[The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists by Robert Tressell]@TWC D-Link book
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists

CHAPTER 6
11/31

The vicar teaches that the way to deal with those that injure us is to have them put into prison, or--if they belong to some other country--to take guns and knives and murder them, and burn their houses.

So you see the vicar doesn't really believe or do any of the things that Jesus said: he only pretends.' 'But why does he pretend, and go about talking like that, Mum?
What does he do it for ?' 'Because he wishes to live without working himself, dear.' 'And don't the people know he's only pretending ?' 'Some of them do.

Most of the idlers know that what the vicar says is not true, but they pretend to believe it, and give him money for saying it, because they want him to go on telling it to the workers so that they will go on working and keep quiet and be afraid to think for themselves.' 'And what about the workers?
Do they believe it?
'Most of them do, because when they were little children like you, their mothers taught them to believe, without thinking, whatever the vicar said, and that God made them for the use of the idlers.

When they went to school, they were taught the same thing: and now that they're grown up they really believe it, and they go to work and give nearly everything they make to the idlers, and have next to nothing left for themselves and their children.

That's the reason why the workers' children have very bad clothes to wear and sometimes no food to eat; and that's how it is that the idlers and their children have more clothes than they need and more food than they can eat.


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