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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.05/20/01*END* +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana@home.com> with +help from the distributed proofers at http://charlz.dynip.com/gutenberg + + + + + +My Discovery of England, 1922 + +by Leacock, Stephen, 1869-1944 + + + + + +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, Ohiothe 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 +Ameriea. 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 Iucrative 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 ho 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, porchclimbers, 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 Ionger 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. +Peoplc 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 Etext My Discovery of England, by Stephen Leacock + |