Lotta Schmidt and other stories by Anthony Trollope

Author:Anthony Trollope [Trollope, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anboco
Published: 2017-03-24T23:00:00+00:00

THE WIDOW’S MITE.

THE WIDOW’S MITE.

UT I’m not a widow, and I haven’t got two mites.”

“My dear, you are a widow, and you have got two mites.”

“I’ll tell both of you something that will astonish you. I’ve made a calculation, and I find that if everybody in England would give up their Christmas dinner—that is, in Scotland, and Ireland too——”

“They never have any in Ireland, Bob.”

“Hold your tongue till I’ve done, Charley. They do have Christmas dinners in Ireland. It’s pretty nearly the only day that they do, and I don’t count much upon them either. But if everybody gave up his special Christmas dinner, and dined as he does on other days the saving would amount to two millions and a half.”

Charley whistled.

“Two millions and a half is a large sum of money,” said Mrs. Granger, the elder lady of the party.

“Those calculations never do any good,” said the younger lady, who had declared herself not to be a widow.

“Those calculations do a great deal of good,” continued Bob, carrying on his argument with continued warmth. “They show us what a great national effort would do.”

“A little national effort, I should call that,” said Mrs. Granger, “but I should doubt the two millions and a half.”

“Half-a-crown a-head on thirty million people would do it. You are to include all the beer, wine, and whisky. But suppose you take off one-fifth for the babies and young girls, who don’t drink.”

“Thank you, Bob,” said the younger lady—Nora Field by name.

“And two more fifths for the poor, who haven’t got the half-crown a-head,” said the elder lady.

“And you’d ruin the grocer and butcher,” said Charley.

“And never get your half-crown, after all,” said Nora.

It need hardly be said that the subject under discussion was the best mode of abstracting from the pockets of the non-suffering British public a sufficiency of money to sustain the suffering portion during the period of the cotton famine.

Mr. Granger was the rector of Plumstock, a parish in Cheshire, sufficiently near to the manufacturing districts to give to every incident of life at that time a colouring taken from the distress of the neighbourhood; which had not, however, itself ever depended on cotton,—for Plumstock boasted that it was purely agricultural. Mr. Granger was the chairman of a branch relief committee, which had its centre in Liverpool; and the subject of the destitution, with the different modes by which it might be, should be, or should not be relieved, were constantly under discussion in the rectory. Mr. Granger himself was a practical man, somewhat hard in his manners, but by no means hard in his heart, who had in these times taken upon himself the business of alms-begging on a large scale. He declined to look at the matter in a political, statistical, or economical point of view, and answered all questions as to rates, rates in aid, loans, and the Consolidated Fund, with a touch of sarcasm, which showed the bent of his own mind.

“I’ve no doubt you’ll have settled

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