ABSTRACT
WILLIAM WRIGHT, and Betsy his wife, lived in Stockport; they had a son and a daughter, Tom and Betsy, two little factory children, and they spent a very fractious and uncomfortable life, since that plaguy Charter, as Betsy termed it, came up. Will would attend all Chartist meetings, and was more than once imprisoned for what is termed, ‘sedition, riots, routs, and tumults,’ and which, in understandable phraseology, means a ‘fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work,’ and cheering those who teach them the method. During his incarceration, his wife had to bear patiently all the insolence, tyranny, and batements, to which the overseer pleased to subject her, always laying them to the account of her rascally Chartist husband. As soon as the Melbourne definition of the law had finished poor Will up; that is, when he was ‘RUINED WITH EXPENCES,” or, which is the same thing, marked as an outlaw, unworthy of being allowed to slave for a master, as long as a more pliant slave could be procured; he became a constant attendant at the public house, and as soon as his wife returned on Saturday evening with the scanty week’s wage, there was invariably a squabble for the “brass,” and the poor wife was but too happy if she could secure enough to make ends meet till Saturday came round again. They had led this cat-and-dog life from August 1842, when Will’s master turned out his hands, as a means of carrying free trade, till April, 1845, when the Chartist Co-operative Land Company was established, when, to the no small astonishment of his townsmen and his wife, Will renounced the public house, upon the condition, that, when out of work, the wife would allow him a shilling a week for his pocket, and to which arrangement she cheerfully consented, and Will, from being a “waster,” became a steady, sober fellow, the wife frequently thanking God for the change, and charming Will with the altered appearance and condition of his family. After a year of his new birth unto righteousness had passed, Will runs into the cellar, one evening, where his wife had been recently confined, and just as she was calculating, with an old crone, as to how soon she might leave the baby and return to the Mill. Will gathered the tenor of the conversation, and ready to leap for joy, he says, “Nay, Betsy, wench, thou shalt never work for no maister no more, thou shalt nurse youngster thyself this time.” As Will had been out all day, and as joy had induced him to take a glass with a friend, the poor wife feared lest he had relapsed into his old habits, and replied, “Art daft, Will, why, how dost think we mun live?” “Live,” retorted Will, “why look here, lass, I have drawn a prize in Land Company;” adding, “and look here, lass,” showing her five sovereigns; “I gave the shilling a week, thou thought I used to drink, to pay up share, and I saved this here when I got a chance job.” “Oh Will?” said the overjoyed wife, feebly, and taking her baby from the crone, “and dost say I shall nurse little lass?” “Aye, lass,” he replied, “and I’ll help thee.” “Well, Will,” she asked, “why didn’t thou tell me thou had put in?” “Oh!” he replied, “thou wast always so bitter agen Charter, I was afeard till prize come up.” “That’s not Charter,” she answered, “Charter was always getting thee into trouble, and Land will put thee in bread?” “Oh, lass,” rejoined Will, “but it’s Charter all the time, for only for Charter the land would never come up, and I’de never know aught about it; Charter is the means and land is the end; as ould general says, 192Charter is spit, and Land is leg of mutton.” “Well, Will,” observed the wife, “if it does nout else, it has made thee a better man, and a better husband, I’m sure.” Betsy went on as well as could be expected, delighted with her future prospects, and her husband’s reformation, and both seemed to grudge themselves every morsel they ate, from a desire to have a good start.
