第144章

Mr Bosher, a popular preacher, the Vicar of the fashionable Church of the Whited Sepulchre.He collected some subscriptions from a number of semi-imbecile old women who attended his church.With some of this money he bought a quantity of timber and opened what he called a Labour Yard, where he employed a number of men sawing firewood.Being a clergyman, and because he said he wanted it for a charitable purpose, of course he obtained the timber very cheaply - for about half what anyone else would have had to pay for it.

The wood-sawing was done piecework.A log of wood about the size of a railway sleeper had to be sawn into twelve pieces, and each of these had to be chopped into four.For sawing and chopping one log in this manner the worker was paid ninepence.One log made two bags of firewood, which were sold for a shilling each - a trifle under the usual price.The men who delivered the bags were paid three half-pence for each two bags.

As there were such a lot of men wanting to do this work, no one was allowed to do more than three lots in one day - that came to two shillings and threepence - and no one was allowed to do more than two days in one week.

The Vicar had a number of bills printed and displayed in shop windows calling attention to what he was doing, and informing the public that orders could be sent to the Vicarage by post and would receive prompt attention and the fuel could be delivered at any address - Messrs Rushton & Co.having very kindly lent a handcart for the use of the men employed at the Labour Yard.

As a result of the appearance of this bill, and of the laudatory notices in the columns of the Ananias, the Obscurer, and the Chloroform - the papers did not mind giving the business a free advertisement, because it was a charitable concern - many persons withdrew their custom from those who usually supplied them with firewood, and gave their orders to the Yard; and they had the satisfaction of getting their fuel cheaper than before and of performing a charitable action at the same time.

As a remedy for unemployment this scheme was on a par with the method of the tailor in the fable who thought to lengthen his cloth by cutting a piece off one end and sewing it on to the other; but there was one thing about it that recommended it to the Vicar - it was self-supporting.He found that there would be no need to use all the money he had extracted from the semi-imbecile old ladies for timber, so he bought himself a Newfoundland dog, an antique set of carved ivory chessmen, and a dozen bottles of whisky with the remainder of the cash.

The reverend gentleman hit upon yet another means of helping the poor.

He wrote a letter to the Weekly Chloroform appealing for cast-off boots for poor children.This was considered such a splendid idea that the editors of all the local papers referred to it in leading articles, and several other letters were written by prominent citizens extolling the wisdom and benevolence of the profound Bosher.Most of the boots that were sent in response to this appeal had been worn until they needed repair - in a very large proportion of instances, until they were beyond repair.The poor people to whom they were given could not afford to have them mended before using them, and the result was that the boots generally began to fall to pieces after a few days' wear.

This scheme amounted to very little.It did not increase the number of cast-off boots, and most of the people who `cast off' their boots generally gave them to someone or other.The only difference It can have made was that possibly a few persons who usually threw their boots away or sold them to second-hand dealers may have been induced to send them to Mr Bosher instead.But all the same nearly everybody said it was a splendid idea: its originator was applauded as a public benefactor, and the pettifogging busybodies who amused themselves with what they were pleased to term `charitable work' went into imbecile ecstasies over him.