PAP 067

The Poet and The Paupers

XI.067


In this and others ways, Sussex cottagers saw Tom Cladpole as one of themselves, especially when they had been young and before lethargy and apathy set in after the failure of the Riots. He was illiterate, cheerfully aggressive, and suspicious towards strangers but very fond of his mother. He kept his sense of humour, survived his encounters with the sharp-witted people of the big city and even managed to duck a bailiff, an achievement that certainly would have delighted most country folk. But perhaps what appealed to them most was the lesson that he learnt from his journey: that no matter what the rest of the world might have to offer there was no place like Sussex-by-the-Sea. During the century following 1750, thousands of poor people left the softer, agricultural South for the higher wages offered in the “dark, satanic mills” of the harsher, industrial North. Many others migrated even further – to America and Australia. To those who stayed behind, Tom’s message was reassuring. Richard Lower repeated it in his second book, published in 1840: JAN CLADPOLE’S TRIP TO ‘MERICUR, giving an account of the White, Black and Yellor folks wot he met wud in his travels in search after Dollar Trees: and how he got rich enough to beg his way home: writ all in rhyme by his father, Tim Cladpole. Again Tim writes an Introduction and in it he warns his readers that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in America, or anywhere else for that matter: “Onny I wud jes say dat Jan was awves a monsus stomackful sort of a boy, an wanted to have his own way too much; but dis here trip to ‘Mericur has dun him a power ov good; he has larnt now dat dere be folks ut knows as well as he does, and dat whichever side ov de world we live (as my poor granmother used to say) we shall otherwhile meet wid a ruff hedge to scratch through.” He also expresses, in an earthy, lively way, Richard’s own philosophy that “true Reformation goes from Number One” when he writes: “For as my uncle use to say, uf evry man wud swip his own house clain, he wud have a poor scrub of a broom to lend his neighbour.” The tale’s opening verses, already quoted in Chapter 8, describe how hard Jan works in the Sussex fields for little reward. When Old Skinflint, the farmer, sacks him, he goes to Billy Wax, the bootmaker, for advice, and is told to go to America, the Land of Liberty, where there are no tithes or kings and dollars grow on trees. So he emigrates. He finds the Atlantic Ocean uncomfortable and bewildering:

In this and others ways, Sussex cottagers saw Tom Cladpole as one of themselves, especially when they had been young and before lethargy and apathy set in after the failure of the Riots. He was illiterate, cheerfully aggressive, and suspicious towards strangers but very fond of his mother. He kept his sense of humour, survived his encounters with the sharp-witted people of the big city and even managed to duck a bailiff, an achievement that certainly would have delighted most country folk. But perhaps what appealed to them most was the lesson that he learnt from his journey: that no matter what the rest of the world might have to offer there was no place like Sussex-by-the-Sea.

During the century following 1750, thousands of poor people left the softer, agricultural South for the higher wages offered in the “dark, satanic mills” of the harsher, industrial North. Many others migrated even further – to America and Australia. To those who stayed behind, Tom’s message was reassuring.

Richard Lower repeated it in his second book, published in 1840: JAN CLADPOLE’S TRIP TO ‘MERICUR, giving an account of the White, Black and Yellor folks wot he met wud in his travels in search after Dollar Trees: and how he got rich enough to beg his way home: writ all in rhyme by his father, Tim Cladpole. Again Tim writes an Introduction and in it he warns his readers that there is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in America, or anywhere else for that matter:

“Onny I wud jes say dat Jan was awves a monsus stomackful sort of a boy, an wanted to have his own way too much; but dis here trip to ‘Mericur has dun him a power ov good; he has larnt now dat dere be folks ut knows as well as he does, and dat whichever side ov de world we live (as my poor granmother used to say) we shall otherwhile meet wid a ruff hedge to scratch through.”

He also expresses, in an earthy, lively way, Richard’s own philosophy that “true Reformation goes from Number One” when he writes:

“For as my uncle use to say, uf evry man wud swip his own house clain, he wud have a poor scrub of a broom to lend his neighbour.”

The tale’s opening verses, already quoted in Chapter 8, describe how hard Jan works in the Sussex fields for little reward. When Old Skinflint, the farmer, sacks him, he goes to Billy Wax, the bootmaker, for advice, and is told to go to America, the Land of Liberty, where there are no tithes or kings and dollars grow on trees. So he emigrates. He finds the Atlantic Ocean uncomfortable and bewildering:

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