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King Coal by Upton Sinclair

U >> Upton Sinclair >> King Coal



Produced by Eric Eldred, Beth Trapaga
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team




KING COAL

_A NOVEL_

BY

UPTON SINCLAIR



TO

MARY CRAIG KIMBROUGH

To whose persistence in the perilous task of tearing her husband's
manuscript to pieces, the reader is indebted for the absence of most of
the faults from this book.



CONTENTS


BOOK ONE

THE DOMAIN OF KING COAL


BOOK TWO

THE SERFS OF KING COAL


BOOK THREE

THE HENCHMEN OF KING COAL


BOOK FOUR

THE WILL OF KING COAL




INTRODUCTION


Upton Sinclair is one of the not too many writers who have consecrated
their lives to the agitation for social justice, and who have also
enrolled their art in the service of a set purpose. A great and
non-temporizing enthusiast, he never flinched from making sacrifices.
Now and then he attained great material successes as a writer, but
invariably he invested and lost his earnings in enterprises by which he
had hoped to ward off injustice and to further human happiness. Though
disappointed time after time, he never lost faith nor courage to start
again.

As a convinced socialist and eager advocate of unpopular doctrines, as
an exposer of social conditions that would otherwise be screened away
from the public eye, the most influential journals of his country were
as a rule arraigned against him. Though always a poor man, though never
willing to grant to publishers the concessions essential for many
editions and general popularity, he was maliciously represented to be a
carpet knight of radicalism and a socialist millionaire. He has several
times been obliged to change his publisher, which goes to prove that he
is no seeker of material gain.

Upton Sinclair is one of the writers of the present time most deserving
of a sympathetic interest. He shows his patriotism as an American, not
by joining in hymns to the very conditional kind of liberty peculiar to
the United States, but by agitating for infusing it with the elixir of
real liberty, the liberty of humanity. He does not limit himself to a
dispassionate and entertaining description of things as they are. But in
his appeals to the honour and good-fellowship of his compatriots, he
opens their eyes to the appalling conditions under which wage-earning
slaves are living by the hundreds of thousands. His object is to better
these unnatural conditions, to obtain for the very poorest a glimpse of
light and happiness, to make even them realise the sensation of cosy
well-being and the comfort of knowing that justice is to be found also
for them.

This time Upton Sinclair has absorbed himself in the study of the
miner's life in the lonesome pits of the Rocky Mountains, and his
sensitive and enthusiastic mind has brought to the world an American
parallel to GERMINAL, Emile Zola's technical masterpiece.

The conditions described in the two books are, however, essentially
different. While Zola's working-men are all natives of France, one meets
in Sinclair's book a motley variety of European emigrants, speaking a
Babel of languages and therefore debarred from forming some sort of
association to protect themselves against being exploited by the
anonymous limited Company. Notwithstanding this natural bar against
united action on the part of the wage-earning slaves, the Company feels
far from at ease and jealously guards its interests against any attempt
of organising the men.

A young American of the upper class, with great sympathy for the
downtrodden and an honest desire to get a first-hand knowledge of their
conditions in order to help them, decides to take employment in a mine
under a fictitious name and dressed like a working-man. His unusual way
of trying to obtain work arouses suspicion. He is believed to be a
professional strike-leader sent out to organise the miners against their
exploiters, and he is not only refused work, but thrashed mercilessly.
When finally he succeeds in getting inside, he discovers with growing
indignation the shameless and inhuman way in which those who unearth the
black coal are being exploited.

These are the fundamental ideas of the book, but they give but a faint
notion of the author's poetic attitude. Most beautifully is this shown
in Hal's relation to a young Irish girl, Red Mary. She is poor, and her
daily life harsh and joyless, but nevertheless her wonderful grace is
one of the outstanding features of the book. The first impression of
Mary is that of a Celtic Madonna with a tender heart for little
children. She develops into a Valküre of the working-class, always ready
to fight for the worker's right.

The last chapters of the book give a description of the miners' revolt
against the Company. They insist upon their right to choose a deputy to
control the weighing-in of the coal, and upon having the mines sprinkled
regularly to prevent explosion. They will also be free to buy their food
and utensils wherever they like, even in shops not belonging to the
Company.

In a postscript Sinclair explains the fundamental facts on which his
work of art has been built up. Even without the postscript one could not
help feeling convinced that the social conditions he describes are true
to life. The main point is that Sinclair has not allowed himself to
become inspired by hackneyed phrases that bondage and injustice and the
other evils and crimes of Kingdoms have been banished from Republics,
but that he is earnestly pointing to the honeycombed ground on which the
greatest modern money-power has been built. The fundament of this power
is not granite, but mines. It lives and breathes in the light, because
it has thousands of unfortunates toiling in the darkness. It lives and
has its being in proud liberty because thousands are slaving for it,
whose thraldom is the price of this liberty.

This is the impression given to the reader of this exciting novel.

GEORG BRANDES.




BOOK ONE

THE DOMAIN OF KING COAL



SECTION 1.

The town of Pedro stood on the edge of the mountain country; a
straggling assemblage of stores and saloons from which a number of
branch railroads ran up into the canyons, feeding the coal-camps.
Through the week it slept peacefully; but on Saturday nights, when the
miners came trooping down, and the ranchmen came in on horseback and in
automobiles, it wakened to a seething life.

At the railroad station, one day late in June, a young man alighted from
a train. He was about twenty-one years of age, with sensitive features,
and brown hair having a tendency to waviness. He wore a frayed and faded
suit of clothes, purchased in a quarter of his home city where the
Hebrew merchants stand on the sidewalks to offer their wares; also a
soiled blue shirt without a tie, and a pair of heavy boots which had
seen much service. Strapped on his back was a change of clothing and a
blanket, and in his pockets a comb, a toothbrush, and a small pocket
mirror.

Sitting in the smoking-car of the train, the young man had listened to
the talk of the coal-camps, seeking to correct his accent. When he got
off the train he proceeded down the track and washed his hands with
cinders, and lightly powdered some over his face. After studying the
effect of this in his mirror, he strolled down the main street of Pedro,
and, selecting a little tobacco-shop, went in. In as surly a voice as he
could muster, he inquired of the proprietress, "Can you tell me how to
get to the Pine Creek mine?"

The woman looked at him with no suspicion in her glance. She gave the
desired information, and he took a trolley and got off at the foot of
the Pine Creek canyon, up which he had a thirteen-mile trudge. It was
a sunshiny day, with the sky crystal clear, and the mountain air
invigourating. The young man seemed to be happy, and as he strode on
his way, he sang a song with many verses:

"Old King Coal was a merry old soul,
And a merry old soul was he;
He made him a college all full of knowledge--
Hurrah for you and me!

"Oh, Liza-Ann, come out with me,
The moon is a-shinin' in the monkey-puzzle tree;
Oh, Liza-Ann, I have began
To sing you the song of Harrigan!

"He keeps them a-roll, this merry old soul--
The wheels of industree;
A-roll and a-roll, for his pipe and his bowl
And his college facultee!

"Oh, Mary-Jane, come out in the lane,
The moon is a-shinin' in the old pecan;
Oh, Mary-Jane, don't you hear me a-sayin'
I'll sing you the song of Harrigan!

"So hurrah for King Coal, and his fat pay-roll,
And his wheels of industree!
Hurrah for his pipe, and hurrah for his bowl--
And hurrah for you and me!

"Oh, Liza-Ann, come out with me,
The moon is a-shinin'--"

And so on and on--as long as the moon was a-shinin' on a college campus.
It was a mixture of happy nonsense and that questioning with which
modern youth has begun to trouble its elders. As a marching tune, the
song was a trifle swift for the grades of a mountain canyon; Warner
could stop and shout to the canyon-walls, and listen to their answer,
and then march on again. He had youth in his heart, and love and
curiosity; also he had some change in his trousers' pocket, and a ten
dollar bill, for extreme emergencies, sewed up in his belt. If a
photographer for Peter Harrigan's General Fuel Company could have got a
snap-shot of him that morning, it might have served as a "portrait of a
coal-miner" in any "prosperity" publication.

But the climb was a stiff one, and before the end the traveller became
aware of the weight of his boots, and sang no more. Just as the sun was
sinking up the canyon, he came upon his destination--a gate across the
road, with a sign upon it:

PINE CREEK COAL CO.

PRIVATE PROPERTY

TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN

Hal approached the gate, which was of iron bars, and padlocked. After
standing for a moment to get ready his surly voice, he kicked upon the
gate and a man came out of a shack inside.

"What do you want?" said he.

"I want to get in. I'm looking for a job."

"Where do you come from?"

"From Pedro."

"Where you been working?"

"I never worked in a mine before."

"Where did you work?"

"In a grocery-store."

"What grocery-store?"

"Peterson & Co., in Western City."

The guard came closer to the gate and studied him through the bars.

"Hey, Bill!" he called, and another man came out from the cabin. "Here's
a guy says he worked in a grocery, and he's lookin' for a job."

"Where's your papers?" demanded Bill.

Every one had told Hal that labour was scarce in the mines, and that the
companies were ravenous for men; he had supposed that a workingman would
only have to knock, and it would be opened unto him. "They didn't give
me no papers," he said, and added, hastily, "I got drunk and they fired
me." He felt quite sure that getting drunk would not bar one from a coal
camp.

But the two made no move to open the gate. The second man studied him
deliberately from top to toe, and Hal was uneasily aware of possible
sources of suspicion. "I'm all right," he declared. "Let me in, and I'll
show you."

Still the two made no move. They looked at each other, and then Bill
answered, "We don't need no hands."

"But," exclaimed Hal, "I saw a sign down the canyon--"

"That's an old sign," said Bill.

"But I walked all the way up here!"

"You'll find it easier walkin' back."

"But--it's night!"

"Scared of the dark, kid?" inquired Bill, facetiously.

"Oh, say!" replied Hal. "Give a fellow a chance! Ain't there some way I
can pay for my keep--or at least for a bunk to-night?"

"There's nothin' for you," said Bill, and turned and went into the
cabin.

The other man waited and watched, with a decidedly hostile look. Hal
strove to plead with him, but thrice he repeated, "Down the canyon with
you." So at last Hal gave up, and moved down the road a piece and sat
down to reflect.

It really seemed an absurdly illogical proceeding, to post a notice,
"Hands Wanted," in conspicuous places on the roadside, causing a man to
climb thirteen miles up a mountain canyon, only to be turned off without
explanation. Hal was convinced that there must be jobs inside the
stockade, and that if only he could get at the bosses he could persuade
them. He got up and walked down the road a quarter of a mile, to where
the railroad-track crossed it, winding up the canyon. A train of
"empties" was passing, bound into the camp, the cars rattling and
bumping as the engine toiled up the grade. This suggested a solution of
the difficulty.

It was already growing dark. Crouching slightly, Hal approached the
cars, and when he was in the shadows, made a leap and swung onto one of
them. It took but a second to clamber in, and he lay flat and waited,
his heart thumping.

Before a minute had passed he heard a shout, and looking over, he saw
the Cerberus of the gate running down a path to the track, his
companion, Bill, just behind him. "Hey! come out of there!" they yelled;
and Bill leaped, and caught the car in which Hal was riding.

The latter saw that the game was up, and sprang to the ground on the
other side of the track and started out of the camp. Bill followed him,
and as the train passed, the other man ran down the track to join him.
Hal was walking rapidly, without a word; but the Cerberus of the gate
had many words, most of them unprintable, and he seized Hal by the
collar, and shoving him violently, planted a kick upon that portion of
his anatomy which nature has constructed for the reception of kicks. Hal
recovered his balance, and, as the man was still pursuing him, he turned
and aimed a blow, striking him on the chest and making him reel.

Hal's big brother had seen to it that he knew how to use his fists; he
now squared off, prepared to receive the second of his assailants. But
in coal-camps matters are not settled in that primitive way, it
appeared. The man halted, and the muzzle of a revolver came suddenly
under Hal's nose. "Stick 'em up!" said the man.

This was a slang which Hal had never heard, but the meaning was
inescapable; he "stuck 'em up." At the same moment his first assailant
rushed at him, and dealt him a blow over the eye which sent him
sprawling backward upon the stones.



SECTION 2.

When Hal came to himself again he was in darkness, and was conscious of
agony from head to toe. He was lying on a stone floor, and he rolled
over, but soon rolled back again, because there was no part of his back
which was not sore. Later on, when he was able to study himself, he
counted over a score of marks of the heavy boots of his assailants.

He lay for an hour or two, making up his mind that he was in a lock-up,
because he could see the starlight through iron bars. He could hear
somebody snoring, and he called half a dozen times, in a louder and
louder voice, until at last, hearing a growl, he inquired, "Can you give
me a drink of water?"

"I'll give you hell if you wake me up again," said the voice; after
which Hal lay in silence until morning.

A couple of hours after daylight, a man entered his cell. "Get up," said
he, and added a prod with his foot. Hal had thought he could not do it,
but he got up.

"No funny business now," said his jailer, and grasping him by the sleeve
of his coat, marched him out of the cell and down a little corridor into
a sort of office, where sat a red-faced personage with a silver shield
upon the lapel of his coat. Hal's two assailants of the night before
stood nearby.

"Well, kid?" said the personage in the chair. "Had a little time to
think it over?" "Yes," said Hal, briefly.

"What's the charge?" inquired the personage, of the two watchmen.

"Trespassing and resisting arrest."

"How much money you got, young fellow?" was, the next question.

Hal hesitated.

"Speak up there!" said the man.

"Two dollars and sixty-seven cents," said Hal--"as well as I can
remember."

"Go on!" said the other. "What you givin' us?" And then, to the two
watchmen, "Search him."

"Take off your coat and pants," said Bill, promptly, "and your boots."

"Oh, I say!" protested Hal.

"Take 'em off!" said the man, and clenched his fists. Hal took 'em off,
and they proceeded to go through the pockets, producing a purse with the
amount stated, also a cheap watch, a strong pocket knife, the
tooth-brush, comb and mirror, and two white handkerchiefs, which they
looked at contemptuously and tossed to the spittle-drenched floor.

They unrolled the pack, and threw the clean clothing about. Then,
opening the pocket-knife, they proceeded to pry about the soles and
heels of the boots, and to cut open the lining of the clothing. So they
found the ten dollars in the belt, which they tossed onto the table with
the other belongings. Then the personage with the shield announced, "I
fine you twelve dollars and sixty-seven cents, and your watch and
knife." He added, with a grin, "You can keep your snot-rags."

"Now see here!" said Hal, angrily. "This is pretty raw!"

"You get your duds on, young fellow, and get out of here as quick as you
can, or you'll go in your shirt-tail."

But Hal was angry enough to have been willing to go in his skin. "You
tell me who you are, and your authority for this procedure?"

"I'm marshal of the camp," said the man.

"You mean you're an employé of the General Fuel Company? And you propose
to rob me--"

"Put him out, Bill," said the marshal. And Hal saw Bill's fists clench.

"All right," he said, swallowing his indignation. "Wait till I get my
clothes on." And he proceeded to dress as quickly as possible; he rolled
up his blanket and spare clothing, and started for the door.

"Remember," said the marshal, "straight down the canyon with you, and if
you show your face round here again, you'll get a bullet through you."

So Hal went out into the sunshine, with a guard on each side of him as
an escort. He was on the same mountain road, but in the midst of the
company-village. In the distance he saw the great building of the
breaker, and heard the incessant roar of machinery and falling coal. He
marched past a double lane of company houses and shanties, where
slattern women in doorways and dirty children digging in the dust of the
roadside paused and grinned at him--for he limped as he walked, and it
was evident enough what had happened to him.

Hal had come with love and curiosity. The love was greatly
diminished--evidently this was not the force which kept the wheels of
industry a-roll. But the curiosity was greater than ever. What was there
so carefully hidden inside this coal-camp stockade?

Hal turned and looked at Bill, who had showed signs of humour the day
before. "See here," said he, "you fellows have got my money, and you've
blacked my eye and kicked me blue, so you ought to be satisfied. Before
I go, tell me about it, won't you?"

"Tell you what?" growled Bill.

"Why did I get this?"

"Because you're too gay, kid. Didn't you know you had no business trying
to sneak in here?"

"Yes," said Hal; "but that's not what I mean. Why didn't you let me in
at first?"

"If you wanted a job in a mine," demanded the man, "why didn't you go at
it in the regular way?"

"I didn't know the regular way."

"That's just it. And we wasn't takin' chances with you. You didn't look
straight."

"But what did you think I was? What are you afraid of?"

"Go on!" said the man. "You can't work me!"

Hal walked a few steps in silence, pondering how to break through. "I
see you're suspicious of me," he said. "I'll tell you the truth, if
you'll let me." Then, as the other did not forbid him, "I'm a college
boy, and I wanted to see life and shift for myself a while. I thought it
would be a lark to come here."

"Well," said Bill, "this ain't no foot-ball field. It's a coal-mine."

Hal saw that his story had been accepted. "Tell me straight," he said,
"what did you think I was?"

"Well, I don't mind telling," growled Bill. "There's union agitators
trying to organise these here camps, and we ain't taking no chances with
'em. This company gets its men through agencies, and if you'd went and
satisfied them, you'd 'a been passed in the regular way. Or if you'd
went to the office down in Pedro and got a pass, you'd 'a been all
right. But when a guy turns up at the gate, and looks like a dude and
talks like a college perfessor, he don't get by, see?"

"I see," said Hal. And then, "If you'll give me the price of a breakfast
out of my money, I'll be obliged."

"Breakfast is over," said Bill. "You sit round till the pinyons gets
ripe." He laughed; but then, mellowed by his own joke, he took a quarter
from his pocket and passed it to Hal. He opened the padlock on the gate
and saw him out with a grin; and so ended Hal's first turn on the wheels
of industry.



SECTION 3.

Hal Warner started to drag himself down the road, but was unable to make
it. He got as far as a brooklet that came down the mountain-side, from
which he might drink without fear of typhoid; there he lay the whole
day, fasting. Towards evening a thunder-storm came up, and he crawled
under the shelter of a rock, which was no shelter at all. His single
blanket was soon soaked through, and he passed a night almost as
miserable as the previous one. He could not sleep, but he could think,
and he thought about what had happened to him. "Bill" had said that a
coal mine was not a foot-ball field, but it seemed to Hal that the net
impress of the two was very much the same. He congratulated himself that
his profession was not that of a union organiser.

At dawn he dragged himself up, and continued his journey, weak from cold
and unaccustomed lack of food. In the course of the day he reached a
power-station near the foot of the canyon. He did not have the price of
a meal, and was afraid to beg; but in one of the group of buildings by
the roadside was a store, and he entered and inquired concerning prunes,
which were twenty-five cents a pound. The price was high, but so was the
altitude, and as Hal found in the course of time, they explained the one
by the other--not explaining, however, why the altitude of the price was
always greater than the altitude of the store. Over the counter he saw a
sign: "We buy scrip at ten per cent discount." He had heard rumours of a
state law forbidding payment of wages in "scrip"; but he asked no
questions, and carried off his very light pound of prunes, and sat down
by the roadside and munched them.

Just beyond the power-house, down on the railroad track, stood a little
cabin with a garden behind it. He made his way there, and found a
one-legged old watchman. He asked permission to spend the night on the
floor of the cabin; and seeing the old fellow look at his black eye, he
explained, "I tried to get a job at the mine, and they thought I was a
union organiser."

"Well," said the man, "I don't want no union organisers round here."

"But I'm not one," pleaded Hal.

"How do I know what you are? Maybe you're a company spy."

"All I want is a dry place to sleep," said Hal. "Surely it won't be any
harm for you to give me that."

"I'm not so sure," the other answered. "However, you can spread your
blanket in the corner. But don't you talk no union business to me."

Hal had no desire to talk. He rolled himself in his blanket and slept
like a man untroubled by either love or curiosity. In the morning the
old fellow gave him a slice of corn bread and some young onions out of
his garden, which had a more delicious taste than any breakfast that had
ever been served him. When Hal thanked his host in parting, the latter
remarked: "All right, young fellow, there's one thing you can do to pay
me, and that is, say nothing about it. When a man has grey hair on his
head and only one leg, he might as well be drowned in the creek as lose
his job."

Hal promised, and went his way. His bruises pained him less, and he was
able to walk. There were ranch-houses in sight--it was like coming back
suddenly to America!



SECTION 4.

Hal had now before him a week's adventures as a hobo: a genuine hobo,
with no ten dollar bill inside his belt to take the reality out of his
experiences. He took stock of his worldly goods and wondered if he still
looked like a dude. He recalled that he had a smile which had fascinated
the ladies; would it work in combination with a black eye? Having no
other means of support, he tried it on susceptible looking housewives,
and found it so successful that he was tempted to doubt the wisdom of
honest labour. He sang the Harrigan song no more, but instead the words
of a hobo-song he had once heard:

"Oh, what's the use of workin' when there's women in the land?"

The second day he made the acquaintance of two other gentlemen of the
road, who sat by the railroad-track toasting some bacon over a fire.
They welcomed him, and after they had heard his story, adopted him into
the fraternity and instructed him in its ways of life. Pretty soon he
made the acquaintance of one who had been a miner, and was able to give
him the information he needed before climbing another canyon.

"Dutch Mike" was the name this person bore, for reasons he did not
explain. He was a black-eyed and dangerous-looking rascal, and when the
subject of mines and mining was broached, he opened up the flood-gates
of an amazing reservoir of profanity. He was through with that game--Hal
or any other God-damned fool might have his job for the asking. It was
only because there were so many natural-born God-damned fools in the
world that the game could be kept going. "Dutch Mike" went on to relate
dreadful tales of mine-life, and to summon before him the ghosts of one
pit-boss after another, consigning them to the fires of eternal
perdition.

Letter: Gender roles in the Cinderella story

Doctors assure us that wherever you find an elderly, pompous old writer long past his prime you will find a bottle of scotch nearby. If only that were the case. Hilly hid mine after I fell up the stairs when I came home from the Garrick yesterday, and I've had to make do with a bottle of Blue Nun I found in the maid's parlour. Not that I am an alcoholic. Dipsomaniacs are a breed of the lower orders you meet on street corners: people like myself are bon viveurs who happen to like a drink. Or 12.

My primary observation is that drinking makes the daily grind of dealing with people so much easier. You drink a pint of whisky and become the life and soul of the party. You then start insulting people, before sweating heavily and wetting yourself involuntarily. You will usually find that everyone quickly avoids you, thereby relieving you of the need to make conversation. This is why I prefer to do much of my drinking at home. It saves so much time.

There are a great many drinks on the market - spirits, wines and beers - and I've probably drunk them all. Usually in some kind of combination with one another. Mixing cocktails is one of my favourite hobbies. Here's one I invented last week for my great sycophant, Christopher Hitchens.

The Hitch

One bottle of Babycham

One bottle of absinthe

Five shots of Angostura very bitters

Two tablespoons of bile

Two or three glasses of this tincture can give you a lifetime of self-satisfaction.

At some time you will probably be forced to invite people to your home and they may expect a drink. My advice is to offer them the cheapest tipple you can find; my local off-licence does a ghastly Mosel at 70p a bottle. I've never cared for even the best wines, and this should guarantee those poncing off you neither ask for top-ups nor stay long, thereby leaving you more money and time for the pub.

It is well known that only the very dullest of petit-bourgeois minds fail to over-imbibe on a daily basis, so I regard hangovers as a price worth paying for my brilliance. That said, I have found ways of coping with this metaphysical malaise. The first is to fuck someone; preferably somebody else's wife, but if your own is the only one around then she will do. The second is to read a book by that little shit Mart; it will either remind you you're not that bad a writer or give you some sleep.

The one downside to drinking is that it can make you fat. This is remedied by cutting out food entirely and drinking all spirits without mixers. My weight has gone down to 19st with this diet. There isn't much more to say, but as I'm being paid by the column I'd better repeat myself. And now that I'm dead, there's no harm in Bloomsbury repackaging the same material several times in the same collection.

I don't really like wine. Gin is for pansies, though a snifter with water doesn't go amiss. Liqueurs are best left to patent-shoed Wops. Or Americans. Champagne is an overrated girl's drink, though it can be drunk with any food; as such, it's a perfect breakfast drink because a scotch before 10am is very non-U.

I loathe pubs with loud music, but my utmost detestation is reserved for sanctimonious ex-topers. There's nothing worse than a man who doesn't drink. I once tried not drinking for several hours and my wives and mistresses said how dull it was that I was conscious and they were spared removing my soiled trousers from my bloated legs.

Whisky is my favourite tipple, though I recommend never giving it to a Welshman as it's wasted on someone with an IQ of less than 80. Have I mentioned that I'm partial to a Macallan? Gosh is that the time? Hilly's coming to change my IV drip before I fall unconscious again. The publisher can bloody well pad out the rest of the book with a pointless quiz without me.

Q: Who will buy this?

A: No one.

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Jury clears judge of libelling mother
Sales of 'misery memoirs' fall after they boomed beyond all expectations since Dave Pelzer wrote A Child Called It

Constance Briscoe wins Ugly libel case

A judge who was sued for libel by her mother over allegations of childhood cruelty and neglect in her bestselling "misery memoir" won her case yesterday.

Constance Briscoe burst into tears at the high court in London as a jury unanimously cleared her and publishers Hodder & Stoughton over the claims in Ugly, which her mother Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell, 74, had alleged were a "piece of fiction".

During the 10-day trial, Briscoe, 51, who was one of the first black women judges in the UK, told the court her mother repeatedly beat her with a stick for bed-wetting and called her a "dirty little whore", a "potato-head" and "miss piss-a-bed".

She described trying to kill herself by drinking diluted bleach after failing to get taken into care, and told the jury she used a university grant to have plastic surgery to remove the "ugliness" her mother had taunted her over.

Briscoe, of Clapham, south London, also said that when she was nine, her mother had deliberately cut her on the inside of her arm with a knife in a row over the preparation of a chicken.

Ugly, published in 2006, has sold more than 400,000 copies in the UK. Briscoe and Hodder & Stoughton had denied libel and said the book was substantially true. Andrew Caldecott QC, for Briscoe, said the events occurred between 1964 and 1975.

Briscoe-Mitchell, from Southwark, south-east London, left court without making any immediate comment about her legal defeat. During the trial she had denied all the allegations of verbal and physical abuse and claimed she and her daughter had enjoyed a loving relationship within a happy family.

Her counsel, William Panton, told the jury Briscoe was "spinning a yarn", claiming his client had struggled to bring up her 11 children and had provided for them equally to the best of her ability.

Outside court, Briscoe told reporters she was "very happy" with the jury's verdict, which came after more than a day of deliberation.

"It is sad that my mother still feels the need to pursue me," she said. "Now I just want to get on with my career. I would like to thank all my readers who have sent me messages of support, including the very many children who provided helpful advice.

"I can quite understand why my family went into collective denial but whilst child abuse may be committed behind closed doors it should never be swept under the carpet."

Hodder & Stoughton said it was pleased with the verdict. "We are very proud to be Constance Briscoe's publisher," a statement said. "Her books Ugly and Beyond Ugly have touched hundreds of thousands of readers, many of them children. Sadly, as we know from the news over the past few weeks, child abuse is all too common and nothing and no one should ever stand in the way of the truth."

Asked during the trial why she wrote the book, Briscoe said: "I didn't believe for a split second that I owed my mother a bond of silence. I don't. I had a story to tell and that story really is that I, someone who from dirt poverty, from absolutely nowhere, with absolutely no assistance whatsoever, who faced adversity at every turn, could come through."

The court heard she had cleaned offices for two hours every day before school until her studies took her to Newcastle University, the criminal bar and, eventually, to become one of the country's few black women judges.

"I wanted to say to whoever read the book ... you can be whatever you want to be," Briscoe said. "You just have to believe in yourself ... you do not have to be posh or privileged to be at the Bar.

"You just need to believe in yourself and I truly, truly believe that my book has done an enormous amount of good."

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