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.
Page 59
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