Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces

I see a good many public points to complain of, still I don’t think

that’s the way to set them right. If I did think so, I should be a

Chartist. But I don’t think so, and I am not a Chartist. I read

the paper, and hear discussion, at what we call ‘a parlour,’ in

Birmingham, and I know many good men and workmen who are Chartists.

Note. Not Physical force.

It won’t be took as boastful in me, if I make the remark (for I

can’t put down what I have got to say, without putting that down

before going any further), that I have always been of an ingenious

turn. I once got twenty pound by a screw, and it’s in use now. I

have been twenty year, off and on, completing an Invention and

perfecting it. I perfected of it, last Christmas Eve at ten

o’clock at night. Me and my wife stood and let some tears fall

over the Model, when it was done and I brought her in to take a

look at it.

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Dickens, Charles – Reprinted Pieces

A friend of mine, by the name of William Butcher, is a Chartist.

Moderate. He is a good speaker. He is very animated. I have

often heard him deliver that what is, at every turn, in the way of

us working-men, is, that too many places have been made, in the

course of time, to provide for people that never ought to have been

provided for; and that we have to obey forms and to pay fees to

support those places when we shouldn’t ought. ‘True,’ (delivers

William Butcher), ‘all the public has to do this, but it falls

heaviest on the working-man, because he has least to spare; and

likewise because impediments shouldn’t be put in his way, when he

wants redress of wrong or furtherance of right.’ Note. I have

wrote down those words from William Butcher’s own mouth. W. B.

delivering them fresh for the aforesaid purpose.

Now, to my Model again. There it was, perfected of, on Christmas

Eve, gone nigh a year, at ten o’clock at night. All the money I

could spare I had laid out upon the Model; and when times was bad,

or my daughter Charlotte’s children sickly, or both, it had stood

still, months at a spell. I had pulled it to pieces, and made it

over again with improvements, I don’t know how often. There it

stood, at last, a perfected Model as aforesaid.

William Butcher and me had a long talk, Christmas Day, respecting

of the Model. William is very sensible. But sometimes cranky.

William said, ‘What will you do with it, John?’ I said, ‘Patent

it.’ William said, ‘How patent it, John?’ I said, ‘By taking out

a Patent.’ William then delivered that the law of Patent was a

cruel wrong. William said, ‘John, if you make your invention

public, before you get a Patent, any one may rob you of the fruits

of your hard work. You are put in a cleft stick, John. Either you

must drive a bargain very much against yourself, by getting a party

to come forward beforehand with the great expenses of the Patent;

or, you must be put about, from post to pillar, among so many

parties, trying to make a better bargain for yourself, and showing

your invention, that your invention will be took from you over your

head.’ I said, ‘William Butcher, are you cranky? You are

sometimes cranky.’ William said, ‘No, John, I tell you the truth;’

which he then delivered more at length. I said to W. B. I would

Patent the invention myself.

My wife’s brother, George Bury of West Bromwich (his wife

unfortunately took to drinking, made away with everything, and

seventeen times committed to Birmingham Jail before happy release

in every point of view), left my wife, his sister, when he died, a

legacy of one hundred and twenty-eight pound ten, Bank of England

Stocks. Me and my wife never broke into that money yet. Note. We

might come to be old and past our work. We now agreed to Patent

the invention. We said we would make a hole in it – I mean in the