stockinger in Hinckley, when he could get work, but, with the usually improvident haste of the miserable and degraded, married a poor "seamer," who was two years younger than himself.

Seth Thompson at twenty-one, with a wife who was but nineteen, had become the parent of four children; and since he had never been able to bring home to his family more than seven shillings in one week, when the usual villainous deductions were made by master and manufacturer, in the shape of "frame-rent" and other "charges,"—since he had often had but half-work, with the usual deduction of whole charges, and had been utterly without work for six several periods, of from five to nine weeks each, during the four years of his married life,—the following hasty sketch of the picture which this "home of an Englishman" presented one noon, when a stranger knocked at the door, and it was opened by Seth himself, will scarcely be thought overdrawn:—

Except a grey deal table, there was not a single article within the walls which could be called "furniture," by the least propriety of language. This stood at the farther side of the room, and held a few soiled books and papers, Seth's torn and embrowned hat, and the mother's tattered straw bonnet. The mother sat on a three-legged stool, beside an osier cradle, and was suckling her youngest child while she was eating potatoes and salt from an earthen dish upon her knee. Seth's dish of the same food stood on a seat formed of a board nailed roughly across the frame of a broken chair; while, in the centre of the floor, where the broken bricks had disappeared and left the earth bare, the three elder babes sat squatted round a board whereon boiled potatoes in their skins were piled,—a meal they were devouring greedily, squeezing the inside of the root into their mouths with their tiny hands, after the mode said to be practised in an Irish cabin. An empty iron pot stood near the low expiring fire, and three rude logs of wood lay near it,—the children's usual seats when they had partaken their meal. A description of the children's filthy and bedaubed appearance with the potatoe starch, and of the "looped and windowed" rags that formed their covering, could only produce pain to the reader. Seth's clothing was not much superior to that of his offspring; but the clean cap and coloured cotton handkerchief of the mother, with her own really beautiful but delicate face and form, gave some relief to the melancholy picture.

Seth blushed, as he took up his dish of potatoes, and offered the stranger his fragment of a seat. And the stranger blushed, too, but refused the seat with a look of so much benevolence that Seth's heart glowed to behold it; and his wife set down her porringer, and hushed the children that the stranger might deliver his errand with the greater ease.

"Your name is Thompson, I understand," said the stranger; "pray, do you know what was your mother's maiden name?"

"Greenwood,—Martha Greenwood was my poor mother's maiden name, sir," replied Seth, with the tears starting to his eyes.

The stranger seemed to have some difficulty in restraining similar feelings; and gazed, sadly, round upon the room and its squalid appearance, for a few moments, in silence.

Seth looked hard at his visitor, and thought of one whom his mother had often talked of; but did not like to put an abrupt question, though he imagined the stranger's features strongly resembled his parent's.

"Are working people in Leicestershire usually so uncomfortably situated as you appear to be?" asked the stranger, in a tone of deep commiseration which he appeared to be unable to control.

Seth Thompson and his wife looked uneasily at each other, and then fixed their gaze on the floor.

"Why, sir," replied Seth, blushing more deeply than before, "we married very betime, and our family, you see, has grown very fast; we hope things will mend a little with us when some o' the children are old enough to earn a little. We've only been badly off as yet, but you'd find a many not much better off, sir, I assure you, in Hinckley and elsewhere."

The stranger paused again, and the working of his features manifested strong inward feeling.

"I see nothing but potatoes," he resumed; "I hope your meal is unusually poor to-day, and that you and your family generally have a little meat at dinner."

"Meat, sir!" exclaimed Seth; "we have not known what it is to set a bit of meat before our children more than three times since the first was born; we usually had a little for our Sunday dinner when we were first married, but we can't afford it now!"

"Good God!" cried the stranger, with a look that demonstrated his agony of grief and indignation, "is this England,—the happy England, that I have heard the blacks in the West Indies talk of as a Paradise?"

"Are you my mother's brother? Is your name Elijah Greenwood?" asked Seth Thompson, unable longer to restrain the question.

"Yes," replied the visitor, and sat down upon Seth's rude seat, to recover his self-possession.—

That was a happy visit for poor Seth Thompson, and his wife and children. His mother had often talked of her only brother who went for a sailor when a boy, and was reported to be settled in some respectable situation in the West Indies, but concerning whom she never received any certain information. Elijah Greenwood had suddenly become rich, by the death of a childless old planter, whom he had faithfully served, and who had left him his entire estate. England was Elijah's first thought, when this circumstance took place; and, as soon as he could settle his new possession under some careful and trusty superintendence till his return, he had taken ship, and come to his native country and shire. By inquiry at the inn, he had learnt the afflictive fact of his sister's death, but had been guided to the poverty-stricken habitation of her son.

That was the last night that Seth Thompson and his children slept on their hard straw sacks on the floor,—the last day that they wore rags and tatters, and dined upon potatoes and salt. Seth's uncle placed him in a comfortable cottage, bought him suitable furniture, gave him a purse of 50l. for ready money, and promised him a half-yearly remittance from Jamaica, for the remainder of his, the uncle's, life, with a certainty of a considerable sum at his death.

Seth and his wife could not listen, for a moment, to a proposal for leaving England, although they had experienced little but misery in it, their whole lives. The uncle, however, obtained from them a promise that they would not restrain any of their children from going out to Jamaica; and did not leave them till he had seen them fairly and comfortably settled, and beheld what he thought a prospect of comfort for them, in the future. Indeed, on the very morning succeeding that in which Seth's new fortune became known, the hitherto despised stockinger was sent for by the principal manufacturer of hosen, in Hinckley, and offered "a shop of frames," in the language of the working men; that is, he was invited to become a "master," or one who receives the "stuff" from the capitalist or manufacturer, and holds of him, likewise, a given number of frames,—varying from half-a-dozen to a score or thirty, or even more; and thus becomes a profit-sharing middleman between the manufacturer and the labouring framework-knitters. Seth accepted the offer, for it seemed most natural to him to continue in the line of manufacture to which he had been brought up; and his uncle, with pleasurable hopes for his prosperity, bade him farewell!—

"Well, my dear," said Seth to his wife, as they sat down to a plentiful dinner, surrounded with their neatly-dressed and happy children, the day after the uncle's departure, "we used to say we should never prove the truth of the old proverb, but we have proved it at last: times came to the worst with us, and began to mend."

"Thank God! we have proved it, my love," replied the wife; "and I wish our poor neighbours could prove it as well."

Seth sighed,—and was silent.——

Some years rolled over, and Seth Thompson had become a well-informed, and deep-thinking man, but one in whom was no longer to be found that passionate attachment to his native country which he once felt. The manufacturer under whom he exercised the office of "master," had borrowed the greater part of Seth's uncle's remittances, as regularly as they arrived; and as Seth received due interest for these loans, and confided that the manufacturer's wealth was real, he believed he was taking a prudent way of laying up enough for the maintenance of his old age, or for meeting the misfortunes of sickness, should they come. But the manufacturer broke; and away went all that Seth had placed in his hands. Every week failures became more frequent,—employ grew scantier, for trade was said to decrease, though machinery increased,—discontent lowered on every brow,—and the following sketch of what was said at a meeting of starving framework-knitters held in Seth Thompson's shop but a month before he quitted England for ever, may serve to show what were his own reflections, and those of the suffering beings around him.

About twenty working men had assembled, and stood in three or four groups,—no "chairman" having been, as yet, chosen, since a greater number of attendants was expected.

"I wish thou would throw that ugly thing away, Timothy!" said a pale, intellectual looking workman, to one whose appearance was rendered filthy, in addition to his ragged destitution, by a dirty pipe stuck in his teeth, and so short that the head scarcely projected beyond his nose.

"I know it's ugly, Robert," replied the other, in a tone between self-accusation and despair,—"but it helps to pass away time. I've thrown it away twice,—but I couldn't help taking to it again last week, when I had nought to do. I think I should have hanged myself if I had not smoked a bit o' 'bacco."

"Well, I'm resolute that I'll neither smoke nor drink any more," said a third: "the tyrants can do what they like with us, as long as we feed their vices by paying taxes. If all men would be o' my mind there would soon be an end of their extravagance,—for they would have nothing to support it."

"Indeed, James," replied the smoker, "I don't feel so sure about your plan as you seem to be, yourself: you'll never persuade all working-men to give up a sup of ale or a pipe, if they can get hold of either; but, not to talk of that, what's to hinder the great rascals from inventing other taxes if these fail?"

"They couldn't easily be hindered, unless we had all votes," said the first speaker, "we're all well aware of that; but it would put 'em about, and render the party more unpopular that wanted to put on a new tax."

"I don't think that's so certain, either," replied the smoker; "depend on't, neither Whigs nor Tories will run back from the support of taxes. D'ye ever read of either party agreeing to 'stop the supplies,' as they call it, or join in any measure to prevent taxes from being collected till grievances are redressed?"

"No, indeed, not we," chimed another, lighting his short pipe by the help of his neighbour's, and folding his arms, with a look of something like mock bravery; "and, for my part, I don't think they ever will be redressed till we redress 'em ourselves!"

"Ah, Joseph!" said the pale-looking man, shaking his head, "depend upon it that's all a dream! How are poor starvelings like us, who have neither the means of buying a musket, nor strength to march and use it, if he had it,—how are we to overthrow thousands of disciplined troops with all their endless resources of ammunition?—It's all a dream, Joseph! depend on't."

"Then what are we to do,—lie down and die?" asked the other; but looked as if he were aware he had spoken foolishly, under the impulse of despair.

"I'm sure I often wish to die," said another, joining the conversation in a doleful tone; "I've buried my two youngest, and the oldest lad's going fast after his poor mother; one can't get bread enough to keep body and soul together!"

"Well, if it hadn't been for Seth Thompson's kindness," said another, "I believe I should have been dead by this time. I never felt so near putting an end to my life as I did last Sunday morning. I've been out o' work, now, nine weeks; and last Saturday I never put a crumb in my mouth, for I couldn't get it, and I caught up a raw potatoe in the street last Sunday morning, and ate it for sheer hunger. Seth Thompson saw me, and—God bless his heart!—he called me in and gave me a cup of warm coffee and some toast, and slipped a shilling into my hand." And the man turned aside to dash away his tears.

"Ay, depend upon it, we shall miss Seth, when he leaves us," said several voices together.

"It's many a year since there was a master in Hinckley like him," said the man with the short black pipe, "and, I fear, when he is gone, the whole grinding crew will be more barefaced than ever with their extortions and oppressions of poor men. Seth knew what it was to be nipped himself when he was younger; that's the reason that he can feel for others that suffer."

"It isn't always the case, though," said another; "look at skin-flint Jimps, the glove-master; I remember him when he was as ragged as an ass's colt: and where is there such another grinding villain as Jimps, now he is so well off?"

"The more's the shame for a man that preaches and professes to be religious," said the smoker.

"It was but last Saturday forenoon," resumed the man who had mentioned Jimps, the glove-master, "that he docked us two-pence a dozen, again: and when I asked him if his conscience wouldn't reproach him when he went to chapel, he looked like a fiend, and said, 'Bob! I knew what it was to be ground once; but it's my turn to grind now!'"

"And they call that religion, do they?" said the smoker, with an imprecation.

"It won't mend it to swear, my lad," said the intellectual-looking man; "we know one thing,—that whatever such a fellow as this may do that professes religion, he doesn't imitate the conduct of his Master."

"I believe religion's all a bag of moonshine," said the smoker, "or else they that profess it would not act as they do."

"Don't talk so rashly, Tim," rejoined the other; "we always repent when we speak in ill-temper. Religion can't cure hypocrites, man, though it can turn drunkards and thieves into sober and honest men: it does not prove that religion is all a bag of moonshine, because some scoundrels make a handle of it. Truth's truth, in spite of all the scandal that falsehood and deceit brings upon it."

"Isn't it time we got to business?" said one of the group.

"I don't think it will be of any use to wait longer," said another; "there will not be more with us, if we wait another hour; the truth is, that men dare not attend a meeting like this, for fear of being turned off, and so being starved outright;—there's scarcely any spirit left in Hinckley."

"I propose that Seth Thompson takes the chair," said another, taking off his ragged hat, and speaking aloud.

A faint clapping of hands followed, and Seth took a seat upon a raised part of one of the frames at the end of the shop, and opened the meeting according to the simple but business-like form, which working-men are wont to observe in similar meetings, in the manufacturing districts.

"I feel it would scarcely become me to say much, my friends," he said, "since I am about to leave you. I thought, at one time, that nothing could have ever inclined me to leave old England; but it seems like folly to me, now, to harbour an attachment to a country where one sees nothing but misery, nor any chance of improvement. I would not wish to damp your spirits; but if I were to tell you how much uneasiness I have endured for some years past, even while you have seen me apparently well off and comfortable, you would not wonder that I am resolved to quit this country, since I have the offer of ease and plenty, though in a foreign clime. I tell you, working men, that I had power over Mr.——, by the moneys I had lent him, or I should have been turned out of this shop years ago. Week by week have we quarrelled, because I would not practise the tyrannies and extortions upon working men that he recommended and urged. It is but a hateful employ to a man of any feeling,—is that of a master-stockinger under an avaricious and inhuman hosier. But, if the master's situation be so far from being a happy one, I need not tell you that I know well, by experience, how much more miserable is that of the starved and degraded working-man. Indeed, indeed,—I see no hope for you, my friends,—yet, I repeat, I would not wish to damp your spirits. Perhaps things may mend yet; but I confess I see no likelihood of it, till the poor are represented as well as the rich."

It might produce weariness to go through all the topics that were touched upon by Seth and others. They were such as are familiarly handled, daily, in the manufacturing districts; ay, and with a degree of mental force and sound reasoning,—if not with polish of words,—that would make some gentlefolk stare, if they were to hear the sounds proceeding from the haggard figures in rags who often utter them. The "deceit" of the Reform Bill, as it is usually termed by manufacturing "operatives;" the trickery of the Whigs; the corruption and tyranny of the Tories; the heartlessness of the manufacturers and "the League;" and the right of every sane Englishman of one and twenty years of age to a vote in the election of those who have to govern him, were each and all broadly, and unshrinkingly, and yet not intemperately, asserted.

One or two, in an under-tone, ventured to suggest that it might be advantageous to try, once more, to act with the Anti-Corn Law men, since many of the members of the League professed democracy; and, if that were done, working men would not fear to attend a meeting such as that they were then holding. But this was scouted by the majority; and a proposal was, at length, made, in a written form, and seconded,—"That a branch of an association of working men, similar to one that was stated to have been just established at Leicester, should be formed." The motion was put and carried,—a committee, and secretary, and treasurer, were chosen,—and the men seemed to put off their dejection, and grow energetic in their resolution to attempt their own deliverance from misery, in the only way that they conceived it could ever be substantially effected: but their purpose came to the ears of the manufacturers on the following day, threats of loss of work were issued, and no association was established!

Seth Thompson took his family to the West Indies, pursuant to the many and urgent requests contained in his uncle's letters, and soon entered upon the enjoyment of the plenty in store for him. Hinckley stockingers remain in their misery still; and, perhaps, there is scarcely a place in England where starving working men have so little hope,—although "things," they say, "have come to the worst,"—that "they" will ever "begin to mend."