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diff --git a/3532.txt b/3532.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b097a34 --- /dev/null +++ b/3532.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4690 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of My Discovery of England, by Stephen Leacock + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: My Discovery of England + +Author: Stephen Leacock + +Commentator: Owen Seaman + +Posting Date: February 12, 2009 [EBook #3532] +Release Date: November, 2002 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY DISCOVERY OF ENGLAND *** + + + + +Produced by Gardner Buchanan, and The Distributed Proofers + + + + + +MY DISCOVERY OF ENGLAND + +1922 + +By Leacock, Stephen + + + + +Introduction of Mr. Stephen Leacock Given by Sir Owen Seaman +on the Occasion of His First Lecture in London + + +LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It is usual on these occasions for the chairman +to begin something like this: "The lecturer, I am sure, needs no +introduction from me." And indeed, when I have been the lecturer and +somebody else has been the chairman, I have more than once suspected +myself of being the better man of the two. Of course I hope I should +always have the good manners--I am sure Mr. Leacock has--to disguise +that suspicion. However, one has to go through these formalities, and I +will therefore introduce the lecturer to you. + +Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mr. Stephen Leacock. Mr. Leacock, this is +the flower of London intelligence--or perhaps I should say one of the +flowers; the rest are coming to your other lectures. + +In ordinary social life one stops at an introduction and does not +proceed to personal details. But behaviour on the platform, as on the +stage, is seldom ordinary. I will therefore tell you a thing or two +about Mr. Leacock. In the first place, by vocation he is a Professor of +Political Economy, and he practises humour--frenzied fiction instead +of frenzied finance--by way of recreation. There he differs a good deal +from me, who have to study the products of humour for my living, and by +way of recreation read Mr. Leacock on political economy. + +Further, Mr. Leacock is all-British, being English by birth and Canadian +by residence, I mention this for two reasons: firstly, because England +and the Empire are very proud to claim him for their own, and, secondly, +because I do not wish his nationality to be confused with that of his +neighbours on the other side. For English and American humourists have +not always seen eye to eye. When we fail to appreciate their humour they +say we are too dull and effete to understand it: and when they do not +appreciate ours they say we haven't got any. + +Now Mr. Leacock's humour is British by heredity; but he has caught +something of the spirit of American humour by force of association. This +puts him in a similar position to that in which I found myself once when +I took the liberty of swimming across a rather large loch in Scotland. +After climbing into the boat I was in the act of drying myself when I +was accosted by the proprietor of the hotel adjacent to the shore. "You +have no business to be bathing here," he shouted. "I'm not," I said; +"I'm bathing on the other side." In the same way, if anyone on either +side of the water is unintelligent enough to criticise Mr. Leacock's +humour, he can always say it comes from the other side. But the truth +is that his humour contains all that is best in the humour of both +hemispheres. + +Having fulfilled my duty as chairman, in that I have told you nothing +that you did not know before--except, perhaps, my swimming feat, which +never got into the Press because I have a very bad publicity agent--I +will not detain you longer from what you are really wanting to get at; +but ask Mr. Leacock to proceed at once with his lecture on "Frenzied +Fiction." + + + +CONTENTS + + I. THE BALANCE OF TRADE IN IMPRESSIONS + II. I AM INTERVIEWED BY THE PRESS + III. IMPRESSIONS OF LONDON + IV. A CLEAR VIEW OF THE GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF ENGLAND + V. OXFORD AS I SEE IT + VI. THE BRITISH AND THE AMERICAN PRESS + VII. BUSINESS IN ENGLAND + VIII. IS PROHIBITION COMING TO ENGLAND? + IX. "WE HAVE WITH US TO-NIGHT" + X. HAVE THE ENGLISH ANY SENSE OF HUMOUR? + + + + + +MY DISCOVERY OF ENGLAND + + + + +I. The Balance of Trade in Impressions + +FOR some years past a rising tide of lecturers and literary men from +England has washed upon the shores of our North American continent. The +purpose of each one of them is to make a new discovery of America. They +come over to us travelling in great simplicity, and they return in +the ducal suite of the Aquitania. They carry away with them their +impressions of America, and when they reach England they sell them. This +export of impressions has now been going on so long that the balance +of trade in impressions is all disturbed. There is no doubt that the +Americans and Canadians have been too generous in this matter of giving +away impressions. We emit them with the careless ease of a glow worm, +and like the glow-worm ask for nothing in return. + +But this irregular and one-sided traffic has now assumed such great +proportions that we are compelled to ask whether it is right to allow +these people to carry away from us impressions of the very highest +commercial value without giving us any pecuniary compensation whatever. +British lecturers have been known to land in New York, pass the customs, +drive uptown in a closed taxi, and then forward to England from the +closed taxi itself ten dollars' worth of impressions of American +national character. I have myself seen an English literary man,--the +biggest, I believe: he had at least the appearance of it; sit in the +corridor of a fashionable New York hotel and look gloomily into his hat, +and then from his very hat produce an estimate of the genius of Amer ica +at twenty cents a word. The nice question as to whose twenty cents that +was never seems to have occurred to him. + +I am not writing in the faintest spirit of jealousy. I quite admit the +extraordinary ability that is involved in this peculiar susceptibility +to impressions. I have estimated that some of these English visitors +have been able to receive impressions at the rate of four to the second; +in fact, they seem to get them every time they see twenty cents. But +without jealousy or complaint, I do feel that somehow these impressions +are inadequate and fail to depict us as we really are. + +Let me illustrate what I mean. Here are some of the impressions of New +York, gathered from visitors' discoveries of America, and reproduced not +perhaps word for word but as closely as I can remember them. "New York", +writes one, "nestling at the foot of the Hudson, gave me an impression +of cosiness, of tiny graciousness: in short, of weeness." But compare +this--"New York," according to another discoverer of America, "gave me +an impression of size, of vastness; there seemed to be a big ness about +it not found in smaller places." A third visitor writes, "New York +struck me as hard, cruel, almost inhuman." This, I think, was because +his taxi driver had charged him three dollars. "The first thing that +struck me in New York," writes another, "was the Statue of Liberty." +But, after all, that was only natural: it was the first thing that could +reach him. + +Nor is it only the impressions of the metropolis that seem to fall short +of reality. Let me quote a few others taken at random here and there +over the continent. + +"I took from Pittsburg," says an English visitor, "an impression of +something that I could hardly define--an atmosphere rather than an +idea." + +All very well, But, after all, had he the right to take it? Granted that +Pittsburg has an atmosphere rather than an idea, the attempt to carry +away this atmosphere surely borders on rapacity. + +"New Orleans," writes another visitor, "opened her arms to me and +bestowed upon me the soft and languorous kiss of the Caribbean." This +statement may or may not be true; but in any case it hardly seems the +fair thing to mention it. + +"Chicago," according to another book of discovery, "struck me as a large +city. Situated as it is and where it is, it seems destined to be a place +of importance." + +Or here, again, is a form of "impression" that recurs again and +again-"At Cleveland I felt a distinct note of optimism in the air." + +This same note of optimism is found also at Toledo, at Toronto--in +short, I believe it indicates nothing more than that some one gave the +visitor a cigar. Indeed it generally occurs during the familiar scene +in which the visitor describes his cordial reception in an unsuspecting +American town: thus: + +"I was met at the station (called in America the depot) by a member +of the Municipal Council driving his own motor car. After giving me an +excellent cigar, he proceeded to drive me about the town, to various +points of interest, including the municipal abattoir, where he gave me +another excellent cigar, the Carnegie public library, the First National +Bank (the courteous manager of which gave me an excellent cigar) and +the Second Congregational Church where I had the pleasure of meeting the +pastor. The pastor, who appeared a man of breadth and culture, gave me +another cigar. In the evening a dinner, admirably cooked and excellently +served, was tendered to me at a leading hotel." And of course he took +it. After which his statement that he carried away from the town a +feeling of optimism explains itself: he had four cigars, the dinner, and +half a page of impressions at twenty cents a word. + +Nor is it only by the theft of impressions that we suffer at the hands +of these English discoverers of America. It is a part of the system also +that we have to submit to being lectured to by our talented visitors. It +is now quite understood that as soon as an English literary man finishes +a book he is rushed across to America to tell the people of the United +States and Canada all about it, and how he came to write it. At home, in +his own country, they don't care how he came to write it. He's written +it and that's enough. But in America it is different. One month after +the distinguished author's book on The Boyhood of Botticelli has +appeared in London, he is seen to land in New York very quietly out of +one of the back portholes of the Olympic. That same afternoon you will +find him in an armchair in one of the big hotels giving off impressions +of America to a group of reporters. After which notices appear in +all the papers to the effect that he will lecture in Carnegie Hall on +"Botticelli the Boy". The audience is assured beforehand. It consists of +all the people who feel that they have to go because they know all about +Botticelli and all the people who feel that they have to go because they +don't know anything about Botticelli. By this means the lecturer is +able to rake the whole country from Montreal to San Francisco +with "Botticelli the Boy". Then he turns round, labels his lecture +"Botticelli the Man", and rakes it all back again. All the way across +the continent and back he emits impressions, estimates of national +character, and surveys of American genius. He sails from New York in a +blaze of publicity, with his cordon of reporters round him, and a month +later publishes his book "America as I Saw It". It is widely read--in +America. + +In the course of time a very considerable public feeling was aroused +in the United States and Canada over this state of affairs. The lack of +reciprocity in it seemed unfair. It was felt (or at least I felt) +that the time had come when some one ought to go over and take some +impressions off England. The choice of such a person (my choice) fell +upon myself. By an arrangement with the Geographical Society of America, +acting in conjunction with the Royal Geographical Society of England (to +both of whom I communicated my proposal), I went at my own expense. + +It is scarcely feasible to give here full details in regard to my outfit +and equipment, though I hope to do so in a later and more extended +account of my expedition. Suffice it to say that my outfit, which was +modelled on the equipment of English lecturers in America, included a +complete suit of clothes, a dress shirt for lecturing in, a fountain +pen and a silk hat. The dress shirt, I may say for the benefit of other +travellers, proved invaluable. The silk hat, however, is no longer used +in England except perhaps for scrambling eggs in. + +I pass over the details of my pleasant voyage from New York to +Liverpool. During the last fifty years so many travellers have made +the voyage across the Atlantic that it is now impossible to obtain any +impressions from the ocean of the slightest commercial value. My readers +will recall the fact that Washington Irving, as far back as a century +ago, chronicled the pleasure that one felt during an Atlantic voyage +in idle day dreams while lying prone upon the bowsprit and watching the +dolphins leaping in the crystalline foam. Since his time so many gifted +writers have attempted to do the same thing that on the large Atlantic +liners the bowsprit has been removed, or at any rate a notice put up: +"Authors are requested not to lie prostrate on the bowsprit." But +even without this advantage, three or four generations of writers have +chronicled with great minuteness their sensations during the transit. +I need only say that my sensations were just as good as theirs. I will +content myself with chronicling the fact that during the voyage we +passed two dolphins, one whale and one iceberg (none of them moving very +fast at the time), and that on the fourth day out the sea was so +rough that the Captain said that in forty years he had never seen such +weather. One of the steerage passengers, we were told, was actually +washed overboard: I think it was over board that he was washed, but it +may have been on board the ship itself. + +I pass over also the incidents of my landing in Liverpool, except +perhaps to comment upon the extraordinary behaviour of the English +customs officials. Without wishing in any way to disturb international +relations, one cannot help noticing the rough and inquisitorial methods +of the English customs men as compared with the gentle and affectionate +ways of the American officials at New York. The two trunks that I +brought with me were dragged brutally into an open shed, the strap +of one of them was rudely unbuckled, while the lid of the other was +actually lifted at least four inches. The trunks were then roughly +scrawled with chalk, the lids slammed to, and that was all. Not one +of the officials seemed to care to look at my things or to have the +politeness to pretend to want to. I had arranged my dress suit and my +pyjamas so as to make as effective a display as possible: a New York +customs officer would have been delighted with it. Here they simply +passed it over. "Do open this trunk," I asked one of the officials, "and +see my pyjamas." "I don't think it is necessary, sir," the man answered. +There was a coldness about it that cut me to the quick. + +But bad as is the conduct of the English customs men, the immigration +officials are even worse. I could not help being struck by the dreadful +carelessness with which people are admitted into England. There are, it +is true, a group of officials said to be in charge of immigration, but +they know nothing of the discriminating care exercised on the other side +of the Atlantic. + +"Do you want to know," I asked one of them, "whether I am a polygamist?" + +"No, sir," he said very quietly. + +"Would you like me to tell you whether I am fundamentally opposed to any +and every system of government?" + +The man seemed mystified. "No, sir," he said. "I don't know that I +would." + +"Don't you care?" I asked. + +"Well, not particularly, sir," he answered. + +I was determined to arouse him from his lethargy. + +"Let me tell you, then," I said, "that I am an anarchistic polygamist, +that I am opposed to all forms of government, that I object to any kind +of revealed religion, that I regard the state and property and marriage +as the mere tyranny of the bourgeoisie, and that I want to see class +hatred carried to the point where it forces every one into brotherly +love. Now, do I get in?" + +The official looked puzzled for a minute. "You are not Irish, are you, +sir?" he said. + +"No." + +"Then I think you can come in all right." he answered. + +The journey from Liverpool to London, like all other English journeys, +is short. This is due to the fact that England is a small country: it +contains only 50,000 square miles, whereas the United States, as every +one knows, contains three and a half billion. I mentioned this fact to +an English fellow passenger on the train, together with a provisional +estimate of the American corn crop for 1922: but he only drew his rug +about his knees, took a sip of brandy from his travelling flask, and +sank into a state resembling death. I contented myself with jotting down +an impression of incivility and paid no further attention to my fellow +traveller other than to read the labels on his lug gage and to peruse +the headings of his newspaper by peeping over his shoulder. + +It was my first experience of travelling with a fellow passenger in +a compartment of an English train, and I admit now that I was as yet +ignorant of the proper method of conduct. Later on I became fully +conversant with the rule of travel as understood in England. I should +have known, of course, that I must on no account speak to the man. But I +should have let down the window a little bit in such a way as to make a +strong draught on his ear. Had this failed to break down his reserve I +should have placed a heavy valise in the rack over his head so balanced +that it might fall on him at any moment. Failing this again, I could +have blown rings of smoke at him or stepped on his feet under the +pretence of looking out of the window. Under the English rule as long as +he bears this in silence you are not supposed to know him. In fact, he +is not supposed to be there. You and he each presume the other to be a +mere piece of empty space. But let him once be driven to say, "Oh, I beg +your pardon, I wonder if you would mind my closing the window," and he +is lost. After that you are entitled to tell him anything about the corn +crop that you care to. + +But in the present case I knew nothing of this, and after three hours of +charming silence I found myself in London. + + + + +II. I Am Interviewed by the Press + +IMMEDIATELY upon my arrival in London I was interviewed by the Press. I +was interviewed in all twenty times. I am not saying this in any +spirit of elation or boastfulness. I am simply stating it as a +fact--interviewed twenty times, sixteen times by men and twice by women. +But as I feel that the results of these interviews were not all that I +could have wished, I think it well to make some public explanation of +what happened. + +The truth is that we do this thing so differently over in America that I +was for the time being completely thrown off my bearings. The questions +that I had every right to expect after many years of American and +Canadian interviews failed to appear. + +I pass over the fact that being interviewed for five hours is a +fatiguing process. I lay no claim to exemption for that. But to that no +doubt was due the singular discrepancies as to my physical appearance +which I detected in the London papers. + +The young man who interviewed me immediately after breakfast described +me as "a brisk, energetic man, still on the right side of forty, with +energy in every movement." + +The lady who wrote me up at 11.30 reported that my hair was turning +grey, and that there was "a peculiar languor" in my manner. + +And at the end the boy who took me over at a quarter to two said, "The +old gentleman sank wearily upon a chair in the hotel lounge. His hair is +almost white." + +The trouble is that I had not understood that London reporters are +supposed to look at a man's personal appearance. In America we never +bother with that. We simply describe him as a "dynamo." For some reason +or other it always pleases everybody to be called a "dynamo," and the +readers, at least with us, like to read about people who are "dynamos," +and hardly care for anything else. + +In the case of very old men we sometimes call them "battle-horses" or +"extinct volcanoes," but beyond these three classes we hardly venture +on description. So I was misled. I had expected that the reporter would +say: "As soon as Mr. Leacock came across the floor we felt we were in +the presence of a 'dynamo' (or an 'extinct battle-horse' as the case may +be)." Otherwise I would have kept up those energetic movements all the +morning. But they fatigue me, and I did not think them necessary. But I +let that pass. + +The more serious trouble was the questions put to me by the reporters. +Over in our chief centres of population we use another set altogether. +I am thinking here especially of the kind of interview that I have +given out in Youngstown, Ohio, and Richmond, Indiana, and Peterborough, +Ontario. In all these places--for example, in Youngstown, Ohio the +reporter asks as his first question, "What is your impression of +Youngstown?" + +In London they don't. They seem indifferent to the fate of their city. +Perhaps it is only English pride. For all I know they may have been +burning to know this, just as the Youngstown, Ohio, people are, and +were too proud to ask. In any case I will insert here the answer I had +written out in my pocket-book (one copy for each paper--the way we do it +in Youngstown), and which read: + +"London strikes me as emphatically a city with a future. Standing as +she does in the heart of a rich agricultural district with railroad +connection in all directions, and resting, as she must, on a bed of coal +and oil, I prophesy that she will one day be a great city." + +The advantage of this is that it enables the reporter to get just the +right kind of heading: PROPHESIES BRIGHT FUTURE FOR LONDON. Had +that been used my name would have stood higher there than it does +to-day--unless the London people are very different from the people in +Youngstown, which I doubt. As it is they don't know whether their future +is bright or is as dark as mud. But it's not my fault. The reporters +never asked me. + +If the first question had been handled properly it would have led up +by an easy and pleasant transition to question two, which always runs: +"Have you seen our factories?" To which the answer is: + +"I have. I was taken out early this morning by a group of your citizens +(whom I cannot thank enough) in a Ford car to look at your pail and +bucket works. At eleven-thirty I was taken out by a second group in what +was apparently the same car to see your soap works. I understand that +you are the second nail-making centre east of the Alleghenies, and I +am amazed and appalled. This afternoon I am to be taken out to see your +wonderful system of disposing of sewerage, a thing which has fascinated +me from childhood." + +Now I am not offering any criticism of the London system of +interviewing, but one sees at once how easy and friendly for all +concerned this Youngstown method is; how much better it works than the +London method of asking questions about literature and art and difficult +things of that sort. I am sure that there must be soap works and +perhaps a pail factory somewhere in London. But during my entire time +of residence there no one ever offered to take me to them. As for the +sewerage--oh, well, I suppose we are more hospitable in America. Let it +go at that. + +I had my answer all written and ready, saying: + +"I understand that London is the second greatest hop-consuming, the +fourth hog-killing, and the first egg-absorbing centre in the world." + +But what I deplore still more, and I think with reason, is the total +omission of the familiar interrogation: "What is your impression of our +women?" + +That's where the reporter over on our side hits the nail every time. +That is the point at which we always nudge him in the ribs and buy him +a cigar, and at which youth and age join in a sly jest together. Here +again the sub-heading comes in so nicely: THINKS YOUNGSTOWN WOMEN +CHARMING. And they are. They are, everywhere. But I hate to think that +I had to keep my impression of London women unused in my pocket while +a young man asked me whether I thought modern literature owed more to +observation and less to inspiration than some other kind of literature. + +Now that's exactly the kind of question, the last one, that the London +reporters seem to harp on. They seemed hipped about literature; and +their questions are too difficult. One asked me whether the American +drama was structurally inferior to the French. I don't call that fair. I +told him I didn't know; that I used to know the answer to it when I was +at college, but that I had forgotten it, and that, anyway, I am too well +off now to need to remember it. + +That question is only one of a long list that they asked me about art +and literature. I missed nearly all of them, except one as to whether I +thought Al Jolson or Frank Tinney was the higher artist, and even that +one was asked by an American who is wasting himself on the London Press. + +I don't want to speak in anger. But I say it frankly, the atmosphere +of these young men is not healthy, and I felt that I didn't want to see +them any more. + +Had there been a reporter of the kind we have at home in Montreal or +Toledo or Springfield, Illinois, I would have welcomed him at my hotel. +He could have taken me out in a Ford car and shown me a factory and told +me how many cubic feet of water go down the Thames in an hour. I should +have been glad of his society, and he and I would have together made up +the kind of copy that people of his class and mine read. But I felt that +if any young man came along to ask about the structure of the modern +drama, he had better go on to the British Museum. + +Meantime as the reporters entirely failed to elicit the large fund of +information which I acquired, I reserve my impressions of London for a +chapter by themselves. + + + + +III. Impressions of London + +BEFORE setting down my impressions of the great English metropolis; a +phrase which I have thought out as a designation for London; I think it +proper to offer an initial apology. I find that I receive impressions +with great difficulty and have nothing of that easy facility in picking +them up which is shown by British writers on America. I remember Hugh +Walpole telling me that he could hardly walk down Broadway without +getting at least three dollars' worth and on Fifth Avenue five dollars' +worth; and I recollect that St. John Ervine came up to my house in +Montreal, drank a cup of tea, borrowed some tobacco, and got away with +sixty dollars' worth of impressions of Canadian life and character. + +For this kind of thing I have only a despairing admiration. I can get an +impression if I am given time and can think about it beforehand. But +it requires thought. This fact was all the more distressing to me in as +much as one of the leading editors of America had made me a proposal, +as honourable to him as it was lucrative to me, that immediately on my +arrival in London;--or just before it,--I should send him a thousand +words on the genius of the English, and five hundred words on the spirit +of London, and two hundred words of personal chat with Lord Northcliffe. +This contract I was unable to fulfil except the personal chat with Lord +Northcliffe, which proved an easy matter as he happened to be away in +Australia. + +But I have since pieced together my impressions as conscientiously as I +could and I present them here. If they seem to be a little bit modelled +on British impressions of America I admit at once that the influence +is there. We writers all act and react on one another; and when I see a +good thing in another man's book I react on it at once. + +London, the name of which is already known to millions of readers of +this book, is beautifully situated on the river Thames, which here +sweeps in a wide curve with much the same breadth and majesty as the St. +Jo River at South Bend, Indiana. London, like South Bend itself, is +a city of clean streets and admirable sidewalks, and has an excellent +water supply. One is at once struck by the number of excellent and +well-appointed motor cars that one sees on every hand, the neatness +of the shops and the cleanliness and cheerfulness of the faces of the +people. In short, as an English visitor said of Peterborough, Ontario, +there is a distinct note of optimism in the air. I forget who it was who +said this, but at any rate I have been in Peterborough myself and I have +seen it. + +Contrary to my expectations and contrary to all our Transatlantic +precedents, I was not met at the depot by one of the leading citizens, +himself a member of the Municipal Council, driving his own motor car. +He did not tuck a fur rug about my knees, present me with a really +excellent cigar and proceed to drive me about the town so as to show me +the leading points of interest, the municipal reservoir, the gas works +and the municipal abattoir. In fact he was not there. But I attribute +his absence not to any lack of hospitality but merely to a certain +reserve in the English character. They are as yet unused to the arrival +of lecturers. When they get to be more accustomed to their coming, they +will learn to take them straight to the municipal abattoir just as we +do. + +For lack of better guidance, therefore, I had to form my impressions of +London by myself. In the mere physical sense there is much to attract +the eye. The city is able to boast of many handsome public buildings and +offices which compare favourably with anything on the other side of the +Atlantic. On the bank of the Thames itself rises the power house of the +Westminster Electric Supply Corporation, a handsome modern edifice in +the later Japanese style. Close by are the commodious premises of the +Imperial Tobacco Company, while at no great distance the Chelsea Gas +Works add a striking feature of rotundity. Passing northward, one +observes Westminster Bridge, notable as a principal station of the +underground railway. This station and the one next above it, the Charing +Cross one, are connected by a wide thoroughfare called Whitehall. One +of the best American drug stores is here situated. The upper end of +Whitehall opens into the majestic and spacious Trafalgar Square. Here +are grouped in imposing proximity the offices of the Canadian Pacific +and other railways, The International Sleeping Car Company, the Montreal +Star, and the Anglo-Dutch Bank. Two of the best American barber shops +are conveniently grouped near the Square, while the existence of a tall +stone monument in the middle of the Square itself enables the American +visitor to find them without difficulty. Passing eastward towards the +heart of the city, one notes on the left hand the imposing pile of St. +Paul's, an enormous church with a round dome on the top, suggesting +strongly the first Church of Christ (Scientist) on Euclid Avenue, +Cleveland. + +But the English churches not being labelled, the visitor is often at a +loss to distinguish them. + +A little further on one finds oneself in the heart of financial London. +Here all the great financial institutions of America--The First National +Bank of Milwaukee, The Planters National Bank of St. Louis, The Montana +Farmers Trust Co., and many others,--have either their offices or their +agents. The Bank of England--which acts as the London Agent of The +Montana Farmers Trust Company,--and the London County Bank, which +represents the People's Deposit Co., of Yonkers, N.Y., are said to be in +the neighbourhood. + +This particular part of London is connected with the existence of that +strange and mysterious thing called "the City." I am still unable to +decide whether the city is a person, or a place, or a thing. But as a +form of being I give it credit for being the most emotional, the most +volatile, the most peculiar creature in the world. You read in the +morning paper that the City is "deeply depressed." At noon it is +reported that the City is "buoyant" and by four o'clock that the City is +"wildly excited." + +I have tried in vain to find the causes of these peculiar changes of +feeling. The ostensible reasons, as given in the newspaper, are so +trivial as to be hardly worthy of belief. For example, here is the kind +of news that comes out from the City. "The news that a modus vivendi +has been signed between the Sultan of Kowfat and the Shriek-ul-Islam +has caused a sudden buoyancy in the City. Steel rails which had been +depressed all morning reacted immediately while American mules rose up +sharply to par."... "Monsieur Poincar, speaking at Bordeaux, said +that henceforth France must seek to retain by all possible means the +ping-pong championship of the world: values in the City collapsed at +once."... "Despatches from Bombay say that the Shah of Persia yesterday +handed a golden slipper to the Grand Vizier Feebli Pasha as a sign that +he might go and chase himself: the news was at once followed by a drop +in oil, and a rapid attempt to liquidate everything that is fluid..." + +But these mysteries of the City I do not pretend to explain. I have +passed through the place dozens of times and never noticed anything +particular in the way of depression or buoyancy, or falling oil, or +rising rails. But no doubt it is there. + +A little beyond the city and further down the river the visitor finds +this district of London terminating in the gloomy and forbidding +Tower, the principal penitentiary of the city. Here Queen Victoria was +imprisoned for many years. + +Excellent gasoline can be had at the American Garage immediately north +of the Tower, where motor repairs of all kinds are also carried on. + +These, however, are but the superficial pictures of London, gathered by +the eye of the tourist. A far deeper meaning is found in the examination +of the great historic monuments of the city. The principal ones of +these are the Tower of London (just mentioned), the British Museum and +Westminster Abbey. No visitor to London should fail to see these. Indeed +he ought to feel that his visit to England is wasted unless he has seen +them. I speak strongly on the point because I feel strongly on it. To +my mind there is something about the grim fascination of the historic +Tower, the cloistered quiet of the Museum and the majesty of the ancient +Abbey, which will make it the regret of my life that I didn't see any +one of the three. I fully meant to: but I failed: and I can only hope +that the circumstances of my failure may be helpful to other visitors. + +The Tower of London I most certainly intended to inspect. Each day, +after the fashion of every tourist, I wrote for myself a little list of +things to do and I always put the Tower of London on it. No doubt the +reader knows the kind of little list that I mean. It runs: + + 1. Go to bank. + + 2. Buy a shirt. + + 3. National Picture Gallery. + + 4. Razor blades. + + 5. Tower of London. + + 6. Soap. + +This itinerary, I regret to say, was never carried out in full. I +was able at times both to go to the bank and buy a shirt in a single +morning: at other times I was able to buy razor blades and almost to +find the National Picture Gallery. Meantime I was urged on all sides by +my London acquaintances not to fail to see the Tower. "There's a grim +fascination about the place," they said; "you mustn't miss it." I am +quite certain that in due course of time I should have made my way to +the Tower but for the fact that I made a fatal discovery. I found out +that the London people who urged me to go and see the Tower had never +seen it themselves. It appears they never go near it. One night at a +dinner a man next to me said, "Have you seen the Tower? You really ought +to. There's a grim fascination about it." I looked him in the face. +"Have you seen it yourself?" I asked. "Oh, yes," he answered. "I've seen +it." "When?" I asked. The man hesitated. "When I was just a boy," he +said, "my father took me there." "How long ago is that?" I enquired. +"About forty years ago," he answered; + +"I always mean to go again but I don't somehow seem to get the time." + +After this I got to understand that when a Londoner says, "Have you seen +the Tower of London?" the answer is, "No, and neither have you." + +Take the parallel case of the British Museum. Here is a place that is +a veritable treasure house. A repository of some of the most priceless +historical relics to be found upon the earth. It contains, for instance, +the famous Papyrus Manuscript of Thotmes II of the first Egyptian +dynasty--a thing known to scholars all over the world as the oldest +extant specimen of what can be called writing; indeed one can here see +the actual evolution (I am quoting from a work of reference, or at +least from my recollection of it) from the ideographic cuneiform to the +phonetic syllabic script. Every time I have read about that manuscript +and have happened to be in Orillia (Ontario) or Schenectady (N.Y.) or +any such place, I have felt that I would be willing to take a whole trip +to England to have five minutes at the British Museum, just five, to +look at that papyrus. Yet as soon as I got to London this changed. The +railway stations of London have been so arranged that to get to any +train for the north or west, the traveller must pass the British Museum. +The first time I went by it in a taxi, I felt quite a thrill. "Inside +those walls," I thought to myself, "is the manuscript of Thotmes II." +The next time I actually stopped the taxi. "Is that the British Museum?" +I asked the driver, "I think it is something of the sort, sir," he +said. I hesitated. "Drive me," I said, "to where I can buy safety razor +blades." + +After that I was able to drive past the Museum with the quiet assurance +of a Londoner, and to take part in dinner table discussions as to +whether the British Museum or the Louvre contains the greater treasures. +It is quite easy any way. All you have to do is to remember that The +Winged Victory of Samothrace is in the Louvre and the papyrus of Thotmes +II (or some such document) is in the Museum. + +The Abbey, I admit, is indeed majestic. I did not intend to miss going +into it. But I felt, as so many tourists have, that I wanted to enter +it in the proper frame of mind. I never got into the frame of mind; at +least not when near the Abbey itself. I have been in exactly that frame +of mind when on State Street, Chicago, or on King Street, Toronto, or +anywhere three thousand miles away from the Abbey. But by bad luck I +never struck both the frame of mind and the Abbey at the same time. + +But the Londoners, after all, in not seeing their own wonders, are only +like the rest of the world. The people who live in Buffalo never go +to see Niagara Falls; people in Cleveland don't know which is Mr. +Rockefeller's house, and people live and even die in New York without +going up to the top of the Woolworth Building. And anyway the past +is remote and the present is near. I know a cab driver in the city of +Quebec whose business in life it is to drive people up to see the Plains +of Abraham, but unless they bother him to do it, he doesn't show them +the spot where Wolfe fell: what he does point out with real zest is the +place where the Mayor and the City Council sat on the wooden platform +that they put up for the municipal celebration last summer. + +No description of London would be complete without a reference, however +brief, to the singular salubrity and charm of the London climate. This +is seen at its best during the autumn and winter months. The climate of +London and indeed of England generally is due to the influence of the +Gulf Stream. The way it works is thus: The Gulf Stream, as it nears the +shores of the British Isles and feels the propinquity of Ireland, rises +into the air, turns into soup, and comes down on London. At times the +soup is thin and is in fact little more than a mist: at other times it +has the consistency of a thick Potage St. Germain. London people are a +little sensitive on the point and flatter their atmosphere by calling it +a fog: but it is not: it is soup. The notion that no sunlight ever gets +through and that in the London winter people never see the sun is +of course a ridiculous error, circulated no doubt by the jealousy of +foreign nations. I have myself seen the sun plainly visible in London, +without the aid of glasses, on a November day in broad daylight; and +again one night about four o'clock in the afternoon I saw the sun +distinctly appear through the clouds. The whole subject of daylight in +the London winter is, however, one which belongs rather to the technique +of astronomy than to a book of description. In practice daylight is +but little used. Electric lights are burned all the time in all houses, +buildings, railway stations and clubs. This practice which is now +universally observed is called Daylight Saving. + +But the distinction between day and night during the London winter is +still quite obvious to any one of an observant mind. It is indicated by +various signs such as the striking of clocks, the tolling of bells, the +closing of saloons, and the raising of taxi rates. It is much less easy +to distinguish the technical approach of night in the other cities of +England that lie outside the confines, physical and intellectual, of +London and live in a continuous gloom. In such places as the great +manufacturing cities, Buggingham-under-Smoke, or Gloomsbury-on-Ooze, +night may be said to be perpetual. + + ***** + +I had written the whole of the above chapter and looked on it as +finished when I realised that I had made a terrible omission. I +neglected to say anything about the Mind of London. This is a thing that +is always put into any book of discovery and observation and I can only +apologise for not having discussed it sooner. I am quite familiar with +other people's chapters on "The Mind of America," and "The Chinese +Mind," and so forth. Indeed, so far as I know it has turned out that +almost everybody all over the world has a mind. Nobody nowadays travels, +even in Central America or Thibet, without bringing back a chapter on +"The Mind of Costa Rica," or on the "Psychology of the Mongolian." Even +the gentler peoples such as the Burmese, the Siamese, the Hawaiians, and +the Russians, though they have no minds are written up as souls. + +It is quite obvious then that there is such a thing as the mind of +London: and it is all the more culpable in me to have neglected it in as +much as my editorial friend in New York had expressly mentioned it to +me before I sailed. "What," said he, leaning far over his desk after his +massive fashion and reaching out into the air, "what is in the minds of +these people? Are they," he added, half to himself, though I heard him, +"are they thinking? And, if they think, what do they think?" + +I did therefore, during my stay in London, make an accurate study of the +things that London seemed to be thinking about. As a comparative basis +for this study I brought with me a carefully selected list of the things +that New York was thinking about at the moment. These I selected +from the current newspapers in the proportions to the amount of space +allotted to each topic and the size of the heading that announced it. +Having thus a working idea of what I may call the mind of New York, I +was able to collect and set beside it a list of similar topics, taken +from the London Press to represent the mind of London. The two placed +side by side make an interesting piece of psychological analysis. They +read as follows: + + THE MIND OF NEW YORK THE MIND OF LONDON + What is it thinking? What is it thinking? + + 1. Do chorus girls make 1. Do chorus girls marry + good wives? well? + + 2. Is red hair a sign of 2. What is red hair a + temperament? sign of? + + 3. Can a woman be in 3. Can a man be in love + love with two men? with two women? + + 4. Is fat a sign of genius? 4. Is genius a sign of fat? + +Looking over these lists, I think it is better to present them without +comment; I feel sure that somewhere or other in them one should detect +the heart-throbs, the pulsations of two great peoples. But I don't get +it. In fact the two lists look to me terribly like "the mind of Costa +Rica." + +The same editor also advised me to mingle, at his expense, in the +brilliant intellectual life of England. "There," he said, "is a coterie +of men, probably the most brilliant group East of the Mississippi." (I +think he said the Mississippi). "You will find them," he said to me, +"brilliant, witty, filled with repartee." He suggested that I +should send him back, as far as words could express it, some of this +brilliance. I was very glad to be able to do this, although I fear +that the results were not at all what he had anticipated. Still, I held +conversations with these people and I gave him, in all truthfulness, the +result. Sir James Barrie said, "This is really very exceptional weather +for this time of year." Cyril Maude said, "And so a Martini cocktail +is merely gin and vermouth." Ian Hay said, "You'll find the underground +ever so handy once you understand it." + +I have a lot more of these repartees that I could insert here if it was +necessary. But somehow I feel that it is not. + + + + +IV. A Clear View of the Government and Politics of England + +A LOYAL British subject like myself in dealing with the government of +England should necessarily begin with a discussion of the monarchy. I +have never had the pleasure of meeting the King,--except once on the +G.T.R. platform in Orillia, Ontario, when he was the Duke of York and +I was one of the welcoming delegates of the town council. No doubt he +would recall it in a minute. + +But in England the King is surrounded by formality and circumstance. On +many mornings I waited round the gates of Buckingham Palace but I found +it quite impossible to meet the King in the quiet sociable way in which +one met him in Orillia. The English, it seems, love to make the kingship +a subject of great pomp and official etiquette. In Canada it is quite +different. Perhaps we understand kings and princes better than the +English do. At any rate we treat them in a far more human heart-to-heart +fashion than is the English custom, and they respond to it at once. I +remember when King George--he was, as I say, Duke of York then--came up +to Orillia, Ontario, how we all met him in a delegation on the platform. +Bob Curran--Bob was Mayor of the town that year--went up to him and +shook hands with him and invited him to come right on up to the Orillia +House where he had a room reserved for him. Charlie Janes and Mel +Tudhope and the other boys who were on the town Council gathered round +the royal prince and shook hands and told him that he simply must stay +over. George Rapley, the bank manager, said that if he wanted a cheque +cashed or anything of that sort to come right into the Royal Bank and +he would do it for him. The prince had two aides-de-camp with him and a +secretary, but Bob Curran said to bring them uptown too and it would be +all right. We had planned to have an oyster supper for the Prince at Jim +Smith's hotel and then take him either to the Y.M.C.A. Pool Room or else +over to the tea social in the basement of the Presbyterian Church. + +Unluckily the prince couldn't stay. It turned out that he had to get +right back into his train and go on to Peterborough, Ontario, where they +were to have a brass band to meet him, which naturally he didn't want to +miss. + +But the point is that it was a real welcome. And you could see that the +prince appreciated it. There was a warmth and a meaning to it that the +prince understood at once. It was a pity that he couldn't have stayed +over and had time to see the carriage factory and the new sewerage +plant. We all told the prince that he must come back and he said that if +he could he most certainly would. When the prince's train pulled out +of the station and we all went back uptown together (it was before +prohibition came to Ontario) you could feel that the institution of +royalty was quite solid in Orillia for a generation. + +But you don't get that sort of thing in England. + +There's a formality and coldness in all their dealings with royalty that +would never go down with us. They like to have the King come and open +Parliament dressed in royal robes, and with a clattering troop of +soldiers riding in front of him. As for taking him over to the Y.M.C.A. +to play pin pool, they never think of it. They have seen so much of the +mere outside of his kingship that they don't understand the heart of it +as we do in Canada. + +But let us turn to the House of Commons: for no description of England +would be complete without at least some mention of this interesting +body. Indeed for the ordinary visitor to London the greatest interest of +all attaches to the spacious and magnificent Parliament Buildings. The +House of Commons is commodiously situated beside the River Thames. The +principal features of the House are the large lunch room on the western +side and the tea-room on the terrace on the eastern. A series of smaller +luncheon rooms extend (apparently) all round about the premises: while a +commodious bar offers a ready access to the members at all hours of the +day. While any members are in the bar a light is kept burning in the +tall Clock Tower at one corner of the building, but when the bar is +closed the light is turned off by whichever of the Scotch members leaves +last. There is a handsome legislative chamber attached to the premises +from which--so the antiquarians tell us--the House of Commons took its +name. But it is not usual now for the members to sit in the legislative +chamber as the legislation is now all done outside, either at the home +of Mr. Lloyd George, or at the National Liberal Club, or at one or other +of the newspaper offices. The House, however, is called together at +very frequent intervals to give it an opportunity of hearing the latest +legislation and allowing the members to indulge in cheers, sighs, +groans, votes and other expressions of vitality. After having cheered as +much as is good for it, it goes back again to the lunch rooms and goes +on eating till needed again. + +It is, however, an entire exaggeration to say that the House of Commons +no longer has a real share in the government of England. This is not so. +Anybody connected with the government values the House of Commons in a +high degree. One of the leading newspaper proprietors of London himself +told me that he has always felt that if he had the House of Commons on +his side he had a very valuable ally. Many of the labour leaders are +inclined to regard the House of Commons as of great utility, while the +leading women's organizations, now that women are admitted as members, +may be said to regard the House as one of themselves. + +Looking around to find just where the natural service of the House of +Commons comes in, I am inclined to think that it must be in the practice +of "asking questions" in the House. Whenever anything goes wrong a +member rises and asks a question. He gets up, for example, with a little +paper in his hand, and asks the government if ministers are aware that +the Khedive of Egypt was seen yesterday wearing a Turkish Tarbosh. +Ministers say very humbly that they hadn't known it, and a thrill runs +through the whole country. The members can apparently ask any questions +they like. In the repeated visits which I made to the gallery of the +House of Commons I was unable to find any particular sense or meaning +in the questions asked, though no doubt they had an intimate bearing +on English politics not clear to an outsider like myself. I heard one +member ask the government whether they were aware that herrings were +being imported from Hamburg to Harwich. The government said no. Another +member rose and asked the government whether they considered Shakespere +or Moliere the greater dramatic artist. The government answered that +ministers were taking this under their earnest consideration and that +a report would be submitted to Parliament. Another member asked the +government if they knew who won the Queen's Plate this season at +Toronto. They did,--in fact this member got in wrong, as this is the +very thing that the government do know. Towards the close of the evening +a member rose and asked the government if they knew what time it was. +The Speaker, however, ruled this question out of order on the ground +that it had been answered before. + +The Parliament Buildings are so vast that it is not possible to state +with certainty what they do, or do not, contain. But it is generally +said that somewhere in the building is the House of Lords. When they +meet they are said to come together very quietly shortly before the +dinner hour, take a glass of dry sherry and a biscuit (they are all +abstemious men), reject whatever bills may be before them at the moment, +take another dry sherry and then adjourn for two years. + +The public are no longer allowed unrestricted access to the Houses of +Parliament; its approaches are now strictly guarded by policemen. In +order to obtain admission it is necessary either to (A) communicate +in writing with the Speaker of the House, enclosing certificates of +naturalization and proof of identity, or (B) give the policeman five +shillings. Method B is the one usually adopted. On great nights, +however, when the House of Commons is sitting and is about to do +something important, such as ratifying a Home Rule Bill or cheering, +or welcoming a new lady member, it is not possible to enter by merely +bribing the policeman with five shillings; it takes a pound. The English +people complain bitterly of the rich Americans who have in this way +corrupted the London public. Before they were corrupted they would do +anything for sixpence. + +This peculiar vein of corruption by the Americans runs like a thread, I +may say, through all the texture of English life. Among those who have +been principally exposed to it are the servants,--especially butlers and +chauffeurs, hotel porters, bell-boys, railway porters and guards, all +taxi-drivers, pew-openers, curates, bishops, and a large part of the +peerage. + +The terrible ravages that have been made by the Americans on English +morality are witnessed on every hand. Whole classes of society are +hopelessly damaged. I have it in the evidence of the English themselves +and there seems to be no doubt of the fact. Till the Americans came to +England the people were an honest, law-abiding race, respecting their +superiors and despising those below them. They had never been corrupted +by money and their employers extended to them in this regard their +tenderest solicitude. Then the Americans came. Servants ceased to be +what they were; butlers were hopelessly damaged; hotel porters became +a wreck; taxi-drivers turned out thieves; curates could no longer be +trusted to handle money; peers sold their daughters at a million dollars +a piece or three for two. In fact the whole kingdom began to deteriorate +till it got where it is now. At present after a rich American has stayed +in any English country house, its owners find that they can do +nothing with the butler; a wildness has come over the man. There is a +restlessness in his demeanour and a strange wistful look in his eye +as if seeking for something. In many cases, so I understand, after an +American has stayed in a country house the butler goes insane. He is +found in his pantry counting over the sixpence given to him by a Duke, +and laughing to himself. He has to be taken in charge by the police. +With him generally go the chauffeur, whose mind has broken down from +driving a rich American twenty miles; and the gardener, who is found +tearing up raspberry bushes by the roots to see if there is any money +under them; and the local curate whose brain has collapsed or expanded, +I forget which, when a rich American gave him fifty dollars for his soup +kitchen. + +There are, it is true, a few classes that have escaped this contagion, +shepherds living in the hills, drovers, sailors, fishermen and such +like. I remember the first time I went into the English country-side +being struck with the clean, honest look in the people's faces. I +realised exactly where they got it: they had never seen any Americans. +I remember speaking to an aged peasant down in Somerset. "Have you ever +seen any Americans?" "Nah," he said, "uz eeard a mowt o' 'em, zir, +but uz zeen nowt o' 'em." It was clear that the noble fellow was quite +undamaged by American contact. + +Now the odd thing about this corruption is that exactly the same idea is +held on the other side of the water. It is a known fact that if a young +English Lord comes to an American town he puts it to the bad in one +week. Socially the whole place goes to pieces. Girls whose parents are +in the hardware business and who used to call their father "pop" begin +to talk of precedence and whether a Duchess Dowager goes in to dinner +ahead of or behind a countess scavenger. After the young Lord has +attended two dances and one tea-social in the Methodist Church Sunday +School Building (Adults 25 cents, children 10 cents--all welcome.) there +is nothing for the young men of the town to do except to drive him out +or go further west. + +One can hardly wonder then that this general corruption has extended +even to the policemen who guard the Houses of Parliament. On the other +hand this vein of corruption has not extended to English politics. +Unlike ours, English politics,--one hears it on every hand,--are pure. +Ours unfortunately are known to be not so. The difference seems to +be that our politicians will do anything for money and the English +politicians won't; they just take the money and won't do a thing for it. + +Somehow there always seems to be a peculiar interest about English +political questions that we don't find elsewhere. At home in Canada our +politics turn on such things as how much money the Canadian National +Railways lose as compared with how much they could lose if they really +tried; on whether the Grain Growers of Manitoba should be allowed to +import ploughs without paying a duty or to pay a duty without importing +the ploughs. Our members at Ottawa discuss such things as highway +subsidies, dry farming, the Bank Act, and the tariff on hardware. These +things leave me absolutely cold. To be quite candid there is something +terribly plebeian about them. In short, our politics are what we call in +French "peuple." + +But when one turns to England, what a striking difference! The English, +with the whole huge British Empire to fish in and the European system to +draw upon, can always dig up some kind of political topic of discussion +that has a real charm about it. One month you find English politics +turning on the Oasis of Merv and the next on the hinterland of Albania; +or a member rises in the Commons with a little bit of paper in his hand +and desires to ask the foreign secretary if he is aware that the Ahkoond +of Swat is dead. The foreign secretary states that the government have +no information other than that the Ahkoond was dead a month ago. There +is a distinct sensation in the House at the realisation that the Ahkoond +has been dead a month without the House having known that he was alive. +The sensation is conveyed to the Press and the afternoon papers appear +with large headings, THE AHKOOND OF SWAT IS DEAD. The public who have +never heard of the Ahkoond bare their heads in a moment in a pause to +pray for the Ahkoond's soul. Then the cables take up the refrain and +word is flashed all over the world, The Ahkoond of Swat is Dead. + +There was a Canadian journalist and poet once who was so impressed with +the news that the Ahkoond was dead, so bowed down with regret that he +had never known the Ahkoond while alive, that he forthwith wrote a poem +in memory of The Ahkoond of Swat. I have always thought that the reason +of the wide admiration that Lannigan's verses received was not merely +because of the brilliant wit that is in them but because in a wider +sense they typify so beautifully the scope of English politics. The +death of the Ahkoond of Swat, and whether Great Britain should support +as his successor Mustalpha El Djin or Kamu Flaj,--there is something +worth talking of over an afternoon tea table. But suppose that the whole +of the Manitoba Grain Growers were to die. What could one say about it? +They'd be dead, that's all. + +So it is that people all over the world turn to English politics with +interest. What more delightful than to open an atlas, find out where the +new kingdom of Hejaz is, and then violently support the British claim to +a protectorate over it. Over in America we don't understand this sort of +thing. There is naturally little chance to do so and we don't know +how to use it when it comes. I remember that when a chance did come in +connection with the great Venezuela dispute over the ownership of the +jungles and mud-flats of British Guiana, the American papers at once +inserted headings, WHERE IS THE ESSIQUIBO RIVER? That spoiled the whole +thing. If you admit that you don't know where a place is, then the +bottom is knocked out of all discussion. But if you pretend that you do, +then you are all right. Mr. Lloyd George is said to have caused great +amusement at the Versailles Conference by admitting that he hadn't known +where Teschen was. So at least it was reported in the papers; and for +all I know it might even have been true. But the fun that he raised was +not really half what could have been raised. I have it on good authority +that two of the American delegates hadn't known where Austria Proper +was and thought that Unredeemed Italy was on the East side of New York, +while the Chinese Delegate thought that the Cameroons were part of +Scotland. But it is these little geographic niceties that lend a charm +to European politics that ours lack forever. + +I don't mean to say the English politics always turn on romantic places +or on small questions. They don't. They often include questions of the +largest order. But when the English introduce a really large question as +the basis of their politics they like to select one that is insoluble. +This guarantees that it will last. Take for example the rights of the +Crown as against the people. That lasted for one hundred years,--all the +seventeenth century. In Oklahoma or in Alberta they would have called a +convention on the question, settled it in two weeks and spoiled it for +further use. In the same way the Protestant Reformation was used for a +hundred years and the Reform Bill for a generation. + +At the present time the genius of the English for politics has selected +as their insoluble political question the topic of the German indemnity. +The essence of the problem as I understand it may be stated as follows: + +It was definitely settled by the Conference at Versailles that Germany +is to pay the Allies 3,912,486,782,421 marks. I think that is the +correct figure, though of course I am speaking only from memory. At any +rate, the correct figure is within a hundred billion marks of the above. + +The sum to be paid was not reached without a great deal of discussion. +Monsieur Briand, the French Minister, is reported to have thrown out the +figure 4,281,390,687,471. But Mr. Lloyd George would not pick it up. Nor +do I blame him unless he had a basket to pick it up with. + +Lloyd George's point of view was that the Germans could very properly +pay a limited amount such as 3,912,486,782,421 marks, but it was not +feasible to put on them a burden of 4,281,390,687,471 marks. + +By the way, if any one at this point doubts the accuracy of the figures +just given, all he has to do is to take the amount of the indemnity as +stated in gold marks and then multiply it by the present value of the +mark and he will find to his chagrin that the figures are correct. If he +is still not satisfied I refer him to a book of Logarithms. If he is not +satisfied with that I refer him to any work on conic sections and if not +convinced even then I refer him so far that he will never come back. + +The indemnity being thus fixed, the next question is as to the method of +collecting it. In the first place there is no intention of allowing the +Germans to pay in actual cash. If they do this they will merely inflate +the English beyond what is bearable. England has been inflated now for +eight years and has had enough of it. + +In the second place, it is understood that it will not do to allow the +Germans to offer 4,218, 390,687,471 marks' worth of coal. It is more +than the country needs. + +What is more, if the English want coal they propose to buy it in an +ordinary decent way from a Christian coal-dealer in their own country. +They do not purpose to ruin their own coal industry for the sake of +building up the prosperity of the German nation. + +What I say of coal is applied with equal force to any offers of food, +grain, oil, petroleum, gas, or any other natural product. Payment in any +of these will be sternly refused. Even now it is all the British farmers +can do to live and for some it is more. Many of them are having to sell +off their motors and pianos and to send their sons to college to work. +At the same time, the German producer by depressing the mark further and +further is able to work fourteen hours a day. This argument may not be +quite correct but I take it as I find it in the London Press. Whether +I state it correctly or not, it is quite plain that the problem is +insoluble. That is all that is needed in first class politics. + +A really good question like the German reparation question will go on +for a century. Undoubtedly in the year 2000 A.D., a British Chancellor +of the Exchequer will still be explaining that the government is fully +resolved that Germany shall pay to the last farthing (cheers): but that +ministers have no intention of allowing the German payment to take a +form that will undermine British industry (wild applause): that the +German indemnity shall be so paid that without weakening the power of +the Germans, to buy from us it shall increase our power of selling to +them. + +Such questions last forever. + +On the other hand sometimes by sheer carelessness a question gets +settled and passes out of politics. This, so we are given to understand, +has happened to the Irish question. It is settled. A group of Irish +delegates and British ministers got together round a table and settled +it. The settlement has since been celebrated at a demonstration of +brotherhood by the Irish Americans of New York with only six casualties. +Henceforth the Irish question passes into history. There may be some odd +fighting along the Ulster border, or a little civil war with perhaps +a little revolution every now and then, but as a question the thing is +finished. + +I must say that I for one am very sorry to think that the Irish question +is gone. We shall miss it greatly. Debating societies which have +flourished on it ever since 1886 will be wrecked for want of it. Dinner +parties will now lose half the sparkle of their conversation. It will be +no longer possible to make use of such good old remarks as, "After all +the Irish are a gifted people," or, "You must remember that fifty per +cent of the great English generals were Irish." + +The settlement turned out to be a very simple affair. Ireland was merely +given dominion status. What that is, no one knows, but it means that the +Irish have now got it and that they sink from the high place that they +had in the white light of publicity to the level of the Canadians or the +New Zealanders. + +Whether it is quite a proper thing to settle trouble by conferring +dominion status on it, is open to question. It is a practice that is +bound to spread. It is rumoured that it is now contemplated to confer +dominion status upon the Borough of Poplar and on the Cambridge +undergraduates. It is even understood that at the recent disarmament +conference England offered to confer dominion status on the United +States. President Harding would assuredly have accepted it at once but +for the protest of Mr. Briand, who claimed that any such offer must be +accompanied by a permission to increase the French fire-brigade by fifty +per cent. + +It is lamentable, too, that at the very same moment when the Irish +question was extinguished, the Naval Question which had lasted for +nearly fifty years was absolutely obliterated by disarmament. Henceforth +the alarm of invasion is a thing of the past and the navy practically +needless. Beyond keeping a fleet in the North Sea and one on the +Mediterranean, and maintaining a patrol all round the rim of the Pacific +Ocean, Britain will cease to be a naval power. A mere annual expenditure +of fifty million pounds sterling will suffice for such thin pretence of +naval preparedness as a disarmed nation will have to maintain. + +This thing too, came as a surprise, or at least a surprise to the +general public who are unaware of the workings of diplomacy. Those who +know about such things were fully aware of what would happen if a whole +lot of British sailors and diplomatists and journalists were exposed +to the hospitalities of Washington. The British and Americans are both +alike. You can't drive them or lead them or coerce them, but if you give +them a cigar they'll do anything. The inner history of the conference is +only just beginning to be known. But it is whispered that immediately +on his arrival Mr. Balfour was given a cigar by President Harding. Mr. +Balfour at once offered to scrap five ships, and invited the entire +American cabinet into the British Embassy, where Sir A. Geddes was rash +enough to offer them champagne. + +The American delegates immediately offered to scrap ten ships. Mr. +Balfour, who simply cannot be outdone in international courtesy, saw the +ten and raised it to twenty. President Harding saw the twenty, raised it +to thirty, and sent out for more poker chips. + +At the close of the play Lord Beatty, who is urbanity itself, offered +to scrap Portsmouth Dockyard, and asked if anybody present would like +Canada. President Harding replied with his customary tact that if +England wanted the Philippines, he would think it what he would term a +residuum of normalcy to give them away. There is no telling what might +have happened had not Mr. Briand interposed to say that any transfer +of the Philippines must be regarded as a signal for a twenty per cent +increase in the Boy Scouts of France. As a tactful conclusion to the +matter President Harding raised Mr. Balfour to the peerage. + +As things are, disarmament coming along with the Irish settlement, +leaves English politics in a bad way. The general outlook is too +peaceful altogether. One looks round almost in vain for any of those +"strained relations" which used to be the very basis of English foreign +policy. In only one direction do I see light for English politics, and +that is over towards Czecho-Slovakia. It appears that Czecho-Slovakia +owes the British Exchequer fifty million sterling. I cannot quote the +exact figure, but it is either fifty million or fifty billion. In either +case Czecho-Slovakia is unable to pay. The announcement has just been +made by M. Sgitzch, the new treasurer, that the country is bankrupt or +at least that he sees his way to make it so in a week. + +It has been at once reported in City circles that there are "strained +relations" between Great Britain and Czecho-Slovakia. Now what I advise +is, that if the relations are strained, keep them so. England has lost +nearly all the strained relations she ever had; let her cherish the few +that she still has. I know that there are other opinions. The suggestion +has been at once made for a "round table conference," at which the whole +thing can be freely discussed without formal protocols and something +like a "gentleman's agreement" reached. I say, don't do it. England is +being ruined by these round table conferences. They are sitting round in +Cairo and Calcutta and Capetown, filling all the best hotels and eating +out the substance of the taxpayer. + +I am told that Lloyd George has offered to go to Czecho-Slovakia. He +should be stopped. It is said that Professor Keynes has proved that +the best way to deal with the debt of Czecho-Slovakia is to send them +whatever cash we have left, thereby turning the exchange upside down +on them, and forcing them to buy all their Christmas presents in +Manchester. + +It is wiser not to do anything of the sort. England should send them +a good old-fashioned ultimatum, mobilise all the naval officers at the +Embankment hotels, raise the income tax another sixpence, and defy them. + +If that were done it might prove a successful first step in bringing +English politics back to the high plane of conversational interest from +which they are threatening to fall. + + + + +V. Oxford as I See It + +MY private station being that of a university professor, I was naturally +deeply interested in the system of education in England. I was therefore +led to make a special visit to Oxford and to submit the place to a +searching scrutiny. Arriving one afternoon at four o'clock, I stayed at +the Mitre Hotel and did not leave until eleven o'clock next morning. +The whole of this time, except for one hour spent in addressing the +undergraduates, was devoted to a close and eager study of the great +university. When I add to this that I had already visited Oxford in 1907 +and spent a Sunday at All Souls with Colonel L. S. Amery, it will +be seen at once that my views on Oxford are based upon observations +extending over fourteen years. + +At any rate I can at least claim that my acquaintance with the British +university is just as good a basis for reflection and judgment as that +of the numerous English critics who come to our side of the water. I +have known a famous English author to arrive at Harvard University in +the morning, have lunch with President Lowell, and then write a whole +chapter on the Excellence of Higher Education in America. I have known +another one come to Harvard, have lunch with President Lowell, and do an +entire book on the Decline of Serious Study in America. Or take the case +of my own university. I remember Mr. Rudyard Kipling coming to McGill +and saying in his address to the undergraduates at 2.30 P.M., "You +have here a great institution." But how could he have gathered this +information? As far as I know he spent the entire morning with Sir +Andrew Macphail in his house beside the campus, smoking cigarettes. When +I add that he distinctly refused to visit the Palaeontologic Museum, +that he saw nothing of our new hydraulic apparatus, or of our classes +in Domestic Science, his judgment that we had here a great institution +seems a little bit superficial. I can only put beside it, to redeem it +in some measure, the hasty and ill-formed judgment expressed by Lord +Milner, "McGill is a noble university": and the rash and indiscreet +expression of the Prince of Wales, when we gave him an LL.D. degree, +"McGill has a glorious future." + +To my mind these unthinking judgments about our great college do harm, +and I determined, therefore, that anything that I said about Oxford +should be the result of the actual observation and real study based upon +a bona fide residence in the Mitre Hotel. + +On the strength of this basis of experience I am prepared to make +the following positive and emphatic statements. Oxford is a noble +university. It has a great past. It is at present the greatest +university in the world: and it is quite possible that it has a great +future. Oxford trains scholars of the real type better than any other +place in the world. Its methods are antiquated. It despises science. Its +lectures are rotten. It has professors who never teach and students who +never learn. It has no order, no arrangement, no system. Its curriculum +is unintelligible. It has no president. It has no state legislature to +tell it how to teach, and yet,--it gets there. Whether we like it +or not, Oxford gives something to its students, a life and a mode of +thought, which in America as yet we can emulate but not equal. + +If anybody doubts this let him go and take a room at the Mitre Hotel +(ten and six for a wainscotted bedroom, period of Charles I) and study +the place for himself. + +These singular results achieved at Oxford are all the more surprising +when one considers the distressing conditions under which the students +work. The lack of an adequate building fund compels them to go on +working in the same old buildings which they have had for centuries. +The buildings at Brasenose College have not been renewed since the year +1525. In New College and Magdalen the students are still housed in the +old buildings erected in the sixteenth century. At Christ Church I was +shown a kitchen which had been built at the expense of Cardinal Wolsey +in 1527. Incredible though it may seem, they have no other place to cook +in than this and are compelled to use it to-day. On the day when I +saw this kitchen, four cooks were busy roasting an ox whole for the +students' lunch: this at least is what I presumed they were doing from +the size of the fire-place used, but it may not have been an ox; perhaps +it was a cow. On a huge table, twelve feet by six and made of slabs of +wood five inches thick, two other cooks were rolling out a game pie. I +estimated it as measuring three feet across. In this rude way, unchanged +since the time of Henry VIII, the unhappy Oxford students are fed. I +could not help contrasting it with the cosy little boarding houses +on Cottage Grove Avenue where I used to eat when I was a student at +Chicago, or the charming little basement dining-rooms of the students' +boarding houses in Toronto. But then, of course, Henry VIII never lived +in Toronto. + +The same lack of a building-fund necessitates the Oxford students, +living in the identical old boarding houses they had in the sixteenth +and seventeenth centuries. Technically they are called "quadrangles," +"closes" and "rooms"; but I am so broken in to the usage of my student +days that I can't help calling them boarding houses. In many of these +the old stairway has been worn down by the feet of ten generations of +students: the windows have little latticed panes: there are old names +carved here and there upon the stone, and a thick growth of ivy covers +the walls. The boarding house at St. John's College dates from 1509, the +one at Christ Church from the same period. A few hundred thousand pounds +would suffice to replace these old buildings with neat steel and brick +structures like the normal school at Schenectady, N.Y., or the Peel +Street High School at Montreal. But nothing is done. A movement was +indeed attempted last autumn towards removing the ivy from the walls, +but the result was unsatisfactory and they are putting it back. Any one +could have told them beforehand that the mere removal of the ivy would +not brighten Oxford up, unless at the same time one cleared the stones +of the old inscriptions, put in steel fire-escapes, and in fact brought +the boarding houses up to date. + +But Henry VIII being dead, nothing was done. Yet in spite of its +dilapidated buildings and its lack of fire-escapes, ventilation, +sanitation, and up-to-date kitchen facilities, I persist in my assertion +that I believe that Oxford, in its way, is the greatest university +in the world. I am aware that this is an extreme statement and needs +explanation. Oxford is much smaller in numbers, for example, than the +State University of Minnesota, and is much poorer. It has, or had till +yesterday, fewer students than the University of Toronto. To mention +Oxford beside the 26,000 students of Columbia University sounds +ridiculous. In point of money, the 39,000,000 dollar endowment of the +University of Chicago, and the $35,000,000 one of Columbia, and the +$43,000,000 of Harvard seem to leave Oxford nowhere. Yet the peculiar +thing is that it is not nowhere. By some queer process of its own it +seems to get there every time. It was therefore of the very greatest +interest to me, as a profound scholar, to try to investigate just how +this peculiar excellence of Oxford arises. + +It can hardly be due to anything in the curriculum or programme +of studies. Indeed, to any one accustomed to the best models of a +university curriculum as it flourishes in the United States and Canada, +the programme of studies is frankly quite laughable. There is +less Applied Science in the place than would be found with us in a +theological college. Hardly a single professor at Oxford would recognise +a dynamo if he met it in broad daylight. The Oxford student learns +nothing of chemistry, physics, heat, plumbing, electric wiring, +gas-fitting or the use of a blow-torch. Any American college student +can run a motor car, take a gasoline engine to pieces, fix a washer on a +kitchen tap, mend a broken electric bell, and give an expert opinion on +what has gone wrong with the furnace. It is these things indeed which +stamp him as a college man, and occasion a very pardonable pride in the +minds of his parents. + +But in all these things the Oxford student is the merest amateur. + +This is bad enough. But after all one might say this is only the +mechanical side of education. True: but one searches in vain in the +Oxford curriculum for any adequate recognition of the higher and more +cultured studies. Strange though it seems to us on this side of +the Atlantic, there are no courses at Oxford in Housekeeping, or in +Salesmanship, or in Advertising, or on Comparative Religion, or on +the influence of the Press. There are no lectures whatever on Human +Behaviour, on Altruism, on Egotism, or on the Play of Wild Animals. +Apparently, the Oxford student does not learn these things. This cuts +him off from a great deal of the larger culture of our side of the +Atlantic. "What are you studying this year?" I once asked a fourth year +student at one of our great colleges. "I am electing Salesmanship and +Religion," he answered. Here was a young man whose training was destined +inevitably to turn him into a moral business man: either that or +nothing. At Oxford Salesmanship is not taught and Religion takes the +feeble form of the New Testament. The more one looks at these things the +more amazing it becomes that Oxford can produce any results at all. + +The effect of the comparison is heightened by the peculiar position +occupied at Oxford by the professors' lectures. In the colleges of +Canada and the United States the lectures are supposed to be a really +necessary and useful part of the student's training. Again and again I +have heard the graduates of my own college assert that they had got +as much, or nearly as much, out of the lectures at college as out of +athletics or the Greek letter society or the Banjo and Mandolin Club. +In short, with us the lectures form a real part of the college life. At +Oxford it is not so. The lectures, I understand, are given and may even +be taken. But they are quite worthless and are not supposed to have +anything much to do with the development of the student's mind. "The +lectures here," said a Canadian student to me, "are punk." I appealed to +another student to know if this was so. "I don't know whether I'd call +them exactly punk," he answered, "but they're certainly rotten." Other +judgments were that the lectures were of no importance: that nobody took +them: that they don't matter: that you can take them if you like: that +they do you no harm. + +It appears further that the professors themselves are not keen on their +lectures. If the lectures are called for they give them; if not, the +professor's feelings are not hurt. He merely waits and rests his brain +until in some later year the students call for his lectures. There are +men at Oxford who have rested their brains this way for over thirty +years: the accumulated brain power thus dammed up is said to be +colossal. + +I understand that the key to this mystery is found in the operations of +the person called the tutor. It is from him, or rather with him, that +the students learn all that they know: one and all are agreed on that. +Yet it is a little odd to know just how he does it. "We go over to his +rooms," said one student, "and he just lights a pipe and talks to us." +"We sit round with him," said another, "and he simply smokes and goes +over our exercises with us." From this and other evidence I gather that +what an Oxford tutor does is to get a little group of students together +and smoke at them. Men who have been systematically smoked at for four +years turn into ripe scholars. If anybody doubts this, let him go to +Oxford and he can see the thing actually in operation. A well-smoked man +speaks, and writes English with a grace that can be acquired in no other +way. + +In what was said above, I seem to have been directing criticism against +the Oxford professors as such: but I have no intention of doing so. For +the Oxford professor and his whole manner of being I have nothing but +a profound respect. There is indeed the greatest difference between the +modern up-to-date American idea of a professor and the English type. But +even with us in older days, in the bygone time when such people as Henry +Wadsworth Longfellow were professors, one found the English idea; a +professor was supposed to be a venerable kind of person, with snow-white +whiskers reaching to his stomach. He was expected to moon around the +campus oblivious of the world around him. If you nodded to him he failed +to see you. Of money he knew nothing; of business, far less. He was, as +his trustees were proud to say of him, "a child." + +On the other hand he contained within him a reservoir of learning of +such depth as to be practically bottomless. None of this learning was +supposed to be of any material or commercial benefit to anybody. Its use +was in saving the soul and enlarging the mind. + +At the head of such a group of professors was one whose beard was even +whiter and longer, whose absence of mind was even still greater, and +whose knowledge of money, business, and practical affairs was below +zero. Him they made the president. + +All this is changed in America. A university professor is now a busy, +hustling person, approximating as closely to a business man as he can +do it. It is on the business man that he models himself. He has a +little place that he calls his "office," with a typewriter machine and +a stenographer. Here he sits and dictates letters, beginning after the +best business models, "in re yours of the eighth ult., would say, etc., +etc." He writes these letters to students, to his fellow professors, to +the president, indeed to any people who will let him write to them. The +number of letters that he writes each month is duly counted and set +to his credit. If he writes enough he will get a reputation as an +"executive," and big things may happen to him. He may even be asked +to step out of the college and take a post as an "executive" in a soap +company or an advertising firm. The man, in short, is a "hustler," an +"advertiser" whose highest aim is to be a "live-wire." If he is not, he +will presently be dismissed, or, to use the business term, be "let go," +by a board of trustees who are themselves hustlers and live-wires. As to +the professor's soul, he no longer needs to think of it as it has been +handed over along with all the others to a Board of Censors. + +The American professor deals with his students according to his lights. +It is his business to chase them along over a prescribed ground at a +prescribed pace like a flock of sheep. They all go humping together over +the hurdles with the professor chasing them with a set of "tests" and +"recitations," "marks" and "attendances," the whole apparatus obviously +copied from the time-clock of the business man's factory. This process +is what is called "showing results." The pace set is necessarily that +of the slowest, and thus results in what I have heard Mr. Edward Beatty +describe as the "convoy system of education." + +In my own opinion, reached after fifty-two years of profound reflection, +this system contains in itself the seeds of destruction. It puts a +premium on dulness and a penalty on genius. It circumscribes that +latitude of mind which is the real spirit of learning. If we persist +in it we shall presently find that true learning will fly away from our +universities and will take rest wherever some individual and enquiring +mind can mark out its path for itself. + +Now the principal reason why I am led to admire Oxford is that the place +is little touched as yet by the measuring of "results," and by this +passion for visible and provable "efficiency." The whole system at +Oxford is such as to put a premium on genius and to let mediocrity and +dulness go their way. On the dull student Oxford, after a proper lapse +of time, confers a degree which means nothing more than that he lived +and breathed at Oxford and kept out of jail. This for many students is +as much as society can expect. But for the gifted students Oxford offers +great opportunities. There is no question of his hanging back till the +last sheep has jumped over the fence. He need wait for no one. He may +move forward as fast as he likes, following the bent of his genius. If +he has in him any ability beyond that of the common herd, his tutor, +interested in his studies, will smoke at him until he kindles him into +a flame. For the tutor's soul is not harassed by herding dull students, +with dismissal hanging by a thread over his head in the class room. The +American professor has no time to be interested in a clever student. He +has time to be interested in his "deportment," his letter-writing, his +executive work, and his organising ability and his hope of promotion +to a soap factory. But with that his mind is exhausted. The student of +genius merely means to him a student who gives no trouble, who passes +all his "tests," and is present at all his "recitations." Such a student +also, if he can be trained to be a hustler and an advertiser, will +undoubtedly "make good." But beyond that the professor does not think +of him. The everlasting principle of equality has inserted itself in a +place where it has no right to be, and where inequality is the breath of +life. + +American or Canadian college trustees would be horrified at the notion +of professors who apparently do no work, give few or no lectures and +draw their pay merely for existing. Yet these are really the only kind +of professors worth having,--I mean, men who can be trusted with a vague +general mission in life, with a salary guaranteed at least till their +death, and a sphere of duties entrusted solely to their own consciences +and the promptings of their own desires. Such men are rare, but a +single one of them, when found, is worth ten "executives" and a dozen +"organisers." + +The excellence of Oxford, then, as I see it, lies in the peculiar +vagueness of the organisation of its work. It starts from the assumption +that the professor is a really learned man whose sole interest lies in +his own sphere: and that a student, or at least the only student with +whom the university cares to reckon seriously, is a young man who +desires to know. This is an ancient mediaeval attitude long since +buried in more up-to-date places under successive strata of compulsory +education, state teaching, the democratisation of knowledge and the +substitution of the shadow for the substance, and the casket for the +gem. No doubt, in newer places the thing has got to be so. Higher +education in America flourishes chiefly as a qualification for entrance +into a money-making profession, and not as a thing in itself. But in +Oxford one can still see the surviving outline of a nobler type of +structure and a higher inspiration. + +I do not mean to say, however, that my judgment of Oxford is one +undiluted stream of praise. In one respect at least I think that Oxford +has fallen away from the high ideals of the Middle Ages. I refer to the +fact that it admits women students to its studies. In the Middle Ages +women were regarded with a peculiar chivalry long since lost. It was +taken for granted that their brains were too delicately poised to +allow them to learn anything. It was presumed that their minds were +so exquisitely hung that intellectual effort might disturb them. The +present age has gone to the other extreme: and this is seen nowhere more +than in the crowding of women into colleges originally designed for men. +Oxford, I regret to find, has not stood out against this change. + +To a profound scholar like myself, the presence of these young women, +many of them most attractive, flittering up and down the streets of +Oxford in their caps and gowns, is very distressing. + +Who is to blame for this and how they first got in I do not know. But I +understand that they first of all built a private college of their own +close to Oxford, and then edged themselves in foot by foot. If this is +so they only followed up the precedent of the recognised method in use +in America. When an American college is established, the women go and +build a college of their own overlooking the grounds. Then they put on +becoming caps and gowns and stand and look over the fence at the college +athletics. The male undergraduates, who were originally and by nature a +hardy lot, were not easily disturbed. But inevitably some of the senior +trustees fell in love with the first year girls and became convinced +that coeducation was a noble cause. American statistics show that +between 1880 and 1900 the number of trustees and senior professors who +married girl undergraduates or who wanted to do so reached a percentage +of,--I forget the exact percentage; it was either a hundred or a little +over. + +I don't know just what happened at Oxford but presumably something of +the sort took place. In any case the women are now all over the +place. They attend the college lectures, they row in a boat, and +they perambulate the High Street. They are even offering a serious +competition against the men. Last year they carried off the ping-pong +championship and took the chancellor's prize for needlework, while in +music, cooking and millinery the men are said to be nowhere. + +There is no doubt that unless Oxford puts the women out while there is +yet time, they will overrun the whole university. What this means to the +progress of learning few can tell and those who know are afraid to say. + +Cambridge University, I am glad to see, still sets its face sternly +against this innovation. I am reluctant to count any superiority in the +University of Cambridge. Having twice visited Oxford, having made the +place a subject of profound study for many hours at a time, having twice +addressed its undergraduates, and having stayed at the Mitre Hotel, +I consider myself an Oxford man. But I must admit that Cambridge has +chosen the wiser part. + +Last autumn, while I was in London on my voyage of discovery, a vote +was taken at Cambridge to see if the women who have already a private +college nearby, should be admitted to the university. They were +triumphantly shut out; and as a fit and proper sign of enthusiasm the +undergraduates went over in a body and knocked down the gates of the +women's college. I know that it is a terrible thing to say that any +one approved of this. All the London papers came out with headings +that read,--ARE OUR UNDERGRADUATES TURNING INTO BABOONS? and so on. +The Manchester Guardian draped its pages in black and even the London +Morning Post was afraid to take bold ground in the matter. But I do know +also that there was a great deal of secret chuckling and jubilation in +the London clubs. Nothing was expressed openly. The men of England have +been too terrorised by the women for that. + +But in safe corners of the club, out of earshot of the waiters and away +from casual strangers, little groups of elderly men chuckled quietly +together. "Knocked down their gates, eh?" said the wicked old men to one +another, and then whispered guiltily behind an uplifted hand, "Serve 'em +right." Nobody dared to say anything outside. If they had some one would +have got up and asked a question in the House of Commons. When this is +done all England falls flat upon its face. + +But for my part when I heard of the Cambridge vote, I felt as Lord +Chatham did when he said in parliament, "Sir, I rejoice that America +has resisted." For I have long harboured views of my own upon the +higher education of women. In these days, however, it requires no little +hardihood to utter a single word of criticism against it. It is like +throwing half a brick through the glass roof of a conservatory. It is +bound to make trouble. Let me hasten, therefore, to say that I believe +most heartily in the higher education of women; in fact, the higher the +better. The only question to my mind is: What is "higher education" +and how do you get it? With which goes the secondary enquiry, What is +a woman and is she just the same as a man? I know that it sounds a +terrible thing to say in these days, but I don't believe she is. + +Let me say also that when I speak of coeducation I speak of what I +know. I was coeducated myself some thirty-five years ago, at the very +beginning of the thing. I learned my Greek alongside of a bevy of beauty +on the opposite benches that mashed up the irregular verbs for us very +badly. Incidentally, those girls are all married long since, and all +the Greek they know now you could put under a thimble. But of that +presently. + +I have had further experience as well. I spent three years in the +graduate school of Chicago, where coeducational girls were as thick as +autumn leaves, and some thicker. And as a college professor at McGill +University in Montreal, I have taught mingled classes of men and women +for twenty years. + +On the basis of which experience I say with assurance that the thing is +a mistake and has nothing to recommend it but its relative cheapness. +Let me emphasise this last point and have done with it. Coeducation is +of course a great economy. To teach ten men and ten women in a single +class of twenty costs only half as much as to teach two classes. +Where economy must rule, then, the thing has got to be. But where the +discussion turns not on what is cheapest, but on what is best, then the +case is entirely different. + +The fundamental trouble is that men and women are different creatures, +with different minds and different aptitudes and different paths in +life. There is no need to raise here the question of which is superior +and which is inferior (though I think, the Lord help me, I know the +answer to that too). The point lies in the fact that they are different. + +But the mad passion for equality has masked this obvious fact. When +women began to demand, quite rightly, a share in higher education, they +took for granted that they wanted the same curriculum as the men. +They never stopped to ask whether their aptitudes were not in various +directions higher and better than those of the men, and whether it might +not be better for their sex to cultivate the things which were best +suited to their minds. Let me be more explicit. In all that goes with +physical and mathematical science, women, on the average, are far below +the standard of men. There are, of course, exceptions. But they prove +nothing. It is no use to quote to me the case of some brilliant girl who +stood first in physics at Cornell. That's nothing. There is an elephant +in the zoo that can count up to ten, yet I refuse to reckon myself his +inferior. + +Tabulated results spread over years, and the actual experience of those +who teach show that in the whole domain of mathematics and physics women +are outclassed. At McGill the girls of our first year have wept over +their failures in elementary physics these twenty-five years. It is time +that some one dried their tears and took away the subject. + +But, in any case, examination tests are never the whole story. To those +who know, a written examination is far from being a true criterion of +capacity. It demands too much of mere memory, imitativeness, and the +insidious willingness to absorb other people's ideas. Parrots and crows +would do admirably in examinations. Indeed, the colleges are full of +them. + +But take, on the other hand, all that goes with the aesthetic side of +education, with imaginative literature and the cult of beauty. Here +women are, or at least ought to be, the superiors of men. Women were in +primitive times the first story-tellers. They are still so at the cradle +side. The original college woman was the witch, with her incantations +and her prophecies and the glow of her bright imagination, and if +brutal men of duller brains had not burned it out of her, she would be +incanting still. To my thinking, we need more witches in the colleges +and less physics. + +I have seen such young witches myself,--if I may keep the word: I like +it,--in colleges such as Wellesley in Massachusetts and Bryn Mawr in +Pennsylvania, where there isn't a man allowed within the three mile +limit. To my mind, they do infinitely better thus by themselves. They +are freer, less restrained. They discuss things openly in their classes; +they lift up their voices, and they speak, whereas a girl in such a +place as McGill, with men all about her, sits for four years as silent +as a frog full of shot. + +But there is a deeper trouble still. The careers of the men and +women who go to college together are necessarily different, and the +preparation is all aimed at the man's career. The men are going to be +lawyers, doctors, engineers, business men, and politicians. And the +women are not. + +There is no use pretending about it. It may sound an awful thing to say, +but the women are going to be married. That is, and always has been, +their career; and, what is more, they know it; and even at college, +while they are studying algebra and political economy, they have their +eye on it sideways all the time. The plain fact is that, after a girl +has spent four years of her time and a great deal of her parents' money +in equipping herself for a career that she is never going to have, the +wretched creature goes and gets married, and in a few years she has +forgotten which is the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle, and she +doesn't care. She has much better things to think of. + +At this point some one will shriek: "But surely, even for marriage, +isn't it right that a girl should have a college education?" To which I +hasten to answer: most assuredly. I freely admit that a girl who knows +algebra, or once knew it, is a far more charming companion and a nobler +wife and mother than a girl who doesn't know x from y. But the point is +this: Does the higher education that fits a man to be a lawyer also fit +a person to be a wife and mother? Or, in other words, is a lawyer a wife +and mother? I say he is not. Granted that a girl is to spend four years +in time and four thousand dollars in money in going to college, why +train her for a career that she is never going to adopt? Why not give +her an education that will have a meaning and a harmony with the real +life that she is to follow? + +For example, suppose that during her four years every girl lucky +enough to get a higher education spent at least six months of it in +the training and discipline of a hospital as a nurse. There is more +education and character making in that than in a whole bucketful of +algebra. + +But no, the woman insists on snatching her share of an education +designed by Erasmus or William of Wykeham or William of Occam for the +creation of scholars and lawyers; and when later on in her home there is +a sudden sickness or accident, and the life or death of those nearest to +her hangs upon skill and knowledge and a trained fortitude in emergency, +she must needs send in all haste for a hired woman to fill the place +that she herself has never learned to occupy. + +But I am not here trying to elaborate a whole curriculum. I am only +trying to indicate that higher education for the man is one thing, for +the woman another. Nor do I deny the fact that women have got to earn +their living. Their higher education must enable them to do that. They +cannot all marry on their graduation day. But that is no great matter. +No scheme of education that any one is likely to devise will fail in +this respect. + +The positions that they hold as teachers or civil servants they would +fill all the better if their education were fitted to their wants. + +Some few, a small minority, really and truly "have a +career,"--husbandless and childless,--in which the sacrifice is great +and the honour to them, perhaps, all the higher. And others no doubt +dream of a career in which a husband and a group of blossoming children +are carried as an appendage to a busy life at the bar or on the +platform. But all such are the mere minority, so small as to make no +difference to the general argument. + +But there--I have written quite enough to make plenty of trouble except +perhaps at Cambridge University. So I return with relief to my general +study of Oxford. Viewing the situation as a whole, I am led then to the +conclusion that there must be something in the life of Oxford itself +that makes for higher learning. Smoked at by his tutor, fed in Henry +VIII's kitchen, and sleeping in a tangle of ivy, the student evidently +gets something not easily obtained in America. And the more I reflect +on the matter the more I am convinced that it is the sleeping in the ivy +that does it. How different it is from student life as I remember it! + +When I was a student at the University of Toronto thirty years ago, I +lived,--from start to finish,--in seventeen different boarding houses. +As far as I am aware these houses have not, or not yet, been marked with +tablets. But they are still to be found in the vicinity of McCaul and +Darcy, and St. Patrick Streets. Any one who doubts the truth of what I +have to say may go and look at them. + +I was not alone in the nomadic life that I led. There were hundreds +of us drifting about in this fashion from one melancholy habitation to +another. We lived as a rule two or three in a house, sometimes alone. We +dined in the basement. We always had beef, done up in some way after it +was dead, and there were always soda biscuits on the table. They used +to have a brand of soda biscuits in those days in the Toronto boarding +houses that I have not seen since. They were better than dog biscuits +but with not so much snap. My contemporaries will all remember them. +A great many of the leading barristers and professional men of Toronto +were fed on them. + +In the life we led we had practically no opportunities for association +on a large scale, no common rooms, no reading rooms, nothing. We never +saw the magazines,--personally I didn't even know the names of them. +The only interchange of ideas we ever got was by going over to the Caer +Howell Hotel on University Avenue and interchanging them there. + +I mention these melancholy details not for their own sake but merely to +emphasise the point that when I speak of students' dormitories, and the +larger life which they offer, I speak of what I know. + +If we had had at Toronto, when I was a student, the kind of dormitories +and dormitory life that they have at Oxford, I don't think I would +ever have graduated. I'd have been there still. The trouble is that the +universities on our Continent are only just waking up to the idea of +what a university should mean. They were, very largely, instituted and +organised with the idea that a university was a place where young men +were sent to absorb the contents of books and to listen to lectures in +the class rooms. The student was pictured as a pallid creature, burning +what was called the "midnight oil," his wan face bent over his desk. If +you wanted to do something for him you gave him a book: if you wanted to +do something really large on his behalf you gave him a whole basketful +of them. If you wanted to go still further and be a benefactor to the +college at large, you endowed a competitive scholarship and set two or +more pallid students working themselves to death to get it. + +The real thing for the student is the life and environment that +surrounds him. All that he really learns he learns, in a sense, by the +active operation of his own intellect and not as the passive recipient +of lectures. And for this active operation what he really needs most is +the continued and intimate contact with his fellows. Students must live +together and eat together, talk and smoke together. Experience shows +that that is how their minds really grow. And they must live together +in a rational and comfortable way. They must eat in a big dining room +or hall, with oak beams across the ceiling, and the stained glass in +the windows, and with a shield or tablet here or there upon the wall, +to remind them between times of the men who went before them and left +a name worthy of the memory of the college. If a student is to get from +his college what it ought to give him, a college dormitory, with the +life in common that it brings, is his absolute right. A university that +fails to give it to him is cheating him. + +If I were founding a university--and I say it with all the seriousness +of which I am capable--I would found first a smoking room; then when I +had a little more money in hand I would found a dormitory; then after +that, or more probably with it, a decent reading room and a library. +After that, if I still had money over that I couldn't use, I would hire +a professor and get some text books. + +This chapter has sounded in the most part like a continuous eulogy +of Oxford with but little in favour of our American colleges. I turn +therefore with pleasure to the more congenial task of showing what is +wrong with Oxford and with the English university system generally, and +the aspect in which our American universities far excell the British. + +The point is that Henry VIII is dead. The English are so proud of +what Henry VIII and the benefactors of earlier centuries did for the +universities that they forget the present. There is little or nothing +in England to compare with the magnificent generosity of individuals, +provinces and states, which is building up the colleges of the United +States and Canada. There used to be. But by some strange confusion of +thought the English people admire the noble gifts of Cardinal Wolsey and +Henry VIII and Queen Margaret, and do not realise that the Carnegies +and Rockefellers and the William Macdonalds are the Cardinal Wolseys +of to-day. The University of Chicago was founded upon oil. McGill +University rests largely on a basis of tobacco. In America the world of +commerce and business levies on itself a noble tribute in favour of the +higher learning. In England, with a few conspicuous exceptions, such as +that at Bristol, there is little of the sort. The feudal families are +content with what their remote ancestors have done: they do not try to +emulate it in any great degree. + +In the long run this must count. Of all the various reforms that are +talked of at Oxford, and of all the imitations of American methods that +are suggested, the only one worth while, to my thinking, is to capture +a few millionaires, give them honorary degrees at a million pounds +sterling apiece, and tell them to imagine that they are Henry the +Eighth. I give Oxford warning that if this is not done the place will +not last another two centuries. + + + + +VI. The British and the American Press + +THE only paper from which a man can really get the news of the world in +a shape that he can understand is the newspaper of his own "home town." +For me, unless I can have the Montreal Gazette at my breakfast, and the +Montreal Star at my dinner, I don't really know what is happening. In +the same way I have seen a man from the south of Scotland settle down to +read the Dumfries Chronicle with a deep sigh of satisfaction: and a man +from Burlington, Vermont, pick up the Burlington Eagle and study +the foreign news in it as the only way of getting at what was really +happening in France and Germany. + +The reason is, I suppose, that there are different ways of serving up +the news and we each get used to our own. Some people like the news +fed to them gently: others like it thrown at them in a bombshell: some +prefer it to be made as little of as possible; they want it minimised: +others want the maximum. + +This is where the greatest difference lies between the British +newspapers and those of the United States and Canada. With us in America +the great thing is to get the news and shout it at the reader; in +England they get the news and then break it to him as gently as +possible. Hence the big headings, the bold type, and the double columns +of the American paper, and the small headings and the general air of +quiet and respectability of the English Press. + +It is quite beside the question to ask which is the better. Neither is. +They are different things: that's all. The English newspaper is designed +to be read quietly, propped up against the sugar bowl of a man eating +a slow breakfast in a quiet corner of a club, or by a retired banker +seated in a leather chair nearly asleep, or by a country vicar sitting +in a wicker chair under a pergola. The American paper is for reading +by a man hanging on the straps of a clattering subway express, by a +man eating at a lunch counter, by a man standing on one leg, by a man +getting a two-minute shave, or by a man about to have his teeth drawn by +a dentist. + +In other words, there is a difference of atmosphere. It is not merely +in the type and the lettering, it is a difference in the way the news +is treated and the kind of words that are used. In America we love such +words as "gun-men" and "joy-ride" and "death-cell": in England they +prefer "person of doubtful character" and "motor travelling at excessive +speed" and "corridor No. 6." If a milk-waggon collides in the +street with a coal-cart, we write that a "life-waggon" has struck a +"death-cart." We call a murderer a "thug" or a "gun-man" or a "yeg-man." +In England they simply call him "the accused who is a grocer's assistant +in Houndsditch." That designation would knock any decent murder story to +pieces. + +Hence comes the great difference between the American "lead" or opening +sentence of the article, and the English method of commencement. In the +American paper the idea is that the reader is so busy that he must first +be offered the news in one gulp. After that if he likes it he can go +on and eat some more of it. So the opening sentence must give the whole +thing. Thus, suppose that a leading member of the United States Congress +has committed suicide. This is the way in which the American reporter +deals with it. + +"Seated in his room at the Grand Hotel with his carpet slippers on his +feet and his body wrapped in a blue dressing-gown with pink insertions, +after writing a letter of farewell to his wife and emptying a bottle +of Scotch whisky in which he exonerated her from all culpability in his +death, Congressman Ahasuerus P. Tigg was found by night-watchman, Henry +T. Smith, while making his rounds as usual with four bullets in his +stomach." + +Now let us suppose that a leading member of the House of Commons in +England had done the same thing. Here is the way it would be written up +in a first-class London newspaper. + +The heading would be HOME AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE. That is inserted so +as to keep the reader soothed and quiet and is no doubt thought better +than the American heading BUGHOUSE CONGRESSMAN BLOWS OUT BRAINS IN +HOTEL. After the heading HOME AND GENERAL INTELLIGENCE the English +paper runs the subheading INCIDENT AT THE GRAND HOTEL. The reader still +doesn't know what happened; he isn't meant to. Then the article begins +like this: + +"The Grand Hotel, which is situated at the corner of Millbank and +Victoria Streets, was the scene last night of a distressing incident." + +"What is it?" thinks the reader. "The hotel itself, which is an +old Georgian structure dating probably from about 1750, is a quiet +establishment, its clientele mainly drawn from business men in the +cattle-droving and distillery business from South Wales." + +"What happened?" thinks the reader. + +"Its cuisine has long been famous for the excellence of its boiled +shrimps." + +"What happened?" + +"While the hotel itself is also known as the meeting place of the +Surbiton Harmonic Society and other associations." + +"What happened?" + +"Among the more prominent of the guests of the hotel has been numbered +during the present Parliamentary session Mr. Llewylln Ap. Jones, M.P., +for South Llanfydd. Mr. Jones apparently came to his room last night +at about ten P.M., and put on his carpet slippers and his blue dressing +gown. He then seems to have gone to the cupboard and taken from it a +whisky bottle which however proved to be empty. The unhappy gentleman +then apparently went to bed..." + +At that point the American reader probably stops reading, thinking that +he has heard it all. The unhappy man found that the bottle was empty +and went to bed: very natural: and the affair very properly called a +"distressing incident": quite right. But the trained English reader +would know that there was more to come and that the air of quiet was +only assumed, and he would read on and on until at last the tragic +interest heightened, the four shots were fired, with a good long pause +after each for discussion of the path of the bullet through Mr. Ap. +Jones. + +I am not saying that either the American way or the British way is the +better. They are just two different ways, that's all. But the result is +that anybody from the United States or Canada reading the English papers +gets the impression that nothing is happening: and an English reader +of our newspapers with us gets the idea that the whole place is in a +tumult. + +When I was in London I used always, in glancing at the morning papers, +to get a first impression that the whole world was almost asleep. There +was, for example, a heading called INDIAN INTELLIGENCE that showed, +on close examination, that two thousand Parsees had died of the blue +plague, that a powder boat had blown up at Bombay, that some one had +thrown a couple of bombs at one of the provincial governors, and that +four thousand agitators had been sentenced to twenty years hard labour +each. But the whole thing was just called "Indian Intelligence." +Similarly, there was a little item called, "Our Chinese Correspondent." +That one explained ten lines down, in very small type, that a hundred +thousand Chinese had been drowned in a flood. And there was another +little item labelled "Foreign Gossip," under which was mentioned +that the Pope was dead, and that the President of Paraguay had been +assassinated. + +In short, I got the impression that I was living in an easy drowsy +world, as no doubt the editor meant me to. It was only when the Montreal +Star arrived by post that I felt that the world was still revolving +pretty rapidly on its axis and that there was still something doing. + +As with the world news so it is with the minor events of ordinary +life,--birth, death, marriage, accidents, crime. Let me give an +illustration. Suppose that in a suburb of London a housemaid has +endeavoured to poison her employer's family by putting a drug in +the coffee. Now on our side of the water we should write that little +incident up in a way to give it life, and put headings over it that +would capture the reader's attention in a minute. We should begin it +thus: + + PRETTY PARLOR MAID + DEALS DEATH-DRINK + TO CLUBMAN'S FAMILY + +The English reader would ask at once, how do we know that the parlor +maid is pretty? We don't. But our artistic sense tells us that she ought +to be. Pretty parlor maids are the only ones we take any interest in: if +an ugly parlor maid poisoned her employer's family we should hang her. +Then again, the English reader would say, how do we know that the man is +a clubman? Have we ascertained this fact definitely, and if so, of what +club or clubs is he a member? Well, we don't know, except in so far as +the thing is self-evident. Any man who has romance enough in his life +to be poisoned by a pretty housemaid ought to be in a club. That's the +place for him. In fact, with us the word club man doesn't necessarily +mean a man who belongs to a club: it is defined as a man who is arrested +in a gambling den; or fined for speeding a motor or who shoots another +person in a hotel corridor. Therefore this man must be a club man. +Having settled the heading, we go on with the text: + +"Brooding over love troubles which she has hitherto refused to divulge +under the most grilling fusillade of rapid-fire questions shot at her +by the best brains of the New York police force, Miss Mary De Forrest, +a handsome brunette thirty-six inches around the hips, employed as a +parlor maid in the residence of Mr. Spudd Bung, a well-known clubman +forty-two inches around the chest, was arrested yesterday by the flying +squad of the emergency police after having, so it is alleged, put four +ounces of alleged picrate of potash into the alleged coffee of her +employer's family's alleged breakfast at their residence on Hudson +Heights in the most fashionable quarter of the metropolis. Dr. Slink, +the leading fashionable practitioner of the neighbourhood who was +immediately summoned said that but for his own extraordinary dexterity +and promptness the death of the whole family, if not of the entire +entourage, was a certainty. The magistrate in committing Miss De +Forrest for trial took occasion to enlarge upon her youth and attractive +appearance: he castigated the moving pictures severely and said that he +held them together with the public school system and the present method +of doing the hair, directly responsible for the crimes of the kind +alleged." + +Now when you read this over you begin to feel that something big has +happened. Here is a man like Dr. Slink, all quivering with promptness +and dexterity. Here is an inserted picture, a photograph, a brick house +in a row marked with a cross (+) and labelled "The Bung Residence as. it +appeared immediately after the alleged outrage." It isn't really. It is +just a photograph that we use for this sort of thing and have grown to +like. It is called sometimes:--"Residence of Senator Borah" or "Scene +of the Recent Spiritualistic Manifestations" or anything of the sort. +As long as it is marked with a cross (+) the reader will look at it with +interest. + +In other words we make something out of an occurrence like this. It +doesn't matter if it all fades out afterwards when it appears that Mary +De Forrest merely put ground allspice into the coffee in mistake for +powdered sugar and that the family didn't drink it anyway. The reader +has already turned to other mysteries. + +But contrast the pitifully tame way in which the same event is written +up in England. Here it is: + +SUBURBAN ITEM + +"Yesterday at the police court of Surbiton-on-Thames Mary Forrester, a +servant in the employ of Mr. S. Bung was taken into custody on a charge +of having put a noxious preparation, possibly poison, into the coffee of +her employer's family. The young woman was remanded for a week." + +Look at that. Mary Forrester a servant? + +How wide was she round the chest? It doesn't say. Mr. S. Bung? Of +what club was he a member? None, apparently. Then who cares if he is +poisoned? And "the young woman!" What a way to speak of a decent girl +who never did any other harm than to poison a club man. And the English +magistrate! What a tame part he must have played: his name indeed +doesn't occur at all: apparently he didn't enlarge on the girl's good +looks, or "comment on her attractive appearance," or anything. I don't +suppose that he even asked Mary Forrester out to lunch with him. + +Notice also that, according to the English way of writing the thing up, +as soon as the girl was remanded for a week the incident is closed. +The English reporter doesn't apparently know enough to follow Miss De +Forrest to her home (called "the De Forrest Residence" and marked with +a cross, +). The American reporter would make certain to supplement what +went above with further information of this fashion. "Miss De Forrest +when seen later at her own home by a representative of The Eagle +said that she regretted very much having been put to the necessity of +poisoning Mr. Bung. She had in the personal sense nothing against Mr. +Bung and apart from poisoning him she had every respect for Mr. Bung. +Miss De Forrest, who talks admirably on a variety of topics, expressed +herself as warmly in favour of the League of Nations and as a devotee of +the short ballot and proportional representation." + +Any American reader who studies the English Press comes upon these +wasted opportunities every day. There are indeed certain journals of +a newer type which are doing their best to imitate us. But they don't +really get it yet. They use type up to about one inch and after that +they get afraid. + +I hope that in describing the spirit of the English Press I do not seem +to be writing with any personal bitterness. I admit that there might be +a certain reason for such a bias. During my stay in England I was most +anxious to appear as a contributor to some of the leading papers. This +is, with the English, a thing that always adds prestige. To be able to +call oneself a "contributor" to the Times or to Punch or the Morning +Post or the Spectator, is a high honour. I have met these "contributors" +all over the British Empire. Some, I admit, look strange. An ancient +wreck in the back bar of an Ontario tavern (ancient regime) has told +me that he was a contributor to the Times: the janitor of the building +where I lived admits that he is a contributor to Punch: a man arrested +in Bristol for vagrancy while I was in England pleaded that he was a +contributor to the Spectator. In fact, it is an honour that everybody +seems to be able to get but me. + +I had often tried before I went to England to contribute to the great +English newspapers. I had never succeeded. But I hoped that while in +England itself the very propinquity of the atmosphere, I mean the very +contiguity of the surroundings, would render the attempt easier. I tried +and I failed. My failure was all the more ignominious in that I had very +direct personal encouragement. "By all means," said the editor of the +London Times, "do some thing for us while you are here. Best of all, +do something in a political way; that's rather our special line." I +had already received almost an identical encouragement from the London +Morning Post, and in a more qualified way from the Manchester Guardian. +In short, success seemed easy. + +I decided therefore to take some simple political event of the peculiar +kind that always makes a stir in English politics and write it up for +these English papers. To simplify matters I thought it better to use one +and the same incident and write it up in three different ways and get +paid for it three, times. All of those who write for the Press will +understand the motive at once. I waited therefore and watched the papers +to see if anything interesting might happen to the Ahkoond of Swat or +the Sandjak of Novi Bazar or any other native potentate. Within a couple +of days I got what I wanted in the following item, which I need hardly +say is taken word for word from the Press despatches: + +"Perim, via Bombay. News comes by messenger that the Shriek of Kowfat +who has been living under the convention of 1898 has violated the modus +operandi. He is said to have torn off his suspenders, dipped himself in +oil and proclaimed a Jehad. The situation is critical." + +Everybody who knows England knows that this is just the kind of news +that the English love. On our side of the Atlantic we should be bothered +by the fact that we did not know where Kowfat is, nor what was the +convention of 1898. They are not. They just take it for granted that +Kowfat is one of the many thousand places that they "own," somewhere +in the outer darkness. They have so many Kowfats that they cannot keep +track of them. + +I knew therefore that everybody would be interested in any discussion +of what was at once called "the Kowfat Crisis" and I wrote it up. I +resisted the temptation to begin after the American fashion, "Shriek +sheds suspenders," and suited the writing, as I thought, to the market I +was writing for. I wrote up the incident for the Morning Post after the +following fashion: + +"The news from Kowfat affords one more instance of a painful back-down +on the part of the Government. Our policy of spineless supineness is now +reaping its inevitable reward. To us there is only one thing to be done. +If the Shriek has torn off his suspenders he must be made to put them +on again. We have always held that where the imperial prestige of this +country is concerned there is no room for hesitation. In the present +instance our prestige is at stake: the matter involves our reputation in +the eyes of the surrounding natives, the Bantu Hottentots, the Negritos, +the Dwarf Men of East Abyssinia, and the Dog Men of Darfur. What will +they think of us? If we fail in this crisis their notion of us will fall +fifty per cent. In our opinion this country cannot stand a fifty per +cent drop in the estimation of the Dog Men. The time is one that demands +action. An ultimatum should be sent at once to the Shriek of Kowfat. If +he has one already we should send him another. He should be made at once +to put on his suspenders. The oil must be scraped off him, and he must +be told plainly that if a pup like him tries to start a Jehad he will +have to deal with the British Navy. We call the Shriek a pup in no sense +of belittling him as our imperial ally but because we consider that the +present is no time for half words and we do not regard pup as half a +word. Events such as the present, rocking the Empire to its base, make +one long for the spacious days of a Salisbury or a Queen Elizabeth, or +an Alfred the Great or a Julius Caesar. We doubt whether the present +Cabinet is in this class." + +Not to lose any time in the coming and going of the mail, always a +serious thought for the contributor to the Press waiting for a cheque, I +sent another editorial on the same topic to the Manchester Guardian. It +ran as follows: + +"The action of the Shriek of Kowfat in proclaiming a Jehad against us is +one that amply justifies all that we have said editorially since Jeremy +Bentham died. We have always held that the only way to deal with a +Mohammedan potentate like the Shriek is to treat him like a Christian. +The Khalifate of Kowfat at present buys its whole supply of cotton +piece goods in our market and pays cash. The Shriek, who is a man of +enlightenment, has consistently upheld the principles of Free Trade. +Not only are our exports of cotton piece goods, bibles, rum, and beads +constantly increasing, but they are more than offset by our importation +from Kowfat of ivory, rubber, gold, and oil. In short, we have never +seen the principles of Free Trade better illustrated. The Shriek, it is +now reported, refuses to wear the braces presented to him by our envoy +at the time of his coronation five years ago. He is said to have thrown +them into the mud. But we have no reason to suppose that this is meant +as a blow at our prestige. It may be that after five years of use the +little pulleys of the braces no longer work properly. We have ourselves +in our personal life known instances of this, and can speak of the sense +of irritation occasioned. Even we have thrown on the floor ours. And in +any case, as we have often reminded our readers, what is prestige? If +any one wants to hit us, let him hit us right there. We regard a blow at +our trade as far more deadly than a blow at our prestige. + +"The situation as we see it demands immediate reparation on our part. +The principal grievance of the Shriek arises from the existence of our +fort and garrison on the Kowfat river. Our proper policy is to knock +down the fort, and either remove the garrison or give it to the Shriek. +We are convinced that as soon as the Shriek realises that we are +prepared to treat him in the proper Christian spirit, he will at once +respond with true Mohammedan generosity. + +"We have further to remember that in what we do we are being observed by +the neighbouring tribes, the Negritos, the Dwarf Men, and the Dog Men of +Darfur. These are not only shrewd observers but substantial customers. +The Dwarf Men at present buy all their cotton on the Manchester market +and the Dog Men depend on us for their soap. + +"The present crisis is one in which the nation needs statesmanship and a +broad outlook upon the world. In the existing situation we need not the +duplicity of a Machiavelli, but the commanding prescience of a Gladstone +or an Alfred the Great, or a Julius Caesar. Luckily we have exactly this +type of man at the head of affairs." + +After completing the above I set to work without delay on a similar +exercise for the London Times. The special excellence of the Times, as +everybody knows is its fulness of information. For generations past the +Times has commanded a peculiar minuteness of knowledge about all parts +of the Empire. It is the proud boast of this great journal that to +whatever far away, outlandish part of the Empire you may go, you will +always find a correspondent of the Times looking for something to do. +It is said that the present proprietor has laid it down as his maxim, +"I don't want men who think; I want men who know." The arrangements for +thinking are made separately. + +Incidentally I may say that I had personal opportunities while I was +in England of realising that the reputation of the Times staff for the +possession of information is well founded. Dining one night with some +members of the staff, I happened to mention Saskatchewan. One of the +editors at the other end of the table looked up at the mention of the +name. "Saskatchewan," he said, "ah, yes; that's not far from Alberta, is +it?" and then turned quietly to his food again. When I remind the reader +that Saskatchewan is only half an inch from Alberta he may judge of the +nicety of the knowledge involved. Having all this in mind, I recast the +editorial and sent it to the London Times as follows: + +"The news that the Sultan of Kowfat has thrown away his suspenders +renders it of interest to indicate the exact spot where he has thrown +them. (See map). Kowfat, lying as the reader knows, on the Kowfat River, +occupies the hinterland between the back end of south-west Somaliland +and the east, that is to say, the west, bank of Lake P'schu. It thus +forms an enclave between the Dog Men of Darfur and the Negritos of +T'chk. The inhabitants of Kowfat are a coloured race three quarters +negroid and more than three quarters tabloid. + +"As a solution of the present difficulty, the first thing required +in our opinion is to send out a boundary commission to delineate more +exactly still just where Kowfat is. After that an ethnographical survey +might be completed." + + +It was a matter not only of concern but of surprise to me that not one +of the three contributions recited above was accepted by the English +Press. The Morning Post complained that my editorial was not firm enough +in tone, the Guardian that it was not humane enough, the Times that +I had left out the latitude and longitude always expected by their +readers. I thought it not worth while to bother to revise the articles +as I had meantime conceived the idea that the same material might be +used in the most delightfully amusing way as the basis of a poem far +Punch. Everybody knows the kind of verses that are contributed to Punch +by Sir Owen Seaman and Mr. Charles Graves and men of that sort. And +everybody has been struck, as I have, by the extraordinary easiness of +the performance. All that one needs is to get some odd little incident, +such as the revolt of the Sultan of Kowfat, make up an amusing title, +and then string the verses together in such a way as to make rhymes with +all the odd words that come into the narrative. In fact, the thing is +ease itself. + +I therefore saw a glorious chance with the Sultan of Kowfat. Indeed, I +fairly chuckled to myself when I thought what amusing rhymes could be +made with "Negritos," "modus operandi" and "Dog Men of Darfur." I can +scarcely imagine anything more excruciatingly funny than the rhymes +which can be made with them. And as for the title, bringing in the word +Kowfat or some play upon it, the thing is perfectly obvious. The idea +amused me so much that I set to work at the poem at once. + +I am sorry to say that I failed to complete it. Not that I couldn't +have done so, given time; I am quite certain that if I had had about two +years I could have done it. The main structure of the poem, however, is +here and I give it for what it is worth. Even as it is it strikes me as +extraordinarily good. Here it is: + + Title + + ...................... Kowfat + + Verse One + + .........................., + ............... modus operandi; + .........................., + .................., Negritos: + ....................... P'shu. + + Verse Two + + ..................... Khalifate; + ............. Dog Men of Darfur: + ....................... T'chk. + + +Excellent little thing, isn't it? All it needs is the rhymes. As far as +it goes it has just exactly the ease and the sweep required. And if some +one will tell me how Owen Seaman and those people get the rest of the +ease and the sweep I'll be glad to put it in. + +One further experiment of the same sort I made with the English Press in +another direction and met again with failure. If there is one paper in +the world for which I have respect and--if I may say it--an affection, +it is the London Spectator. I suppose that I am only one of thousands +and thousands of people who feel that way. Why under the circumstances +the Spectator failed to publish my letter I cannot say. I wanted no +money for it: I only wanted the honour of seeing it inserted beside the +letter written from the Rectory, Hops, Hants, or the Shrubbery, Potts, +Shrops,--I mean from one of those places where the readers of the +Spectator live. I thought too that my letter had just the right touch. +However, they wouldn't take it: something wrong with it somewhere, I +suppose. This is it: + + To the Editor, + The Spectator, + London, England. + + Dear Sir, + + Your correspondence of last week contained such interesting + information in regard to the appearance of the first cowslip + in Kensington Common that I trust that I may, without + fatiguing your readers to the point of saturation, narrate + a somewhat similar and I think, sir, an equally interesting + experience of my own. While passing through Lambeth Gardens + yesterday towards the hour of dusk I observed a crow with + one leg sitting beside the duck-pond and apparently lost in + thought. There was no doubt that the bird was of the + species pulex hibiscus, an order which is becoming + singularly rare in the vicinity of the metropolis. Indeed, + so far as I am aware, the species has not been seen in + London since 1680. I may say that on recognising the bird I + drew as near as I could, keeping myself behind the + shrubbery, but the pulex hibiscus which apparently caught a + brief glimpse of my face uttered a cry of distress and flew + away. + + I am, sir, + Believe me, + yours, sir, + O.Y. Botherwithit. + (Ret'd Major Burmese Army.); + +Distressed by these repeated failures, I sank back to a lower level of +English literary work, the puzzle department. For some reason or other +the English delight in puzzles. It is, I think, a part of the peculiar +school-boy pedantry which is the reverse side of their literary genius. +I speak with a certain bitterness because in puzzle work I met with no +success whatever. My solutions were never acknowledged, never paid for, +in fact they were ignored. But I append two or three of them here, with +apologies to the editors of the Strand and other papers who should have +had the honour of publishing them first. + + Puzzle I + +Can you fold a square piece of paper in such a way that with a single +fold it forms a pentagon? + +My Solution: Yes, if I knew what a pentagon was. + + Puzzle II + +A and B agree to hold a walking match across an open meadow, each +seeking the shortest line. A, walking from corner to corner, may be said +to diangulate the hypotenuse of the meadow. B, allowing for a slight +rise in the ground, walks on an obese tabloid. Which wins? + +My Solution: Frankly, I don't know. + + Puzzle III + +(With apologies to the Strand.) + +A rope is passed over a pulley. It has a weight at one end and a monkey +at the other. There is the same length of rope on either side and +equilibrium is maintained. The rope weighs four ounces per foot. The +age of the monkey and the age of the monkey's mother together total four +years. The weight of the monkey is as many pounds as the monkey's mother +is years old. The monkey's mother was twice as old as the monkey was +when the monkey's mother was half as old as the monkey will be when +the monkey is three times as old as the monkey's mother was when the +monkey's mother was three times as old as the monkey. The weight of the +rope with the weight at the end was half as much again as the difference +in weight between the weight of the weight and the weight of the monkey. +Now, what was the length of the rope? + +My Solution: I should think it would have to be a rope of a fairly good +length. + +In only one department of English journalism have I met with a decided +measure of success; I refer to the juvenile competition department. This +is a sort of thing to which the English are especially addicted. As a +really educated nation for whom good literature begins in the home they +encourage in every way literary competitions among the young readers +of their journals. At least half a dozen of the well-known London +periodicals carry on this work. The prizes run all the way from one +shilling to half a guinea and the competitions are generally open to all +children from three to six years of age. It was here that I saw my open +opportunity and seized it. I swept in prize after prize. As "Little +Agatha" I got four shillings for the best description of Autumn in two +lines, and one shilling for guessing correctly the missing letters in +BR-STOL, SH-FFIELD, and H-LL. A lot of the competitors fell down +on H-LL. I got six shillings for giving the dates of the Norman +Conquest,--1492 A.D., and the Crimean War of 1870. In short, the thing +was easy. I might say that to enter these competitions one has to have +a certificate of age from a member of the clergy. But I know a lot of +them. + + + + +VII. Business in England. Wanted--More Profiteers + +It is hardly necessary to say that so shrewd an observer as I am could +not fail to be struck by the situation of business in England. Passing +through the factory towns and noticing that no smoke came from the tall +chimneys and that the doors of the factories were shut, I was led to the +conclusion that they were closed. + +Observing that the streets of the industrial centres were everywhere +filled with idle men, I gathered that they were unemployed: and when I +learned that the moving picture houses were full to the doors every day +and that the concert halls, beer gardens, grand opera, and religious +concerts were crowded to suffocation, I inferred that the country was +suffering from an unparalleled depression. This diagnosis turned out to +be absolutely correct. It has been freely estimated that at the time I +refer to almost two million men were out of work. + +But it does not require government statistics to prove that in England +at the present day everybody seems poor, just as in the United States +everybody, to the eye of the visitor, seems to be rich. In England +nobody seems to be able to afford anything: in the United States +everybody seems to be able to afford everything. In England nobody +smokes cigars: in America everybody does. On the English railways the +first class carriages are empty: in the United States the "reserved +drawingrooms" are full. Poverty no doubt is only a relative matter: but +a man whose income used to be 10,000 a year and is now 5,000, is living +in "reduced circumstances": he feels himself just as poor as the man +whose income has been cut from five thousand pounds to three, or from +five hundred pounds to two. They are all in the same boat. What with the +lowering of dividends and the raising of the income tax, the closing of +factories, feeding the unemployed and trying to employ the unfed, things +are in a bad way. + +The underlying cause is plain enough. The economic distress that the +world suffers now is the inevitable consequence of the war. Everybody +knows that. But where the people differ is in regard to what is going to +happen next, and what we must do about it. Here opinion takes a variety +of forms. Some people blame it on the German mark: by permitting their +mark to fall, the Germans, it is claimed, are taking away all the +business from England; the fall of the mark, by allowing the Germans to +work harder and eat less than the English, is threatening to drive the +English out of house and home: if the mark goes on falling still further +the Germans will thereby outdo us also in music, literature and in +religion. What has got to be done, therefore, is to force the Germans to +lift the mark up again, and make them pay up their indemnity. + +Another more popular school of thought holds to an entirely contrary +opinion. The whole trouble, they say, comes from the sad collapse of +Germany. These unhappy people, having been too busy for four years in +destroying valuable property in France and Belgium to pay attention to +their home affairs, now find themselves collapsed: it is our first duty +to pick them up again. The English should therefore take all the money +they can find and give it to the Germans. By this means German trade and +industry will revive to such an extent that the port of Hamburg will be +its old bright self again and German waiters will reappear in the London +hotels. After that everything will be all right. + +Speaking with all the modesty of an outsider and a transient visitor, +I give it as my opinion that the trouble is elsewhere. The danger of +industrial collapse in England does not spring from what is happening in +Germany but from what is happening in England itself. England, like +most of the other countries in the world, is suffering from the +over-extension of government and the decline of individual self-help. +For six generations industry in England and America has flourished on +individual effort called out by the prospect of individual gain. Every +man acquired from his boyhood the idea that he must look after himself. +Morally, physically and financially that was the recognised way of +getting on. The desire to make a fortune was regarded as a laudable +ambition, a proper stimulus to effort. The ugly word "profiteer" had not +yet been coined. There was no income tax to turn a man's pockets inside +out and take away his savings. The world was to the strong. + +Under the stimulus of this the wheels of industry hummed. Factories +covered the land. National production grew to a colossal size and the +whole outer world seemed laid under a tribute to the great industry. As +a system it was far from perfect. It contained in itself all kinds +of gross injustices, demands that were too great, wages that were +too small; in spite of the splendour of the foreground, poverty and +destitution hovered behind the scenes. But such as it was, the system +worked: and it was the only one that we knew. + +Or turn to another aspect of this same principle of self-help. The way +to acquire knowledge in the early days was to buy a tallow candle +and read a book after one's day's work, as Benjamin Franklin read or +Lincoln: and when the soul was stimulated to it, then the aspiring youth +must save money, put himself to college, live on nothing, think much, +and in the course of this starvation and effort become a learned man, +with somehow a peculiar moral fibre in him not easily reproduced to-day. +For to-day the candle is free and the college is free and the student +has a "Union" like the profiteer's club and a swimming-bath and a Drama +League and a coeducational society at his elbow for which he buys Beauty +Roses at five dollars a bunch. + +Or turn if one will to the moral side. The older way of being good was +by much prayer and much effort of one's own soul. Now it is done by +a Board of Censors. There is no need to fight sin by the power of the +spirit: let the Board of Censors do it. They together with three or four +kinds of Commissioners are supposed to keep sin at arm's length and to +supply a first class legislative guarantee of righteousness. As a +short cut to morality and as a way of saving individual effort our +legislatures are turning out morality legislation by the bucketful. The +legislature regulates our drink, it begins already to guard us against +the deadly cigarette, it regulates here and there the length of our +skirts, it safeguards our amusements and in two states of the American +Union it even proposes to save us from the teaching of the Darwinian +Theory of evolution. The ancient prayer "Lead us not into temptation" is +passing out of date. The way to temptation is declared closed by Act of +Parliament and by amendment to the constitution of the United States. +Yet oddly enough the moral tone of the world fails to respond. The +world is apparently more full of thugs, hold-up men, yeg-men, bandits, +motor-thieves, porch-climbers, spotters, spies and crooked policemen than +it ever was; till it almost seems that the slow, old-fashioned method of +an effort of the individual soul may be needed still before the world is +made good. + +This vast new system, the system of leaning on the government, is +spreading like a blight over England and America, and everywhere we +suffer from it. Government, that in theory represents a union of effort +and a saving of force, sprawls like an octopus over the land. It has +become like a dead weight upon us. Wherever it touches industry it +cripples it. It runs railways and makes a heavy deficit: it builds ships +and loses money on them: it operates the ships and loses more money: +it piles up taxes to fill the vacuum and when it has killed employment, +opens a bureau of unemployment and issues a report on the depression of +industry. + +Now, the only way to restore prosperity is to give back again to the +individual the opportunity to make money, to make lots of it, and when +he has got it, to keep it. In spite of all the devastation of the war +the raw assets of our globe are hardly touched. Here and there, as in +parts of China and in England and in Belgium with about seven hundred +people to the square mile, the world is fairly well filled up. There is +standing room only. But there are vast empty spaces still. Mesopotamia +alone has millions of acres of potential wheat land with a few Arabs +squatting on it. Canada could absorb easily half a million settlers a +year for a generation to come. The most fertile part of the world, the +valley of the Amazon, is still untouched: so fertile is it that for tens +of thousands of square miles it is choked with trees, a mere tangle +of life, defying all entry. The idea of our humanity sadly walking the +streets of Glasgow or sitting mournfully fishing on the piers of the +Hudson, out of work, would be laughable if it were not for the pathos of +it. + +The world is out of work for the simple reason that the world has +killed the goose that laid the golden eggs of industry. By taxation, by +legislation, by popular sentiment all over the world, there has been +a disparagement of the capitalist. And all over the world capital is +frightened. It goes and hides itself in the form of an investment in a +victory bond, a thing that is only a particular name for a debt, with no +productive effort behind it and indicating only a dead weight of taxes. +There capital sits like a bull-frog hidden behind water-lilies, refusing +to budge. + +Hence the way to restore prosperity is not to multiply government +departments and government expenditures, nor to appoint commissions +and to pile up debts, but to start going again the machinery of bold +productive effort. Take off all the excess profits taxes and the +super-taxes on income and as much of the income tax itself as can be +done by a wholesale dismissal of government employees and then +give industry a mark to shoot at. What is needed now is not the +multiplication of government reports, but corporate industry, the +formation of land companies, development companies, irrigation +companies, any kind of corporation that will call out private capital +from its hiding places, offer employment to millions and start the +wheels moving again. If the promoters of such corporations presently +earn huge fortunes for themselves society is none the worse: and in any +case, humanity being what it is, they will hand back a vast part of what +they have acquired in return for LL.D. degrees, or bits of blue ribbon, +or companionships of the Bath, or whatever kind of glass bead fits the +fancy of the retired millionaire. + +The next thing to be done, then, is to "fire" the government officials +and to bring back the profiteer. As to which officials are to be fired +first it doesn't matter much. In England people have been greatly +perturbed as to the use to be made of such instruments as the "Geddes +Axe": the edge of the axe of dismissal seems so terribly sharp. But +there is no need to worry. If the edge of the axe is too sharp, hit with +the back of it. + +As to the profiteer, bring him back. He is really just the same person +who a few years ago was called a Captain of Industry and an Empire +Builder and a Nation Maker. It is the times that have changed, not the +man. He is there still, just as greedy and rapacious as ever, but no +greedier: and we have just the same social need of his greed as a motive +power in industry as we ever had, and indeed a worse need than before. + +We need him not only in business but in the whole setting of life, or +if not him personally, we need the eager, selfish, but reliant spirit +of the man who looks after himself and doesn't want to have a spoon-fed +education and a government job alternating with a government dole, and +a set of morals framed for him by a Board of Censors. Bring back the +profiteer: fetch him from the Riviera, from his country-place on the +Hudson, or from whatever spot to which he has withdrawn with his tin +box full of victory bonds. If need be, go and pick him out of the +penitentiary, take the stripes off him and tell him to get busy again. +Show him the map of the world and ask him to pick out a few likely +spots. The trained greed of the rascal will find them in a moment. +Then write him out a concession for coal in Asia Minor or oil in the +Mackenzie Basin or for irrigation in Mesopotamia. The ink will hardly +be dry on it before the capital will begin to flow in: it will come from +all kinds of places whence the government could never coax it and where +the tax-gatherer could never find it. Only promise that it is not going +to be taxed out of existence and the stream of capital which is being +dried up in the sands of government mismanagement will flow into the +hands of private industry like a river of gold. + +And incidentally, when the profiteer has finished his work, we can +always put him back into the penitentiary if we like. But we need him +just now. + + + + +VIII. Is Prohibition Coming to England? + +IN the United States and Canada the principal topic of polite +conversation is now prohibition. At every dinner party the serving of +the cocktails immediately introduces the subject: the rest of the dinner +is enlivened throughout with the discussion of rum-runners, bootleggers, +storage of liquor and the State constitution of New Jersey. Under +this influence all social and conversational values are shifted and +rearranged. A "scholarly" man no longer means a man who can talk well on +literary subjects but a man who understands the eighteenth amendment and +can explain the legal difference between implementing statutes such as +the Volstead Act and the underlying state legislation. A "scientist" +(invaluable in these conversations) is a man who can make clear the +distinction between alcoholic percentages by bulk and by weight. And +a "brilliant engineer" means a man who explains how to make homebrewed +beer with a kick in it. Similarly, a "raconteur" means a man who has +a fund of amusing stories about "bootleggers" and an "interesting +traveller" means a man who has been to Havana and can explain how wet +it is. Indeed, the whole conception of travel and of interest in foreign +countries is now altered: as soon as any one mentions that he has been +in a foreign country, all the company ask in one breath, "Is it dry?" +The question "How is Samoa?" or "How is Turkey?" or "How is British +Columbia?" no longer refers to the climate or natural resources: it +means "Is the place dry?" When such a question is asked and the answer +is "It's wet," there is a deep groan all around the table. + +I understand that when the recent disarmament conference met at +Washington just as the members were going to sit down at the table +Monsieur Briand said to President Harding, "How dry is the United +States, anyway?" And the whole assembly talked about it for half +an hour. That was why the first newspaper bulletins merely said, +"Conference exchanges credentials." + +As a discoverer of England I therefore made it one of my chief cares to +try to obtain accurate information of this topic. I was well aware that +immediately on my return to Canada the first question I would be asked +would be "Is England going dry?" I realised that in any report I might +make to the National Geographical Society or to the Political Science +Association, the members of these bodies, being scholars, would want +accurate information about the price of whiskey, the percentage of +alcohol, and the hours of opening and closing the saloons. + +My first impression on the subject was, I must say, one of severe moral +shock. Landing in England after spending the summer in Ontario, it +seemed a terrible thing to see people openly drinking on an English +train. On an Ontario train, as everybody knows, there is no way of +taking a drink except by climbing up on the roof, lying flat on one's +stomach, and taking a suck out of a flask. But in England in any dining +car one actually sees a waiter approach a person dining and say, "Beer, +sir, or wine?" This is done in broad daylight with no apparent sense of +criminality or moral shame. Appalling though it sounds, bottled ale is +openly sold on the trains at twenty-five cents a bottle and dry sherry +at eighteen cents a glass. + +When I first saw this I expected to see the waiter arrested on the spot. +I looked around to see if there were any "spotters," detectives, or +secret service men on the train. I anticipated that the train conductor +would appear and throw the waiter off the car. But then I realised that +I was in England and that in the British Isles they still tolerate the +consumption of alcohol. Indeed, I doubt if they are even aware that +they are "consuming alcohol." Their impression is that they are drinking +beer. + +At the beginning of my discussion I will therefore preface a few exact +facts and statistics for the use of geographical societies, learned +bodies and government commissions. The quantity of beer consumed in +England in a given period is about 200,000,000 gallons. The life of a +bottle of Scotch whiskey is seven seconds. The number of public houses, +or "pubs," in the English countryside is one to every half mile. The +percentage of the working classes drinking beer is 125: the percentage +of the class without work drinking beer is 200. + +Statistics like these do not, however, give a final answer to the +question, "Is prohibition coming to England?" They merely show that +it is not there now. The question itself will be answered in as +many different ways as there are different kinds of people. Any +prohibitionist will tell you that the coming of prohibition to England +is as certain as the coming eclipse of the sun. But this is always so. +It is in human nature that people are impressed by the cause they work +in. I once knew a minister of the Scotch Church who took a voyage round +the world: he said that the thing that impressed him most was the growth +of presbyterianism in Japan. No doubt it did. When the Orillia lacrosse +team took their trip to Australia, they said on their return that +lacrosse was spreading all over the world. In the same way there is said +to be a spread all over the world of Christian Science, proportional +representation, militarism, peace sentiment, barbarism, altruism, +psychoanalysis and death from wood alcohol. They are what are called +world movements. + +My own judgment in regard to prohibition in the British Isles is this: +In Scotland, prohibition is not coming: if anything, it is going. In +Ireland, prohibition will only be introduced when they have run out of +other forms of trouble. But in England I think that prohibition could +easily come unless the English people realise where they are drifting +and turn back. They are in the early stage of the movement already. + +Turning first to Scotland, there is no fear, I say, that prohibition +will be adopted there: and this from the simple reason that the +Scotch do not drink. I have elsewhere alluded to the extraordinary +misapprehension that exists in regard to the Scotch people and their +sense of humour. I find a similar popular error in regard to the use of +whiskey by the Scotch. Because they manufacture the best whiskey in the +world, the Scotch, in popular fancy, are often thought to be addicted to +the drinking of it. This is purely a delusion. During the whole of two +or three pleasant weeks spent in lecturing in Scotland, I never on any +occasion saw whiskey made use of as a beverage. I have seen people take +it, of course, as a medicine, or as a precaution, or as a wise offset +against a rather treacherous climate; but as a beverage, never. + +The manner and circumstance of their offering whiskey to a stranger +amply illustrates their point of view towards it. Thus at my first +lecture in Glasgow where I was to appear before a large and fashionable +audience, the chairman said to me in the committee room that he was +afraid that there might be a draft on the platform. Here was a serious +matter. For a lecturer who has to earn his living by his occupation, a +draft on the platform is not a thing to be disregarded. It might kill +him. Nor is it altogether safe for the chairman himself, a man already +in middle life, to be exposed to a current of cold air. In this +case, therefore, the chairman suggested that he thought it might be +"prudent"--that was his word, "prudent"--if I should take a small drop +of whiskey before encountering the draft. In return I told him that I +could not think of his accompanying me to the platform unless he would +let me insist on his taking a very reasonable precaution. Whiskey taken +on these terms not only seems like a duty but it tastes better. + +In the same way I find that in Scotland it is very often necessary to +take something to drink on purely meteorological grounds. The weather +simply cannot be trusted. A man might find that on "going out into the +weather" he is overwhelmed by a heavy fog or an avalanche of snow or a +driving storm of rain. In such a case a mere drop of whiskey might save +his life. It would be folly not to take it. Again,--"coming in out +of the weather" is a thing not to be trifled with. A person coming +in unprepared and unprotected might be seized with angina pectoris or +appendicitis and die upon the spot. No reasonable person would refuse +the simple precaution of taking a small drop immediately after his +entry. + +I find that, classified altogether, there are seventeen reasons advanced +in Scotland for taking whiskey. They run as follows: Reason one, because +it is raining; Two, because it is not raining; Three, because you are +just going out into the weather; Four, because you have just come in +from the weather; Five; no, I forget the ones that come after that. But +I remember that reason number seventeen is "because it canna do ye any +harm." On the whole, reason seventeen is the best. + +Put in other words this means that the Scotch make use of whiskey with +dignity and without shame: and they never call it alcohol. + +In England the case is different. Already the English are showing the +first signs that indicate the possible approach of prohibition. Already +all over England there are weird regulations about the closing hours +of the public houses. They open and close according to the varying +regulations of the municipality. In some places they open at six in the +morning, close down for an hour from nine till ten, open then till noon, +shut for ten minutes, and so on; in some places they are open in the +morning and closed in the evening; in other places they are open in the +evening and closed in the morning. The ancient idea was that a wayside +public house was a place of sustenance and comfort, a human need that +might be wanted any hour. It was in the same class with the life boat +or the emergency ambulance. Under the old common law the innkeeper must +supply meat and drink at any hour. If he was asleep the traveller might +wake him. And in those days meat and drink were regarded in the same +light. Note how great the change is. In modern life in England there is +nothing that you dare wake up a man for except gasoline. The mere fact +that you need a drink is no longer held to entitle you to break his +rest. + +In London especially one feels the full force of the "closing" +regulations. The bars open and shut at intervals like daisies blinking +at the sun. And like the flowers at evening they close their petals with +the darkness. In London they have already adopted the deadly phrases of +the prohibitionist, such as "alcohol" and "liquor traffic" and so on: +and already the "sale of spirits" stops absolutely at about eleven +o'clock at night. + +This means that after theatre hours London is a "city of dreadful +night." The people from the theatre scuttle to their homes. The lights +are extinguished in the windows. The streets darken. Only a belated taxi +still moves. At midnight the place is deserted. At 1 A.M., the lingering +footfalls echo in the empty street. Here and there a restaurant in +a fashionable street makes a poor pretence of keeping open for after +theatre suppers. Odd people, the shivering wrecks of theatre parties, +are huddled here and there. A gloomy waiter lays a sardine on the +table. The guests charge their glasses with Perrier Water, Lithia Water, +Citrate of Magnesia, or Bromo Seltzer. They eat the sardine and vanish +into the night. Not even Oshkosh, Wisconsin, or Middlebury, Vermont, is +quieter than is the night life of London. It may no doubt seem a wise +thing to go to bed early. + +But it is a terrible thing to go to bed early by Act of Parliament. + +All of which means that the people of England are not facing the +prohibition question fairly and squarely. If they see no harm in +"consuming alcohol" they ought to say so and let their code of +regulations reflect the fact. But the "closing" and "regulating" and +"squeezing" of the "liquor traffic", without any outspoken protest, +means letting the whole case go by default. Under these circumstances +an organised and active minority can always win and impose its will upon +the crowd. + +When I was in England I amused myself one day by writing an imaginary +picture of what England will be like when the last stage is reached and +London goes the way of New York and Chicago. I cast it in the form of a +letter from an American prohibitionist in which he describes the final +triumph of prohibition in England. With the permission of the reader I +reproduce it here: + + THE ADVENT OF PROHIBITION IN ENGLAND + + As written in the correspondence of an American visitor + + How glad I am that I have lived to see this wonderful reform + of prohibition at last accomplished in England. There is + something so difficult about the British, so stolid, so hard + to move. + + We tried everything in the great campaign that we made, and + for ever so long it didn't seem to work. We had processions, + just as we did at home in America, with great banners + carried round bearing the inscription: "Do you want to save + the boy?" But these people looked on and said, "Boy? Boy? + What boy?" Our workers were almost disheartened. "Oh, sir," + said one of them, an ex-barkeeper from Oklahoma, "it does + seem so hard that we have total prohibition in the States + and here they can get all the drink they want." And the good + fellow broke down and sobbed. + + But at last it has come. After the most terrific efforts we + managed to get this nation stampeded, and for more than a + month now England has been dry. I wish you could have + witnessed the scenes, just like what we saw at home in + America, when it was known that the bill had passed. The + members of the House of Lords all stood up on their seats + and yelled, "Rah! Rah! Rah! Who's bone dry? We are!" And the + brewers and innkeepers were emptying their barrels of beer + into the Thames just as at St. Louis they emptied the beer + into the Mississippi. + + I can't tell you with what pleasure I watched a group of + members of the Athenaeum Club sitting on the bank of the + Thames and opening bottles of champagne and pouring them + into the river. "To think," said one of them to me, "that + there was a time when I used to lap up a couple of quarts of + this terrible stuff every evening." I got him to give me a + few bottles as a souvenir, and I got some more souvenirs, + whiskey and liqueurs, when the members of the Beefsteak Club + were emptying out their cellars into Green Street; so when + you come over, I shall still be able, of course, to give you + a drink. + + We have, as I said, been bone dry only a month, and yet + already we are getting the same splendid results as in + America. All the big dinners are now as refined and as + elevating and the dinner speeches as long and as informal as + they are in New York or Toronto. The other night at a dinner + at the White Friars Club I heard Sir Owen Seaman speaking, + not in that light futile way that he used to have, but quite + differently. He talked for over an hour and a half on the + State ownership of the Chinese Railway System, and I almost + fancied myself back in Boston. + + And the working class too. It is just wonderful how + prohibition has increased their efficiency. In the old days + they used to drop their work the moment the hour struck. Now + they simply refuse to do so. I noticed yesterday a foreman + in charge of a building operation vainly trying to call the + bricklayers down. "Come, come, gentlemen," he shouted, "I + must insist on your stopping for the night." But they just + went on laying bricks faster than ever. + + Of course, as yet there are a few slight difficulties and + deficiencies, just as there are with us in America. We have + had the same trouble with wood-alcohol (they call it + methylated spirit here), with the same deplorable results. + On some days the list of deaths is very serious, and in some + cases we are losing men we can hardly spare. A great many of + our leading actors--in fact, most of them--are dead. And there + has been a heavy loss, too, among the literary class and in + the legal profession. + + There was a very painful scene last week at the dinner of + the Benchers of Gray's Inn. It seems that one of the chief + justices had undertaken to make home brew for the Benchers, + just as the people do on our side of the water. He got one + of the waiters to fetch him some hops and three raw + potatoes, a packet of yeast and some boiling water. In the + end, four of the Benchers were carried out dead. But they + are going to give them a public funeral in the Abbey. + + I regret to say that the death list in the Royal Navy is + very heavy. Some of the best sailors are gone, and it is + very difficult to keep admirals. But I have tried to explain + to the people here that these are merely the things that one + must expect, and that, with a little patience, they will + have bone-dry admirals and bone-dry statesmen just as good + as the wet ones. Even the clergy can be dried up with + firmness and perseverance. + + There was also a slight sensation here when the Chancellor + of the Exchequer brought in his first appropriation for + maintaining prohibition. From our point of view in America, + it was modest enough. But these people are not used to it. + The Chancellor merely asked for ten million pounds a month + to begin on; he explained that his task was heavy; he has to + police, not only the entire coast, but also the interior; + for the Grampian Hills of Scotland alone he asked a million. + There was a good deal of questioning in the House over these + figures. The Chancellor was asked if he intended to keep a + hired spy at every street corner in London. He answered, + "No, only on every other street." He added also that every + spy must wear a brass collar with his number. + + I must admit further, and I am sorry to have to tell you + this, that now we have prohibition it is becoming + increasingly difficult to get a drink. In fact, sometimes, + especially in the very early morning, it is most + inconvenient and almost impossible. The public houses being + closed, it is necessary to go into a drug store--just as it + is with us--and lean up against the counter and make a + gurgling sound like apoplexy. One often sees these apoplexy + cases lined up four deep. + + But the people are finding substitutes, just as they do with + us. There is a tremendous run on patent medicines, perfume, + glue and nitric acid. It has been found that Shears' soap + contains alcohol, and one sees people everywhere eating + cakes of it. The upper classes have taken to chewing tobacco + very considerably, and the use of opium in the House of + Lords has very greatly increased. + + But I don't want you to think that if you come over here to + see me, your private life will be in any way impaired or + curtailed. I am glad to say that I have plenty of rich + connections whose cellars are very amply stocked. The Duke + of Blank is said to have 5,000 cases of Scotch whiskey, and + I have managed to get a card of introduction to his butler. + In fact you will find that, just as with us in America, the + benefit of prohibition is intended to fall on the poorer + classes. There is no desire to interfere with the rich. + + + + +IX. "We Have With Us To-night" + +NOT only during my tour in England but for many years past it has been +my lot to speak and to lecture in all sorts of places, under all sorts +of circumstances and before all sorts of audiences. I say this, not in +boastfulness, but in sorrow. Indeed, I only mention it to establish the +fact that when I talk of lecturers and speakers, I talk of what I know. + +Few people realise how arduous and how disagreeable public lecturing is. +The public sees the lecturer step out on to the platform in his little +white waistcoat and his long tailed coat and with a false air of a +conjurer about him, and they think him happy. After about ten minutes +of his talk they are tired of him. Most people tire of a lecture in ten +minutes; clever people can do it in five. Sensible people never go to +lectures at all. But the people who do go to a lecture and who get tired +of it, presently hold it as a sort of a grudge against the lecturer +personally. In reality his sufferings are worse than theirs. + +For my own part I always try to appear as happy as possible while I am +lecturing. I take this to be part of the trade of anybody labelled a +humourist and paid as such. I have no sympathy whatever with the idea +that a humourist ought to be a lugubrious person with a face stamped +with melancholy. This is a cheap and elementary effect belonging to the +level of a circus clown. The image of "laughter shaking both his sides" +is the truer picture of comedy. Therefore, I say, I always try to appear +cheerful at my lectures and even to laugh at my own jokes. Oddly enough +this arouses a kind of resentment in some of the audience. "Well, I +will say," said a stern-looking woman who spoke to me after one of my +lectures, "you certainly do seem to enjoy your own fun." "Madam," I +answered, "if I didn't, who would?" But in reality the whole business of +being a public lecturer is one long variation of boredom and fatigue. +So I propose to set down here some of the many trials which the lecturer +has to bear. + +The first of the troubles which any one who begins giving public +lectures meets at the very outset is the fact that the audience won't +come to hear him. This happens invariably and constantly, and not +through any fault or shortcoming of the speaker. + +I don't say that this happened very often to me in my tour in England. +In nearly all cases I had crowded audiences: by dividing up the money +that I received by the average number of people present to hear me I +have calculated that they paid thirteen cents each. And my lectures are +evidently worth thirteen cents. But at home in Canada I have very often +tried the fatal experiment of lecturing for nothing: and in that case +the audience simply won't come. A man will turn out at night when he +knows he is going to hear a first class thirteen cent lecture; but when +the thing is given for nothing, why go to it? + +The city in which I live is overrun with little societies, clubs and +associations, always wanting to be addressed. So at least it is in +appearance. In reality the societies are composed of presidents, +secretaries and officials, who want the conspicuousness of office, and a +large list of other members who won't come to the meetings. For such an +association, the invited speaker who is to lecture for nothing prepares +his lecture on "Indo-Germanic Factors in the Current of History." If he +is a professor, he takes all the winter at it. You may drop in at +his house at any time and his wife will tell you that he is "upstairs +working on his lecture." If he comes down at all it is in carpet +slippers and dressing gown. His mental vision of his meeting is that of +a huge gathering of keen people with Indo-Germanic faces, hanging upon +every word. + +Then comes the fated night. There are seventeen people present. The +lecturer refuses to count them. He refers to them afterwards as "about a +hundred." To this group he reads his paper on the Indo-Germanic Factor. +It takes him two hours. When he is over the chairman invites discussion. +There is no discussion. The audience is willing to let the Indo-Germanic +factors go unchallenged. Then the chairman makes this speech. He says: + +"I am very sorry indeed that we should have had such a very poor 'turn +out' to-night. I am sure that the members who were not here have missed +a real treat in the delightful paper that we have listened to. I want +to assure the lecturer that if he comes to the Owl's Club again we +can guarantee him next time a capacity audience. And will any members, +please, who haven't paid their dollar this winter, pay it either to me +or to Mr. Sibley as they pass out." + +I have heard this speech (in the years when I have had to listen to it) +so many times that I know it by heart. I have made the acquaintance of +the Owl's Club under so many names that I recognise it at once. I am +aware that its members refuse to turn out in cold weather; that they do +not turn out in wet weather; that when the weather is really fine, +it is impossible to get them together; that the slightest +counter-attraction,--a hockey match, a sacred concert,--goes to their +heads at once. + +There was a time when I was the newly appointed occupant of a college +chair and had to address the Owl's Club. It is a penalty that all new +professors pay; and the Owls batten upon them like bats. It is one of +the compensations of age that I am free of the Owl's Club forever. But +in the days when I still had to address them, I used to take it out of +the Owls in a speech, delivered, in imagination only and not out loud, +to the assembled meeting of the seventeen Owls, after the chairman had +made his concluding remarks. It ran as follows: + +"Gentlemen--if you are such, which I doubt. I realise that the paper +which I have read on 'Was Hegel a deist?' has been an error. I spent +all the winter on it and now I realise that not one of you pups know who +Hegel was or what a deist is. Never mind. It is over now, and I am glad. +But just let me say this, only this, which won't keep you a minute. Your +chairman has been good enough to say that if I come again you will get +together a capacity audience to hear me. Let me tell you that if your +society waits for its next meeting till I come to address you again, you +will wait indeed. In fact, gentlemen--I say it very frankly--it will be +in another world." + +But I pass over the audience. Suppose there is a real audience, and +suppose them all duly gathered together. Then it becomes the business of +that gloomy gentleman--facetiously referred to in the newspaper reports +as the "genial chairman"--to put the lecturer to the bad. In nine cases +out of ten he can do so. Some chairmen, indeed, develop a great gift for +it. Here are one or two examples from my own experience: + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said the chairman of a society in a little +country town in Western Ontario, to which I had come as a paid (a very +humbly paid) lecturer, "we have with us tonight a gentleman" (here he +made an attempt to read my name on a card, failed to read it and put the +card back in his pocket)--"a gentleman who is to lecture to us on" (here +he looked at his card again)--"on Ancient Ancient,--I don't very well +see what it is--Ancient--Britain? Thank you, on Ancient Britain. Now, +this is the first of our series of lectures for this winter. The last +series, as you all know, was not a success. In fact, we came out at the +end of the year with a deficit. So this year we are starting a new line +and trying the experiment of cheaper talent." + +Here the chairman gracefully waved his hand toward me and there was a +certain amount of applause. "Before I sit down," the chairman added, +"I'd like to say that I am sorry to see such a poor turn-out to-night +and to ask any of the members who haven't paid their dollar to pay it +either to me or to Mr. Sibley as they pass out." + +Let anybody who knows the discomfiture of coming out before an audience +on any terms, judge how it feels to crawl out in front of them labelled +cheaper talent. + +Another charming way in which the chairman endeavours to put both the +speaker for the evening and the audience into an entirely good humour, +is by reading out letters of regret from persons unable to be present. +This, of course, is only for grand occasions when the speaker has been +invited to come under very special auspices. It was my fate, not long +ago, to "appear" (this is the correct word to use in this connection) in +this capacity when I was going about Canada trying to raise some money +for the relief of the Belgians. I travelled in great glory with a pass +on the Canadian Pacific Railway (not since extended: officials of the +road kindly note this) and was most generously entertained wherever I +went. + +It was, therefore, the business of the chairman at such meetings as +these to try and put a special distinction or cachet on the gathering. +This is how it was done: + +"Ladies and gentlemen," said the chairman, rising from his seat on the +platform with a little bundle of papers in his hand, "before I introduce +the speaker of the evening, I have one or two items that I want to read +to you." Here he rustles his papers and there is a deep hush in the hall +while he selects one. "We had hoped to have with us to-night Sir Robert +Borden, the Prime Minister of this Dominion. I have just received a +telegram from Sir Robert in which he says that he will not be able to be +here" (great applause). The chairman puts up his hand for silence, picks +up another telegram and continues, "Our committee, ladies and gentlemen, +telegraphed an invitation to Sir Wilfrid Laurier very cordially inviting +him to be here to-night. I have here Sir Wilfrid's answer in which he +says that he will not be able to be with us" (renewed applause). The +chairman again puts up his hand for silence and goes on, picking up one +paper after another. "The Minister of Finance regrets that he will be +unable to come" (applause). "Mr. Rodolphe Lemieux (applause) will not +be here (great applause)--the Mayor of Toronto (applause) is detained +on business (wild applause)--the Anglican Bishop of the Diocese +(applause)--the Principal of the University College, Toronto (great +applause)--the Minister of Education (applause)--none of these are +coming." There is a great clapping of hands and enthusiasm, after which +the meeting is called to order with a very distinct and palpable feeling +that it is one of the most distinguished audiences ever gathered in the +hall. + +Here is another experience of the same period while I was pursuing the +same exalted purpose: I arrived in a little town in Eastern Ontario, +and found to my horror that I was billed to "appear" in a church. I was +supposed to give readings from my works, and my books are supposed to be +of a humorous character. A church hardly seemed the right place to get +funny in. I explained my difficulty to the pastor of the church, a +very solemn looking man. He nodded his head, slowly and gravely, as he +grasped my difficulty. "I see," he said, "I see, but I think that I can +introduce you to our people in such a way as to make that right." + +When the time came, he led me up on to the pulpit platform of the +church, just beside and below the pulpit itself, with a reading desk and +a big bible and a shaded light beside it. It was a big church, and the +audience, sitting in half darkness, as is customary during a sermon, +reached away back into the gloom. The place was packed full and +absolutely quiet. Then the chairman spoke: + +"Dear friends," he said, "I want you to understand that it will be all +right to laugh tonight. Let me hear you laugh heartily, laugh right out, +just as much as ever you want to, because" (and here his voice assumed +the deep sepulchral tones of the preacher),-"when we think of the noble +object for which the professor appears to-night, we may be assured that +the Lord will forgive any one who will laugh at the professor." + +I am sorry to say, however, that none of the audience, even with the +plenary absolution in advance, were inclined to take a chance on it. + +I recall in this same connection the chairman of a meeting at a certain +town in Vermont. He represents the type of chairman who turns up so +late at the meeting that the committee have no time to explain to him +properly what the meeting is about or who the speaker is. I noticed +on this occasion that he introduced me very guardedly by name (from a +little card) and said nothing about the Belgians, and nothing about my +being (supposed to be) a humourist. This last was a great error. The +audience, for want of guidance, remained very silent and decorous, and +well behaved during my talk. Then, somehow, at the end, while some one +was moving a vote of thanks, the chairman discovered his error. So he +tried to make it good. Just as the audience were getting up to put on +their wraps, he rose, knocked on his desk and said: + +"Just a minute, please, ladies and gentlemen, just a minute. I have just +found out--I should have known it sooner, but I was late in coming to +this meeting--that the speaker who has just addressed you has done so in +behalf of the Belgian Relief Fund. I understand that he is a well-known +Canadian humourist (ha! ha!) and I am sure that we have all been +immensely amused (ha! ha!). He is giving his delightful talks (ha! +ha!)--though I didn't know this till just this minute--for the Belgian +Relief Fund, and he is giving his services for nothing. I am sure when +we realise this, we shall all feel that it has been well worth while to +come. I am only sorry that we didn't have a better turn out to-night. +But I can assure the speaker that if he will come again, we shall +guarantee him a capacity audience. And I may say, that if there are any +members of this association who have not paid their dollar this season, +they can give it either to myself or to Mr. Sibley as they pass out." + +With the amount of accumulated experience that I had behind me I was +naturally interested during my lecture in England in the chairmen who +were to introduce me. I cannot help but feel that I have acquired a fine +taste in chair men. I know them just as other experts know old furniture +and Pekinese dogs. The witty chairman, the prosy chairman, the solemn +chairman,--I know them all. As soon as I shake hands with the chairman +in the Committee room I can tell exactly how he will act. + +There are certain types of chairmen who have so often been described and +are so familiar that it is not worth while to linger on them. Everybody +knows the chairman who says; "Now, ladies and gentlemen, you have not +come here to listen to me. So I will be very brief; in fact, I will +confine my remarks to just one or two very short observations." He then +proceeds to make observations for twenty-five minutes. At the end of +it he remarks with charming simplicity, "Now I know that you are all +impatient to hear the lecturer...." + +And everybody knows the chairman who comes to the meeting with a very +imperfect knowledge of who or what the lecturer is, and is driven to +introduce him by saying: + +"Our lecturer of the evening is widely recognised as one of the greatest +authorities on; on,--on his subject in the world to-day. He comes to +us from; from a great distance and I can assure him that it is a +great pleasure to this audience to welcome a man who has done so much +to,--to,--to advance the interests of,--of; of everything as he has." + +But this man, bad as he is, is not so bad as the chairman whose +preparation for introducing the speaker has obviously been made at the +eleventh hour. Just such a chairman it was my fate to strike in the +form of a local alderman, built like an ox, in one of those small +manufacturing places in the north of England where they grow men of this +type and elect them into office. + +"I never saw the lecturer before," he said, "but I've read his book." (I +have written nineteen books.) "The committee was good enough to send me +over his book last night. I didn't read it all but I took a look at the +preface and I can assure him that he is very welcome. I understand he +comes from a college...." Then he turned directly towards me and said in +a loud voice, "What was the name of that college over there you said you +came from?" + +"McGill," I answered equally loudly. + +"He comes from McGill," the chairman boomed out. "I never heard of +McGill myself but I can assure him he's welcome. He's going to lecture +to us on,--what did you say it was to be about?" + +"It's a humorous lecture," I said. + +"Ay, it's to be a humorous lecture, ladies and gentlemen, and I'll +venture to say it will be a rare treat. I'm only sorry I can't stay for +it myself as I have to get back over to the Town Hall for a meeting. So +without more ado I'll get off the platform and let the lecturer go on +with his humour." + +A still more terrible type of chairman is one whose mind is evidently +preoccupied and disturbed with some local happening and who comes on to +the platform with a face imprinted with distress. Before introducing the +lecturer he refers in moving tones to the local sorrow, whatever it is. +As a prelude to a humorous lecture this is not gay. + +Such a chairman fell to my lot one night before a gloomy audience in +a London suburb. "As I look about this hall to-night," he began in a +doleful whine, "I see many empty seats." Here he stifled a sob. "Nor am +I surprised that a great many of our people should prefer to-night to +stay quietly at home--" + +I had no clue to what he meant. I merely gathered that some particular +sorrow must have overwhelmed the town that day. + +"To many it may seem hardly fitting that after the loss our town has +sustained we should come out here to listen to a humorous lecture,--", +"What's the trouble?" I whispered to a citizen sitting beside me on the +platform. + +"Our oldest resident"--he whispered back--"he died this morning." + +"How old?" + +"Ninety-four," he whispered. + +Meantime the chairman, with deep sobs in his voice, continued: + +"We debated in our committee whether or not we should have the lecture. +Had it been a lecture of another character our position would have been +less difficult,--", By this time I began to feel like a criminal. "The +case would have been different had the lecture been one that contained +information, or that was inspired by some serious purpose, or that could +have been of any benefit. But this is not so. We understand that this +lecture which Mr. Leacock has already given, I believe, twenty or thirty +times in England,--" + +Here he turned to me with a look of mild reproval while the silent +audience, deeply moved, all looked at me as at a man who went around +the country insulting the memory of the dead by giving a lecture thirty +times. + +"We understand, though this we shall have an opportunity of testing for +ourselves presently, that Mr. Leacock's lecture is not of a character +which,--has not, so to speak, the kind of value, in short, is not a +lecture of that class." + +Here he paused and choked back a sob. + +"Had our poor friend been spared to us for another six years he would +have rounded out the century. But it was not to be. For two or three +years past he has noted that somehow his strength was failing, that, for +some reason or other, he was no longer what he had been. Last month +he began to droop. Last week he began to sink. Speech left him last +Tuesday. This morning he passed, and he has gone now, we trust, in +safety to where there are no lectures." + +The audience were now nearly in tears. + +The chairman made a visible effort towards firmness and control. + +"But yet," he continued, "our committee felt that in another sense +it was our duty to go on with our arrangements. I think, ladies and +gentlemen, that the war has taught us all that it is always our duty to +'carry on,' no matter how hard it may be, no matter with what reluctance +we do it, and whatever be the difficulties and the dangers, we must +carry on to the end: for after all there is an end and by resolution and +patience we can reach it. + +"I will, therefore, invite Mr. Leacock to deliver to us his humorous +lecture, the title of which I have forgotten, but I understand it to +be the same lecture which he has already given thirty or forty times in +England." + +But contrast with this melancholy man the genial and pleasing person who +introduced me, all upside down, to a metropolitan audience. + +He was so brisk, so neat, so sure of himself that it didn't seem +possible that he could make any kind of a mistake. I thought it +unnecessary to coach him. He seemed absolutely all right. + +"It is a great pleasure,"--he said, with a charming, easy appearance of +being entirely at home on the platform,--"to welcome here tonight our +distinguished Canadian fellow citizen, Mr. Learoyd"--he turned half +way towards me as he spoke with a sort of gesture of welcome, admirably +executed. If only my name had been Learoyd instead of Leacock it would +have been excellent. + +"There are many of us," he continued, "who have awaited Mr. Learoyd's +coming with the most pleasant anticipations. We seemed from his books to +know him already as an old friend. In fact I think I do not exaggerate +when I tell Mr. Learoyd that his name in our city has long been a +household word. I have very, very great pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, +in introducing to you Mr. Learoyd." + +As far as I know that chairman never knew his error. At the close of my +lecture he said that he was sure that the audience "were deeply indebted +to Mr. Learoyd," and then with a few words of rapid, genial apology +buzzed off, like a humming bird, to other avocations. But I have amply +forgiven him: anything for kindness and geniality; it makes the whole +of life smooth. If that chairman ever comes to my home town he is hereby +invited to lunch or dine with me, as Mr. Learoyd or under any name that +he selects. + +Such a man is, after all, in sharp contrast to the kind of chairman who +has no native sense of the geniality that ought to accompany his office. +There is, for example, a type of man who thinks that the fitting way +to introduce a lecturer is to say a few words about the finances of the +society to which he is to lecture (for money) and about the difficulty +of getting members to turn out to hear lectures. + +Everybody has heard such a speech a dozen times. But it is the paid +lecturer sitting on the platform who best appreciates it. It runs like +this: + +"Now, ladies and gentlemen, before I invite the lecturer of the evening +to address us there are a few words that I would like to say. There are +a good many members who are in arrears with their fees. I am aware that +these are hard times and it is difficult to collect money but at the +same time the members ought to remember that the expenses of the society +are very heavy. The fees that are asked by the lecturers, as I suppose +you know, have advanced very greatly in the last few years. In fact I +may say that they are becoming almost prohibitive." + +This discourse is pleasant hearing for the lecturer. He can see the +members who have not yet paid their annual dues eyeing him with hatred. +The chairman goes on: + +"Our finance committee were afraid at first that we could not afford to +bring Mr. Leacock to our society. But fortunately through the personal +generosity of two of our members who subscribed ten pounds each out of +their own pocket we are able to raise the required sum." + + (Applause: during which the lecturer sits looking and feeling + like the embodiment of the "required sum.") + +"Now, ladies and gentlemen," continues the chairman, "what I feel is +that when we have members in the society who are willing to make this +sacrifice,--because it is a sacrifice, ladies and gentlemen,--we ought +to support them in every way. The members ought to think it their duty +to turn out to the lectures. I know that it is not an easy thing to do. +On a cold night, like this evening, it is hard, I admit it is hard, to +turn out from the comfort of one's own fireside and come and listen to a +lecture. But I think that the members should look at it not as a matter +of personal comfort but as a matter of duty towards this society. We +have managed to keep this society alive for fifteen years and, though I +don't say it in any spirit of boasting, it has not been an easy thing +to do. It has required a good deal of pretty hard spade work by the +committee. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I suppose you didn't come here to +listen to me and perhaps I have said enough about our difficulties and +troubles. So without more ado (this is always a favourite phrase with +chairmen) I'll invite Mr. Leacock to address the society; oh, just a +word before I sit down. Will all those who are leaving before the end of +the lecture kindly go out through the side door and step as quietly as +possible? Mr. Leacock." + +Anybody who is in the lecture business knows that that introduction is +far worse than being called Mr. Learoyd. + + +When any lecturer goes across to England from this side of the water +there is naturally a tendency on the part of the chairman to play +upon this fact. This is especially true in the case of a Canadian like +myself. The chairman feels that the moment is fitting for one of those +great imperial thoughts that bind the British Empire together. But +sometimes the expression of the thought falls short of the full glory of +the conception. + +Witness this (word for word) introduction that was used against me by a +clerical chairman in a quiet spot in the south of England: + +"Not so long ago, ladies and gentlemen," said the vicar, "we used to +send out to Canada various classes of our community to help build up +that country. We sent out our labourers, we sent out our scholars and +professors. Indeed we even sent out our criminals. And now," with a wave +of his hand towards me, "they are coming back." + +There was no laughter. An English audience is nothing if not literal; +and they are as polite as they are literal. They understood that I was a +reformed criminal and as such they gave me a hearty burst of applause. + +But there is just one thing that I would like to chronicle here in +favour of the chairman and in gratitude for his assistance. Even at his +worst he is far better than having no chairman at all. Over in England a +great many societies and public bodies have adopted the plan of "cutting +out the chairman." Wearying of his faults, they have forgotten the +reasons for his existence and undertaken to do without him. + +The result is ghastly. The lecturer steps up on to the platform alone +and unaccompanied. There is a feeble ripple of applause; he makes his +miserable bow and explains with as much enthusiasm as he can who he is. +The atmosphere of the thing is so cold that an 'Arctic expedition isn't +in it with it. I found also the further difficulty that in the absence +of the chairman very often the audience, or a large part of it, doesn't +know who the lecturer is. On many occasions I received on appearing a +wild burst of applause under the impression that I was somebody else. +I have been mistaken in this way for Mr. Briand, then Prime Minister of +France, for Charlie Chaplin, for Mrs. Asquith,--but stop, I may get into +a libel suit. All I mean is that without a chairman "we celebrities" get +terribly mixed up together. + +To one experience of my tour as a lecturer I shall always be able to +look back with satisfaction. I nearly had the pleasure of killing a man +with laughing: and this in the most literal sense. American lecturers +have often dreamed of doing this. I nearly did it. The man in question +was a comfortable apoplectic-looking man with the kind of merry rubicund +face that is seen in countries where they don't have prohibition. He was +seated near the back of the hall and was laughing uproariously. All of +a sudden I realised that something was happening. The man had collapsed +sideways on to the floor; a little group of men gathered about him; they +lifted him up and I could see them carrying him out, a silent and inert +mass. As in duty bound I went right on with my lecture. But my heart +beat high with satisfaction. I was sure that I had killed him. The +reader may judge how high these hopes rose when a moment or two later a +note was handed to the chairman who then asked me to pause for a +moment in my lecture and stood up and asked, "Is there a doctor in the +audience?" A doctor rose and silently went out. The lecture continued; +but there was no more laughter; my aim had now become to kill another +of them and they knew it. They were aware that if they started laughing +they might die. In a few minutes a second note was handed to the +chairman. He announced very gravely, "A second doctor is wanted." The +lecture went on in deeper silence than ever. All the audience were +waiting for a third announcement. It came. A new message was handed to +the chairman. He rose and said, "If Mr. Murchison, the undertaker, is in +the audience, will he kindly step outside." + +That man, I regret to say, got well. + +Disappointing though it is to read it, he recovered. I sent back next +morning from London a telegram of enquiry (I did it in reality so as +to have a proper proof of his death) and received the answer, "Patient +doing well; is sitting up in bed and reading Lord Haldane's Relativity; +no danger of relapse." + + + + +X. Have the English any Sense of Humour? + +It was understood that the main object of my trip to England was to find +out whether the British people have any sense of humour. No doubt the +Geographical Society had this investigation in mind in not paying +my expenses. Certainly on my return I was at once assailed with the +question on all sides, "Have they got a sense of humour? Even if it is +only a rudimentary sense, have they got it or have they not?" I propose +therefore to address myself to the answer to this question. + +A peculiar interest always attaches to humour. There is no quality of +the human mind about which its possessor is more sensitive than the +sense of humour. A man will freely confess that he has no ear for music, +or no taste for fiction, or even no interest in religion. But I have yet +to see the man who announces that he has no sense of humour. In point of +fact, every man is apt to think himself possessed of an exceptional gift +in this direction, and that even if his humour does not express itself +in the power either to make a joke or to laugh at one, it none the less +consists in a peculiar insight or inner light superior to that of other +people. + +The same thing is true of nations. Each thinks its own humour of +an entirely superior kind, and either refuses to admit, or admits +reluctantly, the humorous quality of other peoples. The Englishman may +credit the Frenchman with a certain light effervescence of mind which he +neither emulates nor envies; the Frenchman may acknowledge that English +literature shows here and there a sort of heavy playfulness; but neither +of them would consider that the humour of the other nation could stand a +moment's comparison with his own. + +Yet, oddly enough, American humour stands as a conspicuous exception to +this general rule. A certain vogue clings to it. Ever since the spacious +days of Artemus Ward and Mark Twain it has enjoyed an extraordinary +reputation, and this not only on our own continent, but in England. It +was in a sense the English who "discovered" Mark Twain; I mean it +was they who first clearly recognised him as a man of letters of the +foremost rank, at a time when academic Boston still tried to explain him +away as a mere comic man of the West. In the same way Artemus Ward is +still held in affectionate remembrance in London, and, of the later +generation, Mr. Dooley at least is a household word. + +This is so much the case that a sort of legend has grown around American +humour. It is presumed to be a superior article and to enjoy the same +kind of pre-eminence as French cooking, the Russian ballet, and Italian +organ grinding. With this goes the converse supposition that the British +people are inferior in humour, that a joke reaches them only with great +difficulty, and that a British audience listens to humour in gloomy and +unintelligent silence. People still love to repeat the famous story of +how John Bright listened attentively to Artemus Ward's lecture in +London and then said, gravely, that he "doubted many of the young man's +statements"; and readers still remember Mark Twain's famous parody of +the discussion of his book by a wooden-headed reviewer of an English +review. + +But the legend in reality is only a legend. If the English are inferior +to Americans in humour, I, for one, am at a loss to see where it comes +in. If there is anything on our continent superior in humour to Punch I +should like to see it. If we have any more humorous writers in our midst +than E. V. Lucas and Charles Graves and Owen Seaman I should like to +read what they write; and if there is any audience capable of more +laughter and more generous appreciation than an audience in London, or +Bristol, or Aberdeen, I should like to lecture to it. + +During my voyage of discovery in Great Britain I had very exceptional +opportunities for testing the truth of these comparisons. It was my +good fortune to appear as an avowed humourist in all the great British +cities. I lectured as far north as Aberdeen and as far south as Brighton +and Bournemouth; I travelled eastward to Ipswich and westward into +Wales. I spoke on serious subjects, but with a joke or two in loco, +at the universities, at business gatherings, and at London dinners; I +watched, lost in admiration, the inspired merriment of the Savages +of Adelphi Terrace, and in my moments of leisure I observed, with a +scientific eye, the gaieties of the London revues. As a result of which +I say with conviction that, speaking by and large, the two communities +are on the same level. A Harvard audience, as I have reason gratefully +to acknowledge, is wonderful. But an Oxford audience is just as good. A +gathering of business men in a textile town in the Midlands is just +as heavy as a gathering of business men in Decatur, Indiana, but no +heavier; and an audience of English schoolboys as at Rugby or at Clifton +is capable of a wild and sustained merriment not to be outdone from +Halifax to Los Angeles. + +There is, however, one vital difference between American and English +audiences which would be apt to discourage at the outset any American +lecturer who might go to England. The English audiences, from the nature +of the way in which they have been brought together, expect more. In +England they still associate lectures with information. We don't. Our +American lecture audiences are, in nine cases out of ten, organised by +a woman's club of some kind and drawn not from the working class, but +from--what shall we call it?--the class that doesn't have to work, +or, at any rate, not too hard. It is largely a social audience, well +educated without being "highbrow," and tolerant and kindly to a degree. +In fact, what the people mainly want is to see the lecturer. They have +heard all about G. K. Chesterton and Hugh Walpole and John Drinkwater, +and so when these gentlemen come to town the woman's club want to have +a look at them, just as the English people, who are all crazy about +animals, flock to the zoo to look at a new giraffe. They don't expect +the giraffe to do anything in particular. They want to see it, that's +all. So with the American woman's club audience. After they have +seen Mr. Chesterton they ask one another as they come out--just as an +incidental matter--"Did you understand his lecture?" and the answer is, +"I can't say I did." But there is no malice about it. They can now go +and say that they have seen Mr. Chesterton; that's worth two dollars in +itself. The nearest thing to this attitude of mind that I heard of in +England was at the City Temple in London, where they have every week a +huge gathering of about two thousand people, to listen to a (so-called) +popular lecture. When I was there I was told that the person who had +preceded me was Lord Haldane, who had lectured on Einstein's Theory +of Relativity. I said to the chairman, "Surely this kind of audience +couldn't understand a lecture like that!" He shook his head. "No," he +said, "they didn't understand it, but they all enjoyed it." + +I don't mean to imply by what I said above that American lecture +audiences do not appreciate good things or that the English lecturers +who come to this continent are all giraffes. On the contrary: when the +audience finds that Chesterton and Walpole and Drinkwater, in addition +to being visible, are also singularly interesting lecturers, they are +all the better pleased. But this doesn't alter the fact that they have +come primarily to see the lecturer. + +Not so in England. Here a lecture (outside London) is organised on a +much sterner footing. The people are there for information. The lecture +is organised not by idle, amiable, charming women, but by a body called, +with variations, the Philosophical Society. From experience I should +define an English Philosophical Society as all the people in town +who don't know anything about philosophy. The academic and university +classes are never there. The audience is only of plainer folk. In the +United States and Canada at any evening lecture a large sprinkling of +the audience are in evening dress. At an English lecture (outside of +London) none of them are; philosophy is not to be wooed in such a garb. +Nor are there the same commodious premises, the same bright lights, and +the same atmosphere of gaiety as at a society lecture in America. On +the contrary, the setting is a gloomy one. In England, in winter, night +begins at four in the afternoon. In the manufacturing towns of the +Midlands and the north (which is where the philosophical societies +flourish) there is always a drizzling rain and wet slop underfoot, +a bedraggled poverty in the streets, and a dimness of lights that +contrasts with the glare of light in an American town. There is no +visible sign in the town that a lecture is to happen, no placards, no +advertisements, nothing. The lecturer is conducted by a chairman through +a side door in a dingy building (The Institute, established 1840), and +then all of a sudden in a huge, dim hall--there sits the Philosophical +Society. There are a thousand of them, but they sit as quiet as a prayer +meeting. They are waiting to be fed--on information. + +Now I don't mean to say that the Philosophical Society are not a good +audience. In their own way they're all right. Once the Philosophical +Society has decided that a lecture is humorous they do not stint +their laughter. I have had many times the satisfaction of seeing a +Philosophical Society swept away from its moorings and tossing in a sea +of laughter, as generous and as whole-hearted as anything we ever see in +America. + +But they are not so willing to begin. With us the chairman has only to +say to the gaily dressed members of the Ladies' Fortnightly Club, "Well, +ladies, I'm sure we are all looking forward very much to Mr. Walpole's +lecture," and at once there is a ripple of applause, and a responsive +expression on a hundred charming faces. + +Not so the Philosophical Society of the Midlands. The chairman rises. +He doesn't call for silence. It is there, thick. "We have with us +to-night," he says, "a man whose name is well known to the Philosophical +Society" (here he looks at his card), "Mr. Stephen Leacock." (Complete +silence.) "He is a professor of political economy at--" Here he turns to +me and says, "Which college did you say?" I answer quite audibly in +the silence, "At McGill." "He is at McGill," says the chairman. (More +silence.) "I don't suppose, however, ladies and gentlemen, that he's +come here to talk about political economy." This is meant as a jest, but +the audience takes it as a threat. "However, ladies and gentlemen, you +haven't come here to listen to me" (this evokes applause, the first of +the evening), "so without more ado" (the man always has the impression +that there's been a lot of "ado," but I never see any of it) "I'll now +introduce Mr. Leacock." (Complete silence.) + +Nothing of which means the least harm. It only implies that the +Philosophical Society are true philosophers in accepting nothing +unproved. They are like the man from Missouri. They want to be shown. +And undoubtedly it takes a little time, therefore, to rouse them. I +remember listening with great interest to Sir Michael Sadler, who is +possessed of a very neat wit, introducing me at Leeds. He threw three +jokes, one after the other, into the heart of a huge, silent audience +without effect. He might as well have thrown soap bubbles. But the +fourth joke broke fair and square like a bomb in the middle of the +Philosophical Society and exploded them into convulsions. The process is +very like what artillery men tell of "bracketing" the object fired at, +and then landing fairly on it. + +In what I have just written about audiences I have purposely been using +the word English and not British, for it does not in the least apply to +the Scotch. There is, for a humorous lecturer, no better audience in +the world than a Scotch audience. The old standing joke about the Scotch +sense of humour is mere nonsense. Yet one finds it everywhere. + +"So you're going to try to take humour up to Scotland," the most eminent +author in England said to me. "Well, the Lord help you. You'd better +take an axe with you to open their skulls; there is no other way." How +this legend started I don't know, but I think it is because the English +are jealous of the Scotch. They got into the Union with them in 1707 +and they can't get out. The Scotch don't want Home Rule, or Swa Raj, or +Dominion status, or anything; they just want the English. When they want +money they go to London and make it; if they want literary fame they +sell their books to the English; and to prevent any kind of political +trouble they take care to keep the Cabinet well filled with Scotchmen. +The English for shame's sake can't get out of the Union, so they +retaliate by saying that the Scotch have no sense of humour. But there's +nothing in it. One has only to ask any of the theatrical people and they +will tell you that the audiences in Glasgow and Edinburgh are the best +in the British Isles--possess the best taste and the best ability to +recognise what is really good. + +The reason for this lies, I think, in the well-known fact that the +Scotch are a truly educated people, not educated in the mere sense of +having been made to go to school, but in the higher sense of having +acquired an interest in books and a respect for learning. In England +the higher classes alone possess this, the working class as a whole know +nothing of it. But in Scotland the attitude is universal. And the more +I reflect upon the subject, the more I believe that what counts most +in the appreciation of humour is not nationality, but the degree of +education enjoyed by the individual concerned. I do not think that there +is any doubt that educated people possess a far wider range of humour +than the uneducated class. Some people, of course, get overeducated +and become hopelessly academic. The word "highbrow" has been invented +exactly to fit the case. The sense of humour in the highbrow has become +atrophied, or, to vary the metaphor, it is submerged or buried under the +accumulated strata of his education, on the top soil of which flourishes +a fine growth of conceit. But even in the highbrow the educated +appreciation of humour is there--away down. Generally, if one attempts +to amuse a highbrow he will resent it as if the process were beneath +him; or perhaps the intellectual jealousy and touchiness with which he +is always overcharged will lead him to retaliate with a pointless +story from Plato. But if the highbrow is right off his guard and has no +jealousy in his mind, you may find him roaring with laughter and wiping +his spectacles, with his sides shaking, and see him converted as by +magic into the merry, clever little school-boy that he was thirty years +ago, before his education ossified him. + +But with the illiterate and the rustic no such process is possible. His +sense of humour may be there as a sense, but the mechanism for setting +it in operation is limited and rudimentary. Only the broadest and most +elementary forms of joke can reach him. The magnificent mechanism of the +art of words is, quite literally, a sealed book to him. Here and there, +indeed, a form of fun is found so elementary in its nature and yet so +excellent in execution that it appeals to all alike, to the illiterate +and to the highbrow, to the peasant and the professor. Such, for +example, are the antics of Mr. Charles Chaplin or the depiction of Mr. +Jiggs by the pencil of George McManus. But such cases are rare. As a +rule the cheap fun that excites the rustic to laughter is execrable to +the man of education. + +In the light of what I have said before it follows that the individuals +that are findable in every English or American audience are much the +same. All those who lecture or act are well aware that there are certain +types of people that are always to be seen somewhere in the hall. Some +of these belong to the general class of discouraging people. They listen +in stolid silence. No light of intelligence ever gleams on their faces; +no response comes from their eyes. + +I find, for example, that wherever I go there is always seated in the +audience, about three seats from the front, a silent man with a big +motionless face like a melon. He is always there. I have seen that +man in every town or city from Richmond, Indiana, to Bournemouth in +Hampshire. He haunts me. I get to expect him. I feel like nodding to +him from the platform. And I find that all other lecturers have the same +experience. Wherever they go the man with the big face is always there. +He never laughs; no matter if the people all round him are +convulsed with laughter, he sits there like a rock--or, no, like a +toad--immovable. What he thinks I don't know. Why he comes to lectures I +cannot guess. Once, and once only, I spoke to him, or, rather, he spoke +to me. I was coming out from the lecture and found myself close to him +in the corridor. It had been a rather gloomy evening; the audience had +hardly laughed at all; and I know nothing sadder than a humorous lecture +without laughter. The man with the big face, finding himself beside me, +turned and said, "Some of them people weren't getting that to-night." +His tone of sympathy seemed to imply that he had got it all himself; +if so, he must have swallowed it whole without a sign. But I have since +thought that this man with the big face may have his own internal form +of appreciation. This much, however, I know: to look at him from the +platform is fatal. One sustained look into his big, motionless face and +the lecturer would be lost; inspiration would die upon one's lips--the +basilisk isn't in it with him. + +Personally, I no sooner see the man with the big face than instinctively +I turn my eyes away. I look round the hall for another man that I know +is always there, the opposite type, the little man with the spectacles. +There he sits, good soul, about twelve rows back, his large spectacles +beaming with appreciation and his quick face anticipating every point. +I imagine him to be by trade a minor journalist or himself a writer of +sorts, but with not enough of success to have spoiled him. + +There are other people always there, too. There is the old lady who +thinks the lecture improper; it doesn't matter how moral it is, she's +out for impropriety and she can find it anywhere. Then there is another +very terrible man against whom all American lecturers in England should +be warned--the man who is leaving on the 9 P.M. train. English railways +running into suburbs and near-by towns have a schedule which is +expressly arranged to have the principal train leave before the lecture +ends. Hence the 9-P.M.-train man. He sits right near the front, and +at ten minutes to nine he gathers up his hat, coat, and umbrella very +deliberately, rises with great calm, and walks firmly away. His air is +that of a man who has stood all that he can and can bear no more. Till +one knows about this man, and the others who rise after him, it is very +disconcerting; at first I thought I must have said something to reflect +upon the royal family. But presently the lecturer gets to understand +that it is only the nine-o'clock train and that all the audience know +about it. Then it's all right. It's just like the people rising and +stretching themselves after the seventh innings in baseball. + +In all that goes above I have been emphasising the fact that the British +and the American sense of humour are essentially the same thing. +But there are, of course, peculiar differences of form and peculiar +preferences of material that often make them seem to diverge widely. + +By this I mean that each community has, within limits, its own +particular ways of being funny and its own particular conception of a +joke. Thus, a Scotchman likes best a joke which he has all to himself +or which he shares reluctantly with a few; the thing is too rich to +distribute. The American loves particularly as his line of joke an +anecdote with the point all concentrated at the end and exploding in a +phrase. The Englishman loves best as his joke the narration of something +that actually did happen and that depends, of course; for its point on +its reality. + +There are plenty of minor differences, too, in point of mere form, and +very naturally each community finds the particular form used by the +others less pleasing than its own. In fact, for this very reason each +people is apt to think its own humour the best. + +Thus, on our side of the Atlantic, to cite our own faults first, we +still cling to the supposed humour of bad spelling. We have, indeed, +told ourselves a thousand times over that bad spelling is not funny, but +is very tiresome. Yet it is no sooner laid aside and buried than it gets +resurrected. I suppose the real reason is that it is funny, at least +to our eyes. When Bill Nye spells wife with "yph" we can't help being +amused. Now Bill Nye's bad spelling had absolutely no point to it except +its oddity. At times it was extremely funny, but as a mode it led easily +to widespread and pointless imitation. It was the kind of thing--like +poetry--that anybody can do badly. It was most deservedly abandoned with +execration. No American editor would print it to-day. But witness the +new and excellent effect produced with bad spelling by Mr. Ring W. +Lardner. Here, however, the case is altered; it is not the falseness of +Mr. Lardner's spelling that is the amusing feature of it, but the truth +of it. When he writes, "dear friend, Al, I would of rote sooner," etc., +he is truer to actual sound and intonation than the lexicon. The mode +is excellent. But the imitations will soon debase it into such bad coin +that it will fail to pass current. In England, however, the humour of +bad spelling does not and has never, I believe, flourished. Bad spelling +is only used in England as an attempt to reproduce phonetically a +dialect; it is not intended that the spelling itself should be thought +funny, but the dialect that it represents. But the effect, on the whole, +is tiresome. A little dose of the humour of Lancashire or Somerset or +Yorkshire pronunciation may be all right, but a whole page of it looks +like the gibbering of chimpanzees set down on paper. + +In America also we run perpetually to the (supposed) humour of slang, a +form not used in England. If we were to analyse what we mean by slang I +think it would be found to consist of the introduction of new metaphors +or new forms of language of a metaphorical character, strained almost +to the breaking point. Sometimes we do it with a single word. When some +genius discovers that a "hat" is really only "a lid" placed on top of +a human being, straightway the word "lid" goes rippling over the +continent. Similarly a woman becomes a "skirt," and so on ad infinitum. + +These words presently either disappear or else retain a permanent place, +being slang no longer. No doubt half our words, if not all of them, +were once slang. Even within our own memory we can see the whole +process carried through; "cinch" once sounded funny; it is now standard +American-English. But other slang is made up of descriptive phrases. At +the best, these slang phrases are--at least we think they are--extremely +funny. But they are funniest when newly coined, and it takes a master +hand to coin them well. For a supreme example of wild vagaries of +language used for humour, one might take O. Henry's "Gentle Grafter." +But here the imitation is as easy as it is tiresome. The invention of +pointless slang phrases without real suggestion or merit is one of our +most familiar forms of factory-made humour. Now the English people are +apt to turn away from the whole field of slang. In the first place it +puzzles them--they don't know whether each particular word or phrase +is a sort of idiom already known to Americans, or something (as with O. +Henry) never said before and to be analysed for its own sake. The result +is that with the English public the great mass of American slang writing +(genius apart) doesn't go. I have even found English people of undoubted +literary taste repelled from such a master as O. Henry (now read by +millions in England) because at first sight they get the impression that +it is "all American slang." + +Another point in which American humour, or at least the form which it +takes, differs notably from British, is in the matter of story telling. +It was a great surprise to me the first time I went out to a dinner +party in London to find that my host did not open the dinner by telling +a funny story; that the guests did not then sit silent trying to "think +of another"; that some one did not presently break silence by saying, "I +heard a good one the other day,"--and so forth. And I realised that in +this respect English society is luckier than ours. + +It is my candid opinion that no man ought to be allowed to tell a funny +story or anecdote without a license. We insist rightly enough that every +taxi-driver must have a license, and the same principle should apply +to anybody who proposes to act as a raconteur. Telling a story is a +difficult thing--quite as difficult as driving a taxi. And the risks +of failure and accident and the unfortunate consequences of such to the +public, if not exactly identical, are, at any rate, analogous. + +This is a point of view not generally appreciated. A man is apt to think +that just because he has heard a good story he is able and entitled to +repeat it. He might as well undertake to do a snake dance merely because +he has seen Madame Pavlowa do one. The point of a story is apt to lie +in the telling, or at least to depend upon it in a high degree. Certain +stories, it is true, depend so much on the final point, or "nub," as we +Americans call it, that they are almost fool-proof. But even these can +be made so prolix and tiresome, can be so messed up with irrelevant +detail, that the general effect is utter weariness relieved by a kind of +shock at the end. Let me illustrate what I mean by a story with a "nub" +or point. I will take one of the best known, so as to make no claim to +originality--for example, the famous anecdote of the man who wanted to +be "put off at Buffalo." Here it is: + +A man entered a sleeping-car and said to the porter, "At what time do +we get to Buffalo?" The porter answered, "At half-past three in the +morning, sir." "All right," the man said; "now I want to get off at +Buffalo, and I want you to see that I get off. I sleep heavily and I'm +hard to rouse. But you just make me wake up, don't mind what I say, +don't pay attention if I kick about it, just put me off, do you see?" +"All right, sir," said the porter. The man got into his berth and fell +fast asleep. He never woke or moved till it was broad daylight and +the train was a hundred miles beyond Buffalo. He called angrily to the +porter, "See here, you, didn't I tell you to put me off at Buffalo?" The +porter looked at him, aghast. "Well, I declare to goodness, boss!" he +exclaimed; "if it wasn't you, who was that man that I threw off this +train at half-past three at Buffalo?" + +Now this story is as nearly fool-proof as can be. And yet it is amazing +how badly it can be messed up by a person with a special gift for +mangling a story. He does it something after this fashion: + +"There was a fellow got on the train one night and he had a berth +reserved for Buffalo; at least the way I heard it, it was Buffalo, +though I guess, as a matter of fact, you might tell it on any other town +just as well--or no, I guess he didn't have his berth reserved, he got +on the train and asked the porter for a reservation for Buffalo--or, +anyway, that part doesn't matter--say that he had a berth for Buffalo or +any other place, and the porter came through and said, 'Do you want an +early call?'--or no, he went to the porter--that was it--and said--" + +But stop. The rest of the story becomes a mere painful waiting for the +end. + +Of course the higher type of funny story is the one that depends for its +amusing quality not on the final point, or not solely on it, but on the +wording and the narration all through. This is the way in which a story +is told by a comedian or a person who is a raconteur in the real sense. +When Sir Harry Lauder narrates an incident, the telling of it is funny +from beginning to end. When some lesser person tries to repeat it +afterwards, there is nothing left but the final point. The rest is +weariness. + +As a consequence most story-tellers are driven to telling stories that +depend on the point or "nub" and not on the narration. The storyteller +gathers these up till he is equipped with a sort of little repertory of +fun by which he hopes to surround himself with social charm. In America +especially (by which I mean here the United States and Canada, but not +Mexico) we suffer from the story-telling habit. As far as I am able to +judge, English society is not pervaded and damaged by the story-telling +habit as much as is society in the United States and Canada. On our +side of the Atlantic story-telling at dinners and on every other social +occasion has become a curse. In every phase of social and intellectual +life one is haunted by the funny anecdote. Any one who has ever attended +a Canadian or American banquet will recall the solemn way in which the +chairman rises and says: "Gentlemen, it is to me a very great pleasure +and a very great honour to preside at this annual dinner. There was an +old darky once--" and so forth. When he concludes he says, "I will now +call upon the Rev. Dr. Stooge, Head of the Provincial University, Haroe +English Any Sense of Humour? to propose the toast 'Our Dominion.'" Dr. +Stooge rises amid great applause and with great solemnity begins, "There +were once two Irishmen--" and so on to the end. But in London, England, +it is apparently not so. Not long ago I had the pleasure of meeting at +dinner a member of the Government. I fully anticipated that as a member +of the Government he would be expected to tell a funny story about an +old darky, just as he would on our side of the water. In fact, I should +have supposed that he could hardly get into the Government unless he +did tell a funny story of some sort. But all through dinner the Cabinet +Minister never said a word about either a Methodist minister, or a +commercial traveller, or an old darky, or two Irishmen, or any of the +stock characters of the American repertory. On another occasion I dined +with a bishop of the Church. I expected that when the soup came he would +say, "There was an old darky--" After which I should have had to listen +with rapt attention, and, when he had finished, without any pause, +rejoin, "There were a couple of Irishmen once--" and so on. But the +bishop never said a word of the sort. + +I can further, for the sake of my fellow-men in Canada and the United +States who may think of going to England, vouchsafe the following facts: +If you meet a director of the Bank of England, he does not say: "I am +very glad to meet you. Sit down. There was a mule in Arkansas once," +etc. How they do their banking without that mule I don't know. But they +manage it. I can certify also that if you meet the proprietor of a great +newspaper he will not begin by saying, "There was a Scotchman once." In +fact, in England, you can mingle freely in general society without being +called upon either to produce a funny story or to suffer from one. + +I don't mean to deny that the American funny story, in capable hands, is +amazingly funny and that it does brighten up human intercourse. But +the real trouble lies, not in the fun of the story, but in the painful +waiting for the point to come and in the strained and anxious silence +that succeeds it. Each person around the dinner table is trying to +"think of another." There is a dreadful pause. The hostess puts up a +prayer that some one may "think of another." Then at last, to the relief +of everybody, some one says: "I heard a story the other day--I don't +know whether you've heard it--" And the grateful cries of "No! no! go +ahead" show how great the tension has been. + +Nine times out of ten the people have heard the story before; and ten +times out of nine the teller damages it in the telling. But his hearers +are grateful to him for having saved them from the appalling mantle +of silence and introspection which had fallen upon the table. For the +trouble is that when once two or three stories have been told it seems +to be a point of honour not to subside into mere conversation. It seems +rude, when a story-teller has at last reached the triumphant ending and +climax of the mule from Arkansas, it seems impolite, to follow it up by +saying, "I see that Germany refuses to pay the indemnity." It can't be +done. Either the mule or the indemnity--one can't have both. + +The English, I say, have not developed the American custom of the funny +story as a form of social intercourse. But I do not mean to say that +they are sinless in this respect. As I see it, they hand round in +general conversation something nearly as bad in the form of what one may +call the literal anecdote or personal experience. By this I refer to the +habit of narrating some silly little event that has actually happened to +them or in their sight, which they designate as "screamingly funny," and +which was perhaps very funny when it happened but which is not the least +funny in the telling. The American funny story is imaginary. It never +happened. Somebody presumably once made it up. It is fiction. Thus +there must once have been some great palpitating brain, some glowing +imagination, which invented the story of the man who was put off at +Buffalo. But the English "screamingly funny" story is not imaginary. It +really did happen. It is an actual personal experience. In short, it is +not fiction but history. + +I think--if one may say it with all respect--that in English society +girls and women are especially prone to narrate these personal +experiences as contributions to general merriment rather than the men. +The English girl has a sort of traditional idea of being amusing; the +English man cares less about it. He prefers facts to fancy every time, +and as a rule is free from that desire to pose as a humourist +which haunts the American mind. So it comes about that most of the +"screamingly funny" stories are told in English society by the women. +Thus the counterpart of "put me off at Buffalo" done into English +would be something like this: "We were so amused the other night in +the sleeping-car going to Buffalo. There was the most amusing old negro +making the beds, a perfect scream, you know, and he kept insisting that +if we wanted to get up at Buffalo we must all go to bed at nine o'clock. +He positively wouldn't let us sit up--I mean to say it was killing the +way he wanted to put us to bed. We all roared!" + +Please note that roar at the end of the English personal anecdote. It is +the sign that indicates that the story is over. When you are assured by +the narrators that all the persons present "roared" or "simply roared," +then you can be quite sure that the humorous incident is closed and that +laughter is in place. + +Now, as a matter of fact, the scene with the darky porter may have been, +when it really happened, most amusing. But not a trace of it gets +over in the story. There is nothing but the bare assertion that it was +"screamingly funny" or "simply killing." But the English are such an +honest people that when they say this sort of thing they believe one +another and they laugh. + +But, after all, why should people insist on telling funny stories at +all? Why not be content to buy the works of some really first-class +humourist and read them aloud in proper humility of mind without trying +to emulate them? Either that or talk theology. + +On my own side of the Atlantic I often marvel at our extraordinary +tolerance and courtesy to one another in the matter of story-telling. +I have never seen a bad story-teller thrown forcibly out of the room or +even stopped and warned; we listen with the most wonderful patience to +the worst of narration. The story is always without any interest except +in the unknown point that will be brought in later. But this, until it +does come, is no more interesting than to-morrow's breakfast. Yet for +some reason or other we permit this story-telling habit to invade and +damage our whole social life. The English always criticise this and +think they are absolutely right. To my mind in their social life they +give the "funny story" its proper place and room and no more. That is to +say--if ten people draw their chairs in to the dinner table and somebody +really has just heard a story and wants to tell it, there is no reason +against it. If he says, "Oh, by the way, I heard a good story to-day," +it is just as if he said, "Oh, by the way, I heard a piece of news about +John Smith." It is quite admissible as conversation. But he doesn't sit +down to try to think, along with nine other rival thinkers, of all the +stories that he had heard, and that makes all the difference. + +The Scotch, by the way, resemble us in liking to tell and hear stories. +But they have their own line. They like the stories to be grim, dealing +in a jocose way with death and funerals. The story begins (will the +reader kindly turn it into Scotch pronunciation for himself), "There was +a Sandy MacDonald had died and the wife had the body all laid out for +burial and dressed up very fine in his best suit," etc. Now for me that +beginning is enough. To me that is not a story, but a tragedy. I am +so sorry for Mrs. MacDonald that I can't think of anything else. But I +think the explanation is that the Scotch are essentially such a devout +people and live so closely within the shadow of death itself that they +may without irreverence or pain jest where our lips would falter. Or +else, perhaps they don't care a cuss whether Sandy MacDonald died or +not. Take it either way. + +But I am tired of talking of our faults. Let me turn to the more +pleasing task of discussing those of the English. In the first place, +and as a minor matter of form, I think that English humour suffers from +the tolerance afforded to the pun. For some reason English people find +puns funny. We don't. Here and there, no doubt, a pun may be made that +for some exceptional reason becomes a matter of genuine wit. But the +great mass of the English puns that disfigure the Press every week are +mere pointless verbalisms that to the American mind cause nothing but +weariness. + +But even worse than the use of puns is the peculiar pedantry, not to say +priggishness, that haunts the English expression of humour. To make a +mistake in a Latin quotation or to stick on a wrong ending to a Latin +word is not really an amusing thing. To an ancient Roman, perhaps, it +might be. But then we are not ancient Romans; indeed, I imagine that +if an ancient Roman could be resurrected, all the Latin that any of our +classical scholars can command would be about equivalent to the French +of a cockney waiter on a Channel steamer. Yet one finds even the +immortal Punch citing recently as a very funny thing a newspaper +misquotation of "urbis et orbis" instead of "urbi et orbos," or the +other way round. I forget which. Perhaps there was some further point in +it that I didn't see, but, anyway, it wasn't funny. Neither is it +funny if a person, instead of saying Archimedes, says Archimeeds; why +shouldn't it have been Archimeeds? The English scale of values in these +things is all wrong. Very few Englishmen can pronounce Chicago properly +and they think nothing of that. But if a person mispronounces the +name of a Greek village of what O. Henry called "The Year B.C." it is +supposed to be excruciatingly funny. + +I think in reality that this is only a part of the overdone scholarship +that haunts so much of English writing--not the best of it, but a lot of +it. It is too full of allusions and indirect references to all sorts of +extraneous facts. The English writer finds it hard to say a plain thing +in a plain way. He is too anxious to show in every sentence what a +fine scholar he is. He carries in his mind an accumulated treasure of +quotations, allusions, and scraps and tags of history, and into this, +like Jack Horner, he must needs "stick in his thumb and pull out a +plum." Instead of saying, "It is a fine morning," he prefers to write, +"This is a day of which one might say with the melancholy Jacques, it is +a fine morning." + +Hence it is that many plain American readers find English humour +"highbrow." Just as the English are apt to find our humour "slangy" and +"cheap," so we find theirs academic and heavy. But the difference, after +all, is of far less moment than might be supposed. It lies only on the +surface. Fundamentally, as I said in starting, the humour of the two +peoples is of the same kind and on an equal level. + +There is one form of humour which the English have more or less to +themselves, nor do I envy it to them. I mean the merriment that they +appear able to draw out of the criminal courts. To me a criminal court +is a place of horror, and a murder trial the last word in human tragedy. +The English criminal courts I know only from the newspapers and ask +no nearer acquaintance. But according to the newspapers the courts, +especially when a murder case is on, are enlivened by flashes of +judicial and legal humour that seem to meet with general approval. The +current reports in the Press run like this: + +"The prisoner, who is being tried on a charge of having burned his +wife to death in a furnace, was placed in the dock and gave his name as +Evans. Did he say 'Evans or Ovens?' asked Mr. Justice Blank. The court +broke into a roar, in which all joined but the prisoner...." Or take +this: "How many years did you say you served the last time?" asked the +judge. "Three," said the prisoner. "Well, twice three is six," said the +judge, laughing till his sides shook; "so I'll give you six years." + +I don't say that those are literal examples of the humour of the +criminal court. But they are close to it. For a judge to joke is as easy +as it is for a schoolmaster to joke in his class. His unhappy audience +has no choice but laughter. No doubt in point of intellect the English +judges and the bar represent the most highly trained product of +the British Empire. But when it comes to fun, they ought not to pit +themselves against the unhappy prisoner. + +Why not take a man of their own size? For true amusement Mr. Charles +Chaplin or Mr. Leslie Henson could give them sixty in a hundred. I even +think I could myself. + +One final judgment, however, might with due caution be hazarded. I do +not think that, on the whole, the English are quite as fond of humour +as we are. I mean they are not so willing to welcome at all times the +humorous point of view as we are in America. The English are a serious +people, with many serious things to think of--football, horse racing, +dogs, fish, and many other concerns that demand much national thought: +they have so many national preoccupations of this kind that they have +less need for jokes than we have. They have higher things to talk about, +whereas on our side of the water, except when the World's Series is +being played, we have few, if any, truly national topics. + +And yet I know that many people in England would exactly reverse this +last judgment and say that the Americans are a desperately serious +people. That in a sense is true. Any American who takes up with an idea +such as New Thought, Psychoanalysis or Eating Sawdust, or any "uplift" +of the kind becomes desperately lopsided in his seriousness, and as a +very large number of us cultivate New Thought, or practise breathing +exercises, or eat sawdust, no doubt the English visitors think us a +desperate lot. + +Anyway, it's an ill business to criticise another people's shortcomings. +What I said at the start was that the British are just as humorous as +are the Americans, or the Canadians, or any of us across the Atlantic, +and for greater Certainty I repeat it at the end. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's My Discovery of England, by Stephen Leacock + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MY DISCOVERY OF ENGLAND *** + +***** This file should be named 3532.txt or 3532.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/5/3/3532/ + +Produced by Gardner Buchanan, and The Distributed Proofers + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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