They remained silent; afraid to trust their own intelligence, and the reason of this attitude was that they had to choose between the evidence and their own intelligence, and the stories told them by their masters and exploiters.And when it came to making this choice they deemed it safer to follow their old guides, than to rely on their own judgement, because from their very infancy they had had drilled into them the doctrine of their own mental and social inferiority, and their conviction of the truth of this doctrine was voiced in the degraded expression that fell so frequently from their lips, when speaking of themselves and each other - `The Likes of Us!'
They did not know the causes of their poverty, they did not want to know, they did not want to hear.
All they desired was to be left alone so that they might continue to worship and follow those who took advantage of their simplicity, and robbed them of the fruits of their toil; their old leaders, the fools or scoundrels who fed them with words, who had led them into the desolation where they now seemed to be content to grind out treasure for their masters, and to starve when those masters did not find it profitable to employ them.It was as if a flock of foolish sheep placed themselves under the protection of a pack of ravening wolves.
Several times the small band of Socialists narrowly escaped being mobbed, but they succeeded in disposing of most of their leaflets without any serious trouble.Towards the latter part of one evening Barrington and Owen became separated from the others, and shortly afterwards these two lost each other in the crush.
About nine o'clock, Barrington was in a large Liberal crowd, listening to the same hired orator who had spoken a few evenings before on the hill - the man with the scar on his forehead.The crowd was applauding him loudly and Barrington again fell to wondering where he had seen this man before.As on the previous occasion, this speaker made no reference to Socialism, confining himself to other matters.
Barrington examined him closely, trying to recall under what circumstances they had met previously, and presently he remembered that this was one of the Socialists who had come with the band of cyclists into the town that Sunday morning, away back at the beginning of the summer, the man who had come afterwards with the van, and who had been struck down by a stone while attempting to speak from the platform of the van, the man who had been nearly killed by the upholders of the capitalist system.It was the same man! The Socialist had been clean-shaven - this man wore beard and moustache -but Barrington was certain he was the same.
When the man had concluded his speech he got down and stood in the shade behind the platform, while someone else addressed the meeting, and Barrington went round to where he was standing, intending to speak to him.
All around them, pandemonium reigned supreme.They were in the vicinity of the Slave Market, near the Fountain, on the Grand Parade, where several roads met; there was a meeting going on at every corner, and a number of others in different, parts of the roadway and on the pavement of the Parade.Some of these meetings were being carried on by two or three men, who spoke in turn from small, portable platforms they carried with them, and placed wherever they thought there was a chance of getting an audience.
Every now and then some of these poor wretches - they were all paid speakers - were surrounded and savagely mauled and beaten by a hostile crowd.If they were Tariff Reformers the Liberals mobbed them, and vice versa.Lines of rowdies swaggered to and fro, arm in arm, singing, `Vote, Vote, Vote, for good ole Closeland' or `good ole Sweater', according as they were green or blue and yellow.Gangs of hooligans paraded up and down, armed with sticks, singing, howling, cursing and looking for someone to hit.Others stood in groups on the pavement with their hands thrust in their pockets, or leaned against walls or the shutters of the shops with expressions of ecstatic imbecility on their faces, chanting the mournful dirge to the tune of the church chimes, `Good - ole - Sweat - er Good - ole - Sweat - er Good - ole - Sweat - er Good - ole - Sweat - er.'
Other groups - to the same tune - sang `Good - ole - Close - land';and every now and again they used to leave off singing and begin to beat each other.Fights used to take place, often between workmen, about the respective merits of Adam Sweater and Sir Graball D'Encloseland.
The walls were covered with huge Liberal and Tory posters, which showed in every line the contempt of those who published them for the intelligence of the working men to whom they were addressed.There was one Tory poster that represented the interior of a public house;in front of the bar, with a quart pot in his hand, a clay pipe in his mouth, and a load of tools on his back, stood a degraded-looking brute who represented the Tory ideal of what an Englishman should be; the letterpress on the poster said it was a man! This is the ideal of manhood that they hold up to the majority of their fellow countrymen, but privately - amongst themselves - the Tory aristocrats regard such `men' with far less respect than they do the lower animals.Horses or dogs, for instance.
The Liberal posters were not quite so offensive.They were more cunning, more specious, more hypocritical and consequently more calculated to mislead and deceive the more intelligent of the voters.
When Barrington got round to the back of the platform, he found the man with the scarred face standing alone and gloomily silent in the shadow.Barrington gave him one of the Socialist leaflets, which he took, and after glancing at it, put it in his coat pocket without making any remark.
`I hope you'll excuse me for asking, but were you not formerly a Socialist?' said Barrington.
Even in the semi-darkness Barrington saw the other man flush deeply and then become very pale, and the unsightly scar upon his forehead showed with ghastly distinctiveness.
