Read "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" by Robert Tressell online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
This is an even more unusually dull and uninteresting chapter, and introduces several matters that may appear to have nothing to do with the case. The reader is nevertheless entreated to peruse it, because it contains certain information necessary to an understanding of this history.
The town of Mugsborough was governed by a set of individuals called the Municipal Council. Most of these `representatives of the people' were well-to-do or retired tradesmen. In the opinion of the inhabitants of Mugsborough, the fact that a man had succeeded in accumulating money in business was a clear demonstration of his fitness to be entrusted with the business of the town.