Each According To Their Means Each According To Their Ability

Not since the children of Israel rose up to frolic and to play, indeed not since the Dionysian revels of that rebellious tribe have so many cast off all restraint with the blessing of a triumphant and hence charitable few. The unfettered success of an electoral fraud has spurred Master Eccles to declare an extra day of rest and unbridled festivities, and lo! The people discarded their tools, took up their Sunday best and bedecked themselves most joyously in Tory favours!

A triumphal arch of Laurel Leaves and Hawthorn Berries festooned with the Royal Insignia of the Essence of Gove has been erected before the town hall, and a Maypole now stands erect in the town square.

“Eh up our Alice, goest thou to the May Dance? There’s pleasure to be had there by such as bonny as thou!” Green eyed Alice, with her raven black hair and fresh complexion, Alice of the Dimsdales would stand speechless had she the will,”Wouldst thou dance this day?” she protests,”And on whose grave? Knowst thou not that the Potters and Stampers of Grodden Parnock Refinery are to be laid off? And what of the men of Brume Polder whose furnaces are to be shut down? Are they to dance and prance too? Nay mother, I’ll not dance whilst men are deprived of employ and their families left to starve!” there can be no more comely a lass than Alice, and yet so grave a lass is she that nought will court her! For though it may be said of many a lass that they harbour a populous solitude, whilst at work in the factory or the field, Alice’s mind nourishes one idea above all else ‘De chacun selos ses faculties, a chacun selon ses besoin’ which is to say, from each according to his means to each according to his ability. According to the tenets of Gove t’is a most heathen saying, t’is one devoid of that shrewd wisdom so typifying Tory thought. Yet tis all Alice chooses to ponder and reflect upon, small wonder then, that none intent upon their own social improvement will court her!

“Nay lass, don’t take on so! T’is only a May Dance and a bit of a celebration!” to this Alice makes no reply stood out as she is on the doorstep, surveying all the revelry going on around her and wondering how the townsfolk will rue it in the cold light of day. There goes Charlotte Dymond clad in a crisp white frock with a blue ribboned bonnet, hark at her laughing! Why who would think that her grand-da lay on his death bed without a pension to bequeath to his widow? Now look at Methuselah Gray! Dancing a caper along the cobbled streets with a quart of brandy in his grip, his shoulder length grey hair flutters in the wind as he celebrates the fact that today he may eat and drink to his heart’s content! T’will make up for all the months of short work he and his kith and kin have been forced to endure he is certain!

The town is a-riot dear reader! But not with the overthrow of its betters, much to the discouragement of Master Benjamin and his fellow Iron-Reformers who now sit, disconsolate in the Quaker Meeting Hall. “Comrades! Will you tamely submit to being deprived by a gross fraud of the whole value of a franchise conferred by the people of Molten Tussock Major upon thee?” the Union Rep asks, “Brothers! The undisturbed success of one fraud may act as a stimulus to renewed exertions of the same character! Would you have this most audacious of swindlers, this ruthless perpetrator of a most heinous act of fraud go unchallenged? Nay my friends! You must fight this result tooth and claw!” Those present at the meeting listen raptly to all he has to say but at the end of the day they are stolid northern men not easily moved by sophistry. They do however stand in awe of the Union Rep’s deeds and these alone have seeded in them a glimmer of hope as to their chances of restoring democracy to the town.

“Oh we have fought!” cries the Reverend Parnham mournfully,”We have fought till our eyes were red from lack of sleep and our voices hoarse! Why Master Turnham campaigned so hard he caught influenza and near died from it!”

“Yes” murmured the congregation in sympathy “Say on brother! Would that there were a God to smite Master Eccles and purge him from our midst!” a dire wish but what strength of feeling dear readers!

“Ah but there is!” declares the Union Rep “Have you not heard the story of David and Goliath? Yet comrades what was the outcome? This Goliath laid low in the dust! Think on that my friends! Think on it and rise up and fight!”

“But with what pray tell? Our resources are exhausted, all as could have, have paid their membership dues, the elections have took all we had!”

“Yes! Say on Brother and what of the end result? Nowt has changed?” cries Master Wendell his face flushed with anger, it reminds the Union Rep of the ferocious rage of the London chimney sweeps and of how it swept all before it! “Nowt has changed? All has changed! Democracy has been overthrown! It has been abducted by as villainous a rapscallion as ever graced this town with his accursed presence! My brothers we must wrest democracy out of his claws and restore her maiden honour! We have little by way of means though we all share the belief that what has gone on here cannot be allowed to go on for much longer!”

“Here here!” cries Lord Douglas “Bravo!” much to the surprise and terror of all present he has forced entrance to this meeting, determined to weigh in and do his bit. Until now the Earl of Grodden Parnock and Brume Polder has been unusually quiet and reflective, but now he feels he must speak up and speak up he does. “How many years has Master Eccles dwelt within our bodies?”

“Nigh on twenty year too many” is someone’s sour reply,

“In that time how much good has been done to our town?”

“Himself grows fatter and fatter whilst manpower is reduced and short hours increased!” is another’s equally sour reply.

“What words are there to describe the slough of despond into which the town has fallen?” exclaims the Reverend and as one the listening men sigh, only to have their audible discouragement cut off by a peremptory snort from Lord Douglas.

“Slough of despond be damned! cries he, the muscles of an iron-puddling practitioner rippling beneath his jacket,”We will have rid of this iron master you have my word on it! Now I am told that Master Francis serves up grand fair after these meetings, is that true?”

“Aye my lord!”

“Then” says his lordship to all and sundry,”May we eat?”

The Union Rep Takes Up A Righteous Cause!

The Union Rep MP

Come dear reader, let us avert our eyes for a time from the bewildering hideousness of St Bacchanalia’s Asylum. Let us purge our souls and lustrate our hearts of its base and pernicious influence. Let us wander instead over croit and dale, over tulach and hillock, until at last, to the north of the village of Molten Tussock Minor, we come upon the town of Molten Tussock Major.

The northernmost fount of all fortifying commerce concerned with the mastery of iron; it is here the Goveen initiates abide, mastering the art of iron-puddling. T’is here the Goveen initiates abide, mastering the art of Iron-Puddling. T’is here they study and train for much of the day, within the sanctum of a newly opened Hesketh Ragged School. Once they were apprenticed Iron-Slitters, manacled and bound over in heart and mind by the sinister Reverend Tout-Puissant but no more! No more the terrors of an Industrial Academy long since burned to the ground! They are Iron Puddlers now and soon to be apprenticed if the Machiavellian hindrances of Master Eccles may be overcome.

“Master Eccles says as he’ll take none recommended by such as thou, thou rabble-raising loon! T’was thee as brought mayhem to the streets of London an he says he’ll have none of thee!”

“T’is the lads that need apprenticing not me, I wonder that he’d stand against such fine lads as these

apprenticing themselves to a living as would put bread in their families mouths!”

The Union Rep stands bemused and indignant,

“I’ll not regret those actions that have raised the wages of thousands and improved their working conditions to boot!”

Were it not for the melancholic results of Molten Tussock Major’s council elections all would be well. The Iron Reformer’s Party would hold the majority of council seats; Master Eccles hold over all iron commerce in the town would be broken, and the boys might apprentice with whom they wished. But, if ever democracy held sway in Molten Tussock Major, it has long since fled, chased out by the impious machinations of Master Eccles and his Tory Coalition.

A town council election was held, the first in which a viable (and popular) opposition has stood in in nigh on two centuries, but what of the outcome? The mayor is still a Tory, the bulk of councillors (bar Master Benjamin) are still Tories, yet all and sundry swear that they had cast their votes for the Reformer’s Party!

T’is often said that England’s peaceful governance lies in the English genius for compromise, in the stolid ability of all its politicians to agree a middle way. Alas then, that this impeccably flawless talent has long since been discarded in Molten Tussock where a vote may be cast only with the unction of Master Eccles!

“Will Master Rynders say nothing? Will he not intervene?”

Master Parnham and Master Knowham look to Master Benjamin of Polder Brum, who must give his report,

“Master Rynders has suggested we approach Gabriel Sydenham, im as runs the Elysium Iron Foundry. T’is well known that he cares not a brass farthing for Eccles. This I gladly did and was told to inquire of Lord Douglas at MacGregor House.”

“MacGregor House? T’is strangely named!” replied the Union Rep

“It has been renamed” replied Master Benjamin

“T’was known as Brume Polder Folly in the days of his ancestors, but his Lordship has proclaimed to all and sundry that he would sooner cut his own throat, than have his country seat hold a name that has been sullied by the taint of the brotherhood!”

At this news the Union Rep is elated,”Anti-Goveen?”

“Anti-Tory as well! He’ll have none of them! Why he took a bullwhip to the last Tory councillor to set foot on his land!”

“Terrible behaviour! When shall you approach him?”

“Tomorrow, the settling of farmers wages takes place then, I shall make inquiries of the estate steward, t’is certain he’ll agree to speak to the master on our behalf, his brother-in-law is a member of the Iron Reformers Party”

The matter settled, to his mind, Master Benjamin cheerfully took his leave of the company, heading off for the school stables whence his horse was being most wondrously shod, by an Iron-Puddling apprentice who had also seen some degree of training as a blacksmith, ere he had been palmed off onto the Iron-Slitting Academy.

Master’s Knowham and Parnham wonder that an entire town’s democratic liberties should be kidnapped and held captive by a solitary Iron Merchant such as Master Eccles.

“T’will not do!” declares Master Knowham

“T’is a less than farrantly state of affairs” agrees Master Parnham

“T’will cost a pretty penny or two to correct” exclaims the Union Rep with a steely glint in his eye,

“How much of a pretty penny?” asks Master Parnham, who in truth ought to know better than to encourage one who as the newly minted MP of Bow & Bromley has only recently embraced a genteel respectability.

“The kind of penny that only Lord Douglas might care to spend!”

Three Escape From St Bacchanalia or The Whimsy Of Lord Wilberforce!

 

The banks of St Bacchanalia’s Asylum are deep solitudes, places of dark and sombre reflection. Yes dear reader, places in which many a Goveen monk, pondering the marshes of Grodden Parnock , whilst lifting his heart to the thunderous heavens, has leapt head first towards the essence of Gove and out of the abbey’ windows. Indeed the boglands of St Bacchanalia’s Asylum lie surfeit with the rotted skeleton of these devotees, who have, they say, ascended unto the essence of Gove! Sweet Gove! Oh that these acolytes might have found more prepossessing ways of embracing thy exalted munificence!

Here scuttle two such initiates now, red-eyed, cassocked and manacled. Manacled?! Manacled! Stumbling over bog and marsh, grunting and panting profane utterances, moving at such a speed that one might think the hounds of hell to be at their backs. As indeed they might be for hark! The alarums of St Bacchnalia’s Asylum shriek maniacally in the distance, t’is certain the farm dogs are not far behind!

“Faster damn you! Move faster Horace! Molten Tussock lies ahead, t’is but half a league I tell thee!”

“Mah Lord I cannot! Me legs won’t take me much further, I’m tuckered aht!”

But Lord Wilberforce will not be thwarted, for murder most foul, accompanied by utter incompetence, has now thrust this angel of the apostasy forth upon this world and he will not be thrust back! Had anyone but Horace L’eauregarde hampered his progress! But t’is Leauregarde, co-partaker in his crimes and sufferer-in-kind of the horrors of St Bacchanalia.

T’was he who had freed them from that vast maw of madness! T’is he whom he regales with tales of murders past (bestial and depredatory)which they have committed and intend to commit. Murders which led to the abrupt termination of the life of debauchery they had so vigorously enjoyed! Shocking crimes which, whilst staining the family honour irrevocably, provoked no more than a languorous yawn of pleasure from his Lordship Wilberforce, hence St Bacchanalia!

Leauregarde, his strength renewed, hobbles on and soon finds himself entering a well-worn graveyard on the outskirts of Molten Tussock. Ah! Molten Tussock! Lately home of the deceased Reverend Tout-Puissant who now lies in that part of the graveyard reserved for unhallowed deaths. But now here lies a sight for which the wit of man cannot conceive an explanation, a boy, cherubic in appearance kneels before a gravestone, a worn copy of the Testimonies of Gove clasped to his little breast, a lone, forlorn presence in in this solitary place, he alone mourns the passing of the Reverend.

“Oh, but look your Lordship!Look!” dishevelled and devilish, Leauregarde his face awash with murderous glee, advances but the cold grip of Wilberforce Hesketh-Elderberry stops him.

“Oh Sweet Gove! Mystery of mysteries! Oh! Tueri of my soul! Have mercy upon me!” cries out Monty sobbing so quietly (that even these two fresh escaped inmates must creep closer to hear him) Monty Eckard plucks a sparkling white handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his flushed face with it.

So bereft, so heartbroken, once plucked like a brand from the burning and now plummeting back into that vast maw of Malthusian catastrophe some called London, for now his Iron-Slitting apprenticeship is past where else is he to go? The Union Rep had promised him a berth at the most prestigious ragged school in all of London, run by the most estimable Lady Hesketh-Elderberry, but what mean’t that to such as he? Severed from the succulent vines of the Goveen priesthood he must surely perish!

The poor boy sobbed and sobbed as if his little heart were as broken as his little neck might well have been, had Leauregarde (and not Lord Wilberforce) grasped it.

“Keep still you little devil or I’ll cut your throat!!”

“Oh don’t kill me sir! Don’t hurt me! You are a Goveen are you not sir? Does it not say in the Testimonies of Gove that none are so deserving as the poor?”

“Which sonnet?” asked Lord Wilberforce as he tightened his hold on the boy’s shirt front,

“The Patriarcha! As composed by Brother Filmer!”

“Recite it to me!” said he loosening his grip and the child did so, hand upon his shirt front as he swayed hypnotically from right to left and back again reciting the Sonnet of Patriarcha in the sonorous tones of the late deceased Tout-Puissant. T’was wondrous to behold and Lord Wilberforce little doubted that, with Leauregarde kept in check, the child would prove a most affable companion on his long journey back to London.

“Cor ad loquitur my child! Your utterances have flooded my spirit with such joy!”

Clasping the child’s small, cold palm in his, his eyes rolled heavenward and he sighed,

 “The last time I felt such ecstasies t’was at St Paul’s Cathedral, in the company of the Reverend Unctuous! Then stood I before the altar of Gove bathed in that sweet radiance which his presence alone exudes!”

“The blue light?”

“The bluer light my child! So smitten was I by his holiness that I prayed that he might take me up to the third heaven. To that exulted paradise whence sit all those who have attained a degree of spiritual perfection!”

“Where sir?”

“I’m hungry child, have you something I and my companion, Brother Leauregarde, may eat?”

“I have a little bread and some cheese sir, and a cold chicken stuffed with Turkey Twizzler compote”

“Dear boy!”

And as the two men fell upon the victuals ravenously was ever a boy more rapt with joy? Alone no longer, no longer bereft, but rapt! Rapt with joy and no longer alone! Seated upon the gravestone of the Reverend Tout-Puissant, swinging his dainty legs to and fro, he observed his two companions. He noted for the first time their manacled feet and hands and hesitantly asked,

“Shall I fetch an iron file from the blacksmith’s forge? Then you may cut your chains and we may be away to London!”

L’eauregarde favoured the child with a calculating look, does he mean to report them to a constable? But Lord Wilberforce clasped the child to his muddied cassock and bestowing kisses upon his head, sent him off with the unction “May Gove go with you!”

“Sweet Gove” replied the poor, deluded, acolyte, for acolyte he had become and to one whose fiendish crimes once sparked riots through half the slums of London!

 

Hell Hath No Fury Like A Goveeen Tenet Scorned!

How unlike the paradise of which Sweet Gove spoke is this place! Heaps of smouldering iron litter the school grounds like the litterings of that hound of hell, Cerberus. The fragrant countryside air has long since fled and in its place? Dense smoke billowing out of the Iron-Slitting furnace and wreathing the cold grey stone of the chapel in it’s choking embrace. The grounds of Molten Tussock Academy may be likened to the very bowels of hell wherein that great beast – the spirit of Mammon- is said to abide, mired in the slough of despond, that place which impoverished Iron-Slitting apprentices are said to endure.

A second beast has arisen from that selfsame pit dear reader, but he is not as the first. For this one is a half-burned facsimile of a reverend of the Goveen Brotherhood, and one whose unbridled love for the tenets of Sweet Gove have unmanned him! Goveen adulation has altered him dear reader, and now here he stands,transformed from a spritely but naive youth to a pitiful ego fixated degenerate! Hunched over and limping towards the bell tower in his soot covered cassock, the far-from-saintly Reverend Tout Puissant is the very embodiment of vindictive malice…

Indeed, one doubts not that once he has climbed the bell tower and surmounted its pinnacle, all who have forsworn Goveen Matins will rue the day they were born!

“Bar the door Obed Plum! Bar it! Quickly now! The rapscallion is almost upon us! Can ye not hear him?” they all can, for t’is the bellowing, braying, rage of a crazed fanatic intent upon first seizing and then punishing his prey! T’is a scandal dear reader,a scandal and a disgrace! But once humility has fled (dragging reason along with it) who may say what will take its place?

 Now rocked from pillar to post by one violent explosion after another and now choked savagely by the vast plumes of smoke wreathing the chapel like a shroud the Iron-Slitting apprentices are terror stricken. But amongst them there is one who is not swayed, and dropping to his knees in a newly acquired attitude of prayer he speaks these words,

 “I am not nor ever was a churchgoing man but if ever we need thy help god, t’is now! HELP!!”

 By the standards of the tenets of Sweet Gove, his, is a succinct prayer (mercifully!), and is soon joined by dozens of others “Help us God! Send swift deliverance!”

Help is not long in coming, indeed it is almost at hand for look you, here is the UNION REP! Wrapped loosely in a cloak that has been drenched in water and struggling valiantly across the school grounds he stops just short of the tower, looking up he cannot see ought through the smoke, but he can hear the dim cries of Master Parnham and the apprentices.

“If ever we’ve needed thee Jehovah it is now!” the faint strains of mournful singing float down from that dismal place and in such a place as this! Where the fires rage and burn at every crevice and corner of the chapel, except at this one where the bell tower lies. Time wasted,thinks the Union Rep, is souls lost!

“Master Knowham! Have you the grappling hooks and the ropes!”

“Aye! I have em! Dear God we have arrived just in time!”

“Then let us begin!!”

Throwing off their sodden cloaks and rolling up their shirt sleeves the men throw up their grappling hooks until the hooks are fast secured upon the wall of that great bell tower. Their climb is an arduous one, many times are they tempted to turn back as the flames leap high beneath them and grey smoke billows above. But the desolate wails issuing forth from the tower compell them to tighten their grips on the soot blackened ropes and keep climbing,

“How goes it Master Knowham!”  the Union Rep yells though his voice can scarce be heard over the raging flames,

“Climb sir! Climb!” comes the reply, “There is no time to waste, climb or the boys are for it!” roars Master Knowham as he climbs fist over fist, doing all within his power to reach the top of the bell tower and his son before the flames do.

How best to describe the infernal vista Molten Tussock had become, best not to describe it, but to give thanks to the farmers of Molten Tussock minor, that humble village on the outskirts of Molten Tussock major. For on spying the smoke some distance from their village,  the alarm bells are rung  and the fire wagons rushed out speeding towards Molten Tussock as if for all the world the devil is at their heels. Oh how the flames sought to drive them back as they rushed to and fro in a frenzy seeking well water and pump water with which to put the fires out!

And all the while the terrible sound of braying issuing forth from within the chapel, “Ere but don’t that sound like-” says one farmer as he fills his bucket at the pump for the upteenth time, “The madman whats burned down iz own school with them poor kids in it?” replied another glaring balefully at the chapel door,”best to let mad men lie if you ask me! We’ve enuf to be going on with,more water?”

“Drive that wagon closer to the chapel! Man the pump boys! Man the pump!” the more the fire crackles and rages, the faster the men move, driving the wagons up against the base of the church and streaming water up and around till the ground is sodden and the bricks give off a vaporous mist.

“Climb damn ye! Keep climbing! We’re almost there!” hauling themselves over the wall of the bell tower the two men seek those pitiful souls whose wailing cries have urged them onto the rescue. See there huddled fast against the hot bricks, two dozen tormented apprentices pleading so loudly for deliverance that they can scarce believe their eyes when it arrives. Bundling them towards the wall and over it, Master Knowham tries to rescue Master Parnham, but just as he is about to do so the bell tower door buckles inward, and the Reverend Tout-Puissant staggers out of the smoky darkness.

“Where are they? Where are my charges?” but his apprentices have been swiftly bundled up in warm blankets and the wagons carrying them gallop as far away and as fast away as the stamina of the horses will allow!

“It’s you! T’is your infernal inspections that have unravelled all my good work!”

“Not I sir! Look roundabout you!” the farmers have done all they can, the blackened ruins of a farmhouse, the dying embers of the iron furnace, these are all that remain. The fire has swept over all, devoured all, all but the Goveen chapel towering oppressively over the bleak landscape.

“What should I do? What will I do? They are gone, all gone! My darling ones!” and with that the Reverend, staggering towards the bell tower wall, hurls himself over it.

“Shocking simply shocking!” declares Master Parnham who was as he has said, deeply troubled and shocked.

“Shocking and scandalous!” opined Master Knowham as he prepares to descend the bell tower once more.

“A ruinous waste of a perfectly good school, the Bow & Bromley Board shall hear of it!” declares the Union Rep gleefully.

For the Bow and Bromley Education Board had accompanied him on the journey down from London. So that they might inquire as to the disappearance of Master Parnham, however as soon as  the coach entered Molten Tussock village they had observed the blaze. And desiring to avoid all association with yet another Goveen scandal, they had retired to the village inn for the night. How appalled they would be once they’d heard all that had transpired, and how eager they would be to redeem their reputations by funding another Hesketh-Elderberry-McTavish Ragged School!

Of Triumphant Emancipation From Waged Slavery!

Of all the righteous deeds that ever took place beneath the sun this was the best, of all the pleasures that from justice should ever transpire this was the most enduring.  To see now the gates to Newgate Prison opening slowly and the prisoners both dazed and bemused stumbling forth. T’is a clear, cold, day my friends and one as will be etched in the memories of those who reluctantly did the liberating for some time to come. To have made reparations for a great social wrong and to have been made to do it, for fear of blossoming scandal! Why, even the bells of St Sepulchre ring out exultant over this triumph!

Look there my brothers and sisters look there! T’is the Union Rep! Valiant yet shrewd, heroic and yet longsuffering! Borne away upon the bowed shoulders of the silk mill workers, they whose reputations once smeared and sunk in calumny, now stand vindicated. An open cart stands a’fore the prison gates and as they place him down in it there he stands, waving his arms aloft and waiting for silence. All necks are stretched eagerly in his direction, all starved faces upturned. So many earnest faces, so many hope filled gazes from those who have braved the workhouse and prison for this victory.

“My Brothers and sisters! I stand before you as a man humbled by your sacrifices! For whilst I have slept comfortably upon a prison bed, many amongst you have braved the charity of Mr Ethelbert-Smythe and his workhouse!”.

Hearing the muttered curses and surveying the scarce hidden rage of the workers the Union Rep smiles inwardly, he continues “Ours has been a great sacrifice, family members transported to the colonies ne’er to be seen again if our masters had their way!”. Here and there loud sobs and howls of rage may be heard and still the Union Rep speaks on,”We have lost much my brothers and sisters, so much and yet in the end, they as called themselves our masters were forced to defeat! The eight hour day is ours my friends! It is ours and with it decent pay!”

“How much?” cries first one soul then another, for though word has reached them all, they will not believe it until he as has led them says it is so.

“Five shillings a piece for every adult, two shillings for every child”. Silence and something worst than silence, a thousand faces struggling betwixt faith and disbelief, five shillings? Five? They glance at each other, they look up at the stolid face of a man who has never yet lied to or misled them. Five shillings? Can it be true? After all this hardship and heartache? To return to work with improved wages and working conditions? Without further transportations or hangings? Can it be so? The adults struggle with this good news, but the children roar exultantly,“Hurrah for the Union Rep! Hurrah Hurrah for the Union Rep!”. And soon their cheers are joined by their mothers and fathers, their aunts and uncles, their brothers and sisters and grandparents, in short all the vast, grimy forest of indigent poor bearing London aloft on its shoulders. “Hurrah for the Union Rep!” the cart makes its way through the crowds that throng it and is soon lost amongst them as it is driven back to that place from whence it came,St Giles.

“Can it be true? Are they indeed freed? It seems but a dream! Would that my brother were here to enjoy this sight!”

Wendy Woodbine tilts her beribboned bonnet at the cart as it passes her, “T’is certainly strange” remarks the young man with her, tilting his hat with one hand, whilst the other, gloved in grey leather, rests upon an elegantly carved cane, “One would think he was royalty!”

Not since the funeral of that venerable fireman Master Braidwood, have such crowds lined the streets and thronged the byways of London. Not since the hanging of Mother Birthe-Rugge has there been such high spirits and good humour. See there calmly marching the chimney sweeps, red scarves tied around their necks, their scarlet banners held aloft for all to see. The music hall entertainers trail behind them, armed with musical insturments and waving their bowler hats in the air, whilst the ladies twirl their skirts and dance to the tune ‘Oh Susannah!’.

All the traders along the way have shut up shop, and now they also line the streets cheering and waving their caps in the air,”Hurrah for the silk mill workers, hurrah, hurrah and down with the rich!”. Hurrah and down with the rich! What a cry to freeze the heart and chill the bones of the aristocracy were it to be taken seriously! But only a few of its members are present and they are wholly disinclined to attend to the brayings of an impoverished mob. See there that glossy black carriage with the Westminster Palace coat of arms emblazoned upon it. But pray who is seated within it? None other than the Prime Minister and Palmerston!

“Is all in order?” asks the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston nods,

”Yes, but there were complications”

“What complications? How hard can it be to make off with a carpet bag?! Don’t tell me its still here! Lord Grid-Iron cannot still be in England!”

“A robbery was attempted by American secessionists and foiled by the Bow Street Police”

“By whom?!” The Prime Minister looks horrified but Lord Palmerston smiles,

“Mr Thickett-Kane whom we now have under arrest, fortuitously Inspector Depta was on hand with his men and so was able to take matters in hand”

“But what would he want with Lord Grid-Iron? Please tell me they shot the ingrate! The carpet bag, where is it now?”

Lord Palmerston pulled out his pocket watch, glancing down at it he said, “At this precise hour he’ll be aboard the Resurgam and on his way to the Americas, I don’t expect we shall ever lay eyes on him again”

“But what if he should think to return?”

“He will already have been apprised of how much the government knows, about his business dealings in the Crimea, t’is an act of high treason he has committed. I feel sure that once he comes to his senses he will consider his imposed exile a mercy!”

“Excellent! Now tell me, how goes our venture in the Crimea?”

One hundred and eighty dead from the failed Light Brigade charge in Balaklava, five hundred dead at the Battle of Inkerman…in fact this ‘venture’ fares not very well at all. Truth be told with statistics as inconvenient as this mounting up like the bodies of the dead, t’is a relief that such as Lord Tennyson exist. “Why such soaring prose as his stirs the patriotic and urges us on to further bravery, for ours is a just cause!” declares the recalcitrant Palmerston. The carriage glides on through the crowds with its politicians deep in discourse and wholly oblivious to the power of the poor that will, in due course, bring about the downfall of the cabinet, if these politicians but knew it!

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Miscreants,Murder & A Member Of That Luckless Tribe

How can one describe that first day of the siege of Newgate? Deepest, darkest, night has stolen over the Newgate in a serene and imperturbable manner. It is a night lit up here and there by the gas lamps carried to and fro by prisoners as they tend to their business in the confines of the gaol. It is a night filled with fierce expectation and for some thick with dread. The cells and wards are empty, for all have spilled forth from the bowels of the prison to man the walls and gates against the enemy without. There is not a prisoner (nor a gaoler), that is not manning some point of exit or entry, against the fierce onslaught of the owners of the means of production! For they have all heard tell of the dreadful consequences of such uprisings, of the hangings and transportations that must surely follow.

Unless, that is, the Union Rep can force the hand of Aberdeen’s government bringing them to a position of negotiation. A dozen bonfires have been lit providing some warmth and light for the men and women clustered around them. The comforting blaze cheers the hearts and lightens the conversations of those who sit cleaning their rifles before the open fires.

“Do you think they will give us what we ask?” whispers Nathaniel to Bart Tobin who shrugs and replies, “Did they do so before? But then what choice do we have? T’is this or  a hanging!”

“They’ll not hang me!” replies Aggie Brandt aggressively twining together two sticks of gelignite, “If you ain’t more careful with them explosives they wont have to!” retorts Nathaniel as she thrusts the bundled sticks of dynamite into her waistband. “I’m waiting for one of those politicians to pass a little closer to them walls so I can drop a tidy parcel of fireworks on em!” she replies.

“Just one tidy parcel?” asks Nathaniel Spate whose eldest son has been transported to New Zealand already, and whose wife and children must now throw themselves on the mercy of the Spitalsfield Workhouse. “And us bound for the long drop already! What’s the point?” muttered another as he wrapped his jacket more tightly about him.

“What’s the point?” exclaims Bart Tobin, “What’s the point? When ye little ones was staggering abowt with nowt but a rotted piece of bloater to eat, did ye ask then what the point was? When you and yours warmed yourselves by a candle whilst the bosses family set all snug and comfy by a roaring fire, did you need to ask then what the point was?”

Nathaniel shook his head in agreement, “Come man! There’s stories amongst us that should make a mill owner cry for shame but they will not! An as should make them politicians negotiate a compromise but they will not!”

“Oh but they will!” replied another, set close by the fire his face covered in bristle and part obscured by shadow, “Or we shall blow their precious Bastille up and mingle our blood with theirs in the doing of it!” and so the talk continued loud and ferocious for a spell before lulling into silence broken only by the sound of weapons being disassembled, cleaned and reassembled. But in the midst of all this industriousness and brooding introspection, there drifted hither and thither two men. Cloaked mostly in shadow, though, from time to time, their earnest faces were lit up by crimson flame, they walked amongst the workers stopping to talk briefly with first this one and then that one. Like ephemeral spirits they appeared to float from the grounds of the prison to its walls, their heads pressed close together. Until at length one of them cried out,”Yes I see it! I have it! Come with me!”.

The eyes of the silk mill workers follow the brisk quick steps of both men with something akin to hope, for it is none other than the Union Rep and an intrepid reporter lately returned from the Crimean War and t’is of this they are talking. “We can have no reason to regret our military losses against such a brutal and savage enemy. The war went hard against our men but they fought valiantly, most valiantly sir! T’is my only regret that as out numbered and out-gunned as we were, we could not carry the day and many brave lives were taken”.

The Union Rep shakes his head grimly and puffing hard on his pipe catches the eye of the newspaper reporter. There is neither humour nor anger in that gaze but it is cool and steady and it makes the intrepid reporter swallow, hard.

“We have talked at length of the strike and the riots and this siege of Newgate prison and yet always, always, you draw our conversation back to the charge of the Light Brigade. Out with it! What has the Crimean War to do with this strike?”

And so the intrepid reporter tells him of his sea voyage on the Resurgam and of his arrival at Sebastopol. He speaks of the pride and valour of war, of the desperate courage of the soldiers as they fought back wave after wave of Russian infantry. “They were like lambs to the slaughter! Done to death by the hissing fire of cannon, struck down by the murderous onslaught of grapeshot and cannister! Oh! They were heroic in battle! But they had not a chance, the Russians were too well equipped with cannon and gun!”. The reporter’s face was expressionless as he stuck his hand inside his shirt and pulled out a little brass gun plate and with it a photograph, these he handed to the Union Rep who stared at them hard in the half light of a camp fire.

Is it possible dear reader to describe the emotions that flitted in rapid succession over the Union Reps face? First, horror that a representative of the crown could be guilty of such heinous treachery. Then disbelief at the very notion of a politician profiting from the deaths of men he himself had helped send to war! Finally, triumphant glee for now he has a winning hand and there will be no more hangings nor transportations! Not after this! “Grid-Iron armaments?! Lord Grid-Iron supplied the cannon and guns the Russians used at the Crimea? Lord Grid-Iron?! But they say the man has gone missing!” he looked sharply at the intrepid reporter,

“Who else knows of this?” the young man blushed with rage, his eyes lit up with a dangerous fire, “Why only the man who put me here in this prison, till I should agree to change my story” the Union Rep smiled grimly, “Let me guess, it was Lord Palmerston? Then we have him at the rattle! If this story gets out it’ll bring the whole government down! Nathaniel Spate & Aggie Brandt to me!”. As if from nowhere the two silk mill workers materialise, weapons at the ready, “Aggie Brandt, I need you to get a message across to Lord Molesworth’s housekeeper! Nathaniel I need you to cut across to James Fitchett and here’s what you are to say”. He divulged his information to these trusted scouts and watched them closely as like him they first displayed horror and then implacable rage.

“But isn’t the prison being guarded?” asked the intrepid reporter, though in truth had he been a member of the under-classes he would have known,” The Bow Street police, the silk mill workers and the prison guards all have one thing in common, they’re all union. Nathaniel and Aggie will pass as easily through their ranks as if they were ghosts in the night!”

The Union Rep puffed on his pipe once more and chuckled for it seemed to him that the sweet smell of liberty was within his members grasp!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Avenging Finger Of An Offended Deity

It is not my purpose dear reader, to describe in any amount of detail Inspector Depta’s sly progress up the carpeted staircase and along the gallery that led round to the back of the house. Nor do I intend to recount in any detail his journey from room to room or the criminal scenes he encountered within, scenes of such infernal wickedness that he might have effected a dozen successful arrests . Suffice it to say that eventually, he lit upon the chamber in which the unfortunate Lyca McKillen slept her drugged sleep. Her innocent blonde head lay upon a brace of sparkling white pillows, and though she lay unmolested she lay not in that chamber alone! For another was there, a bearded man whose greying brow furrowed deeply as he slept, one who clutching pen and paper in his fist lay curled up upon the hearth rug snoring like a swaddled babe.

The sight of him caused Inspector Depta to reflect most morosely on the ever diminishing likelihood of his early retirement. Looking upon the prone (and therefore vulnerable) miscreant a while longer however, the Inspector thought he espied an opportunity to kick Lyca’s inconvenient abduction under the Bow Street Detective Police carpet. Garbed as he was in crumpled evening wear, highly suggestive of a night actively spent midst the flesh pots of 5 Gulliver Place, and in the arms of an under-aged woman, Inspector bethought himself that this intrepid reporter’s fate was sealed. “A more naive cove I ain’t never seen in my life! Get up! Go on! Get up!” he roared administering a hefty kick to the prone journalist lying at his feet. He glanced at the extravagantly garbed figure of this ‘intrepid reporter’ little doubting that he’d have him ensconsed within the four walls of Newgate Prison before the sun was down.

“Get up God damn ye!”

The intrepid reporter groaned and rolled to and fro clutching his bruised shin, he rubbed his shin some more, rubbed his forehead, and abruptly sitting up found himself at once greeted by a sight which though confusing to him, was most fortuitous given the rapidly unveiling circumstances.

“So, it is you Inspectah Deptaa!” exclaims he his  bleary eyes alight with sudden perspicacity, “The prodigious enabler of the deflowering of our British maidenhood’s maidenhood! Servant to the satanic slaving hordes of London! You sir are a disgrace to your office! You are a disgrace to the uniform you wear sir! A disgrace!”

Adminstering another kick (this time to the reporter’s backside) causing him to sprawl on the rug, the inspector chuckled, “I ave no uniform as such, and you sir and your big mouth ave been found in the wrong place at the wrong time! Nah! Lets be ‘avin yeah! GET UP!!! I said get up!! I am arresting you in the name of all—”

Now, dear reader, let us contemplate this delightful moment in which both prone victim and bullish victor contemplate each other. Watch with bated breath as the intrepid reporter thrills responsive  to the compromising position in which Inspector Depta has unwittingly put himself. To have coincidentally presented oneself, in the bedchamber of a drugged yet untainted maid on the brink of being forever ruined by a predicatorial degenerate! For it is certain that Mrs Ada did not herself call for his services! Why, here is a headline in the making! And as if lit up in blazing red letters above the inspector’s head the intrepid reporter see’s it now,’Rabidly Licentious Detective of Bow Street, Succumbs To Brothel Fuelled Depredations!’.

“Better to be bald as a Dutch cheese than to come to this!” declares the intrepid reporter a fervid gleam of triumph entering his eyes,”D’you what?!” exclaims the inspector for he has not yet grasped how precarious is his position. “Bald as a Dutch cheese! Bereft of position, reputation , of money ,than to be discovered! And in the grip of a vice such as this!” the intrepid reporter declares once more, pen gripped in hand and writing, upon that crumpled sheath of papers clasped in his ink stained hand.

“Vice?” declares the inspector looking puzzled,”Vice? Why gentlemens of eminent standing has been enjoying they-selves in the homes of  licentious bawds for countless centuries!”

“With children?” asks the intrepid reporter his eyes raised momentarily from the page on which he is writing, “With what?!” bellows the indignant Inspector Depta, “With children” continues the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette calmly,”Purloined from the Spitalsfield’s Workhouse and Dispensary and sold, enslaved, to white slavers operating dens of ill-repute, such as this one. Many have recoiled in shuddering horror from places such as this! A den whose minions feast lustfully upon the flesh of our helpless maidens! And you Inspector! You uphold their dissipated depravities by failing to arrest them!”.

“Arrest them?” the Inspector is bemused,

“Arrest them! Here dwells a foul enchantress!”

“What? Mrs Fard?!”

“Arrest her! And in the scarlet room and the violet room lie two who, bestial, brutal and ferocious, would call themselves eminent  politicians! Arrest them sir! Arrest them!”

If ever the inspector were to aim a blow at this imbecilic creature’s head, now would be the time. Arrest the cream of England? And merely because they had carelessly strayed from the corridors of power into Mrs Fard’s brothel? T’is beyond all contemplating so far as he is concerned. He eyes the fervent reporter (crumpled evening dress and all ), the way he would a starved rodent. Arrest a member of parliament? A member of the aristocracy come to that!

“abominable, unutterable, and worse than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived” continues the intrepid reporter his pen moving feverishly across the page, “But it is true, and the publication of these evil deeds is necessary , for here is a den of infantile iniquity and here is an inspector who supports it. In fact the more I think about it, the more I believe that your interests would be best served if you were to take me into your confidence”.

“Your confwidence?!”

“Yes, when first did you happen upon this Minotaur’s den of iniquitous depravities ,and decide to do nothing about it?”

“Do naahthink abowt it? I’ll bloody well do something about you!” and with a bellicose roar of rage the Inspector raises his billy-club, but as he prepares to bring it down upon the head of the half prone journalist two things occur at once. The scream of an awakened child terrified by the near- spectacle of an attempted murder. And worse yet the sound of a thunderous northern voice jubilant in it’s triumph,”So! Inspectah Depta! We have you at the rattle!”,the Inspector knows and loathes that voice once it had been the voice of a potential victim, now it is the voice of an eminent politician. Pocketing his billy-club and adjusting the tilt of his heart the inspector turns on his heel and attempts to smile,”Well and if it ain’t the Union Rep!”

 

 

 

The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon

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“There…there is the very girl that was made for you. If she had been made to your order she could not have suited you better”
“Indeed, sir, is not that young woman white?”
“Oh no sir! She is no whiter than you see!”
“But is she a slave?” asked the preacher
“Yes” said the trader,”I bought her in Richmond, she comes from an excellent family”.
– Clotelle; or, The Colored Heroine

T’is almost autumn and as the leaves start to turn yellow and drift delicately down from the trees, Inspector Depta walks briskly towards Gulliver Place. Five Gulliver Place sits at the end of a pristine street; it is an elegant Dowager of a house, clad in Ivy, with a sparkling white door and an old fashioned wrought iron gate barring the way to all but the most influential, the most affluent, and therefore the most worthy. Across the road from the house is a small park encompassed by a wrought iron-fence on which perch Starlings and the odd Blue-Tit. Lush, Rose Bushes squat in the rich, green, grass of this park and squirrels gambol to and fro, from time to time they clamber up the Elm Trees and along their branches to the squealing delight of the children skipping along the paths beneath the trees. T’is a thoroughly lovely location for an apprenticing into the oldest profession in the world or at least it was. But now the Inspector finds himself ascending the steps to this infamous address with heart in mouth and the Union Rep (now turned MP), close on his heels.

The front door glides open and as a maid bows smartly before him her pretty wide eyed face framed by a linen cap, he thinks himself one of the most fortunate men in all of England. To have stepped where so many eminent men have also trod,and to have profited so graciously thereby! To have served the great, the good and the wealthy and have obtained two promotions (and his own Brougham Carriage) as a consequence! “Is your mistress at home?” the girl nods, “Here’s my card” for in establishments such as these he says precious little that would endanger his credibility as an officer of the law. The maid seeks out her mistress and Inspector Depta at once notes how serenely quiet this esteemed environment is. One could almost fancy that one were present in a domestic establishment. A beautifully furnished, plushly carpeted domestic sanctuary of a type he might well create for himself once he has put by sufficient.

At length the girl returns and escorts him into Mrs Fard’s morning room, a light and airy place, facing onto a small carefully tended garden, well hidden behind layer upon layer of lace and taffeta curtaining. Mrs Fard is a slender woman, bright of eye and handsome of carriage, a slaver of children though she claimed to have seen better days (once). He has heard tell that she has connections, though in truth he has yet to meet a nunnery keeper who boasts otherwise. He had also heard tell that she came from aristocratic stock, though Constable Qwinty (who’d arrested her several times in her youth) had said different.

“Well, and what may I do for you Inspector? They’re no gentleman here to speak of this morning and the girls are all a-bed as I was till you called”

“My apologies”

“Indeed, will you take tea?” Inspector Depta blushes slightly, he coughs politely,

“Whisky ma’am if you please”

“Whisky? At this time of the day? What ails you Inspector?”

“A discarded child” he replies sombrely,

“A discarded child?” says she, a cold smile alighting upon her handsome face,”There are no discarded children here, there are only workers, all wanted, all welcome!”

“This child” he continues, “Was lately orphaned and has drawn the attention of two influential men…two politicians”

A curve to those lips that one could easily mistake for a delighted smile if one did not know the woman, “Oh.Which worker?”

Inspector Depta knocks back his whiskey and rubs his gnarled fist over the back of his head,”Lyca McKillen”

A thinning of the lips accompanied by the narrowing of those fine brown peepers and the Inspector thinks he can breathe a sigh of relief,

“Lyca? The little runt I bought off of Billy? A pretty penny I paid for her! Why without my intervention she would have been nought but a societal encumbrance and what’s my thanks?The girl will do little for me and even less for the custom I place her with! Why I’ve had to give back twice what I paid for ‘er and soothe the custom into the bargain! She’d do better at the bottom of the Thames that one! Who are the men?!”

And here the Inspector knows he must be very careful, say the wrong word and the child may well end up a footnote on the page of some London Bridge Obituary.”Men of high reputation and unblemished honour, she was took from them and they want her back,is she ruined?”

Mrs Fard doesn’t answer straight away, she’s too busy pouring Assam tea into a translucent china tea cup,”We’re a busy establishment I’ve not had the time!! Would they have her drugged or drunk?” says she taking a nip of tea. For Mrs Fard’s prestigious establishment is famed for the compliant disposition of her ‘apprentices’ and she will not have that hard earned name tarnished.

“What was she when you last took hold of her?”

“Drunk” she declares nonchalantly,”But dressed (alas!) in a manner thoroughly in keeping with taste and delicacy”. The Inspector proffers a wry smile, aren’t they all to begin with? Now to cut to the chase,”Where is she?”

“Upstairs, asleep”

During the day they’re always asleep, he knows this from previous visits when both he and his men have had to dispose of the body of some poor girl, brutalised by a misbehaving customer. Mrs Fard’s Gulliver residence, a place where victims can scream to their heart’s content and not be heard, where the murdering is always prodigwous quiet and the witnesses always fast asleep!

(to be continued)

The Inspector

 

 

 

Descendit Ad Inferos

 

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“Oh my dear Sirs! In what raptures I was, when first I came to Molten Tussock!” cried Monty Eckard, clutching the Testimonies of St Gove to his worsted frocked chest. “T’was as though the very ether of Sweet Gove had fallen upon my senses! The first time I heard Sweet Gove’s voice I was in the Iron Slitting pond, wading through the muddy waters sorting mud from Iron slit. T’was on a day when all seemed heavy and burdensome, t’was before the days of the Reverend Tout-Puissant”.

The Bow & Bromley Education Board, listening with ever increasing ire, to the wan faced child’s ‘religious’ experiences, remains silent. T’is more out of practicality than inclination, since they are moving at break neck speed along bumpy country roads and, must therefore concentrate their efforts on remaining upright. But one there is who, seated outside the carriage, alongside the carriage driver, leans forward into the oncoming wind like a Greyhound sniffing out his prey. His greying hair flies loose in the wind, his blue eyes are narrowed to mere slits and his lips, bluish with the cold, are pursed thin with foreboding.T’is none other than the Union Rep, or should I say the Member of Parliament for Bow & Bromley,”Dare’st we go no faster comrade? The greatest evil ever to befall man has befallen the Iron Slitting Apprentices at Molten Tussock! I know not what disaster we shall find ere we reach there!”

“My little Obed Plum is apprenticed at Molten Tussock Sir, as well you know! Any faster and the wheels may fall off the carriage! Were the fiends of hell at my horses’ heels I darest not gallop any faster than I do now Sir!” And so the coach and its glossy coated stallions gallop on, over hill and dale and tussock. Light fails and yet ever onwards they speed,through mire and mud, and the nefarious mists oozing forth from the marshlands that surround them. “Where is this?” asks the Union Rep, a fierce and sullen look clouding his brow, “T’is the swamplands of Brume Polder” replies Master Knowham with an equally fierce look. “Thats not the place where?” Master Knowham nods his head,”The same, nigh on twenty apprentices drowned tanning moleskin leather  trousers in the bogs, and the rest, struck down by the Scarlet Fever, t’was a terrible scandal Sir!”

“And who, pray tell, was held responsible?” asks the Member of Bow & Bromley but he thinks he already knows the answer,”T’was the most Reverend Tout-Puissant! He as had the boys worshipping and meditating on the testimonies of Gove for so many hours that, their constitutions being quite run down, t’is a wonder any of them survived the onlaught of the Scarlet Fever. And now you may answer me Sir! How such a one as he came to be made Headmaster of Molten Tussock!”

“I know not! And t’is to my shame to say that! Can ye not go faster comrade?” and suddenly having recalled the tragedy of Brume Polder, Master Knowham finds he can. Faster than the speed of light, faster even than the frigid breeze caressing their faces, so fast that the horses’ hooves seem scarcely to be touching the ground they pass over. And so as the miles pass the spectre of Molten Tussock looms ever nearer.

So, dear reader, let us turn our attentions back to Master Parnham. He whom we left venturing forth from the Slitting Iron Tower, hand-in-hand with little Obed Plum. Into the twilight evening they slip, limbs a-tremble and hearts beating so fiercely within their narrow chests, that t’would seem as if the fierce palpitations warned against their imminent entry of that fearful heathen sanctuary known to all apprentices as ‘The Chapel’. T’is twilight but the skies above are alight with colours seldom glimpsed in this world or the next. For t’is twelve hours since the slitting works was last attended to. “All is not right Master Parnham” wails Obed, his eyes widening with fear at the sight of the scarlet tinged blue flames belching forth from the cavernous mouth of the overheated slitting furnace.

“Worry not child, I am with thee” murmured Master Parnham patting little Obed’s tiny, calloused palm with his wizened hand. Master Parnham is serene, indeed murderously so, and as a thunderous rage courses through his blood he rediscovers a burst of youthful energy he believed had long since fled his weary bones. With one swift, wiry, kick the oak doors are flung open and the incense wreathed scandal within is piteously revealed.Pew after pew of weary starved looking apprentices turn to look at him, their faces etched with exhaustion their trembling fingers nervously clutching at their leathern testimonies. And all the while as he draws ever nearer to the altar that terrible unearthly singing,

“Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray!

Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray!

Up on the mountain Sweet Gove spoke,

Out of his mouth came fire and smoke!

Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray!

Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray! “

The Most Reverend Tout-Puissant is deep in meditation, so deep that he does not see the outraged Inspector wrenching at his cassock until it is too late. To be one minute caught up in the ecstasies of Sweet Gove, and the next fending off an enraged School’s Inspector, well dear reader, is it possible to convey the degree of ignominious shame and humiliation which stole none too sweetly over the Reverend? I think not. But more was to follow for all of a sudden the ground beneath their wrestling bodies shook and trembled and a thunderous roaring noise ensued. “Look fast Master Parnham! Look fast! The furnace has blown!” bellowed little Obed his pale face a grim mask of horror. But looking up from the aisle floor Master Parnham smiled, leaping to his feet nimbly he grasped hold of Obed Plum shouting “Nay lad! But I have been here before! Apprentices of Molten Tussock to me!”. And so it t’was that the aged Mole-Trouser-Stretching Master rescued the apprentices of Molten Tussock.

To be continued…..

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of Black Holes & Endless Rapture

T’is more than eight years since the Silk Mill Riots of Grid-Iron Square and the overthrow of Lord Montaperti and his cronies. T’is less than five years since, at the urging of its constituents, the Union Rep was first elected Member of Parliament for Bow & Bromley. In that time he has scaled many a mountain of Tory opposition and with the help of his enraged Liberal comrades righted many a wrong. And by god if there isn’t such a wrong to be righted here in the midst of this education board, if he might but be allowed to sniff it out! Clearing his throat and getting to his feet the Union Rep examines the placid countenances of the men sat before him.

The air is redolent with the fragrant smoke of their Cuban Cigars, paid for by the blood and sweat of their workers no doubt. And yet for all that, when it comes to the proliferation of Industrial Academies for the training of their workers’ children, these education board members have plainly shown they have a conscience.

“Gentlemen, I would speak to you all on the matter of Molten Tussock Academy”

A look of puzzlement alights upon the flushed faces of the Bow & Bromley Education Board. Molten? Tussock? Would that be the name of  one of their schools? Glancing across the table on which sit several decanters of port and the remains of a prodigious luncheon,the Union Rep can make out the indolent face of Lord Elderberry who yawningly replies,”Molten Tussock Industrial Academy I think he means. Yes and what of it?”

And at this, this acknowledgement that such a school exists the Union Rep feels his heart skip a beat, so far so good. “T’is ten months since Molten Tussock Industrial Academy was inspected and nigh on twelve since Master Parnham’s inspection report was due; where is it and where is Master Parnham?”

“Master Parnham? The Mole Trouser Stretching Master? T’is hard to say, I’m told that from time to time he resides at Bethlem Asylum”

“Bethlem Asylum? He has not been seen there for some time, in fact since he undertook to inspect Molten Tussock he has not been seen at all”. Does the smile on Lord Elderberry’s gaunt face seem a little strained? Or is that just the Union Rep’s impression? He continues,”Indeed it is almost as if Master Parnham has fallen off the face of the earth and I could almost believe this to be the case, were it not for little Monty Eckard”

“Monty Eckard?” replies Master Dimmott a concerned look on his face, for the child’s parents and grandparents are some of his best Iron Slitters.

“Aye! The poor child has travelled many miles (and in fear of his life!) over Bow Creek Way and Bromley Marsh on foot and with much troubling news of Molten Tussock”.

“How so?”

“T’would be best if I allowed Master Eckard to recount his experiences to you all” he looked at all gathered there balefully,”Mayhap thou mightst decide what t’would be best to do…in the circumstances. Lydia?”.

“Yes Sir?”

“Fetch in Monty Eckard will thou lass?”

“Yes Sir” curtseying smartly the serving maid leaves the room for a moment,briskly re-entering with a little pinch faced boy trailing in her wake and loudly singing an infamous little ditty.

“Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray!

Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray!

Up on the mountain Sweet Gove spoke,

Out of his mouth came fire and smoke!

Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray!

Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray! ”

Master Dimmott’s gentle inebriation is soon dissipated by a surge of anger,of outright indignation that only the singing of such a song can provoke. Other board members are disturbed by the sight of this eight year old child swaying hypnotically from side to side, his eyes half-closed his left hand clasped to his be-jacketed breast as if he were swearing an oath to some unknown deity.

“Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray!

Everytime I feel the plumb-line moving on my heart I pray!

Up on the mountain Sweet Gove spoke,

Out of his mouth came fire and smoke!”

The Union Rep fixes Lord Elderberry with a sour smile, his Lordship squirming uneasily in his seat daren’t speak. Reaching down to the child swaying gently at his feet Master Dimmott seats him carefully upon his lap encouraging him to partake of the slice of pie left untouched upon his plate.”T’is Master Dimmock! Gove be praised! Thank ee Master Dimmock!” but the poor gentleman is more dismayed and more horrified than when the child had first begun to sing! The Union Rep sitting down alongside him and in front of the child disingenuously asks,

“T’is a beautiful song that you sang for these gentleman here, pray child what is it called?”

“T’is called the litany of Sweet Gove sir”

“And who taught it thee?” he asked,

“Reverend Tout-Puissant”

“Reverend Tout-Puissant?”

“Yes Sir, t’was the litany what we sung to Master Parnham as he was running into the Slitting Iron Tower”

“Why was he running child?”

“Reverend Tout-Puissant called him an unpatwi’otik heathen and tried to shoot him!”

“The litany of Sweet Gove! Heaven forfend!” declares Master Dimmock clenching his right fist,and he is not alone for several other industrialists at the table are similarly incensed. Lord Elderberry however, seems as one struck dumb and the Union Rep favours him with a fierce look. “Molten Tussock is non-denominational is it not gentleman?” the Bow & Bromley Education Board nod vigorously,

“Then gentleman t’were time it were paid a visit and I know just the gentlemen to send!”