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diff --git a/56453-0.txt b/56453-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ea9e96b --- /dev/null +++ b/56453-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3464 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56453 *** + + + +Note: Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + https://archive.org/details/egregiousenglish00mcnerich + + + + + +THE EGREGIOUS ENGLISH + +by + +ANGUS McNEILL + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons +London: Grant Richards +1903 + +Copyright, 1902, by +Angus McNeill + +Published, January, 1903 + +The Knickerbocker Press, New York + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I.--Apollo 1 + + II.--The Sportsman 13 + + III.--The Man of Business 20 + + IV.--The Journalist 28 + + V.--The Employed Person 37 + + VI.--Chiffon 47 + + VII.--The Soldier 59 + + VIII.--The Navy 71 + + IX.--The Churches 79 + + X.--The Politician 90 + + XI.--Poets 103 + + XII.--Fiction 113 + + XIII.--Suburbanism 124 + + XIV.--The Man-about-Town 137 + + XV.--Drink 144 + + XVI.--Food 153 + + XVII.--Law and Order 163 + + XVIII.--Education 171 + + XIX.--Recreation 183 + + XX.--Stock Exchange 192 + + XXI.--The Beloved 199 + + + + +The Egregious English + + + + +CHAPTER I + +APOLLO + + +It has become the Englishman's habit, one might almost say the +Englishman's instinct, to take himself for the head and front of the +universe. The order of creation began, we are told, in protoplasm. +It has achieved at length the Englishman. Herein are the culmination +and ultimate glory of evolutionary processes. Nature, like the +seventh-standard boy in a board school, "can get no higher." She +has made the Englishman, and her work therefore is done. For the +continued progress of the world and all that in it is, the Englishman +will make due provision. He knows exactly what is wanted, and by +himself it shall be supplied. There is little that can be considered +distinguishingly English which does not reflect this point of view. As +an easy-going, entirely confident, imperturbable piece of arrogance, +the Englishman has certainly no mammalian compeer. Even in the blackest +of his troubles he perceives that he is great. "I shall muddle +through," he says. He is expected and understood to muddle through; +and, muddle through or not, he invariably believes he has done it. +Sheer complacency bolsters him up on every hand. At his going forth the +rest of the world is fain to abase itself in the dust. He is the strong +man, the white man of white men. He is the rich, clean sportsman, the +incomparable, the fearless, the intolerable. And by "Englishman" the +world has learned not to mean "Briton." The world has been taught to +discriminate. It has regarded the Britannic brotherhood; and though it +forgets that the Gael and the Celt are Britons, it takes its Englishman +for a Briton, only with a difference. On the other hand, it is keenly +sensible of sundry facts--as that it is the Englishman who rules the +waves and the Englishman upon whose dominions the sun never sets; that +the British flag is the English flag, the British army the English +army, and the British navy the English navy, and that Scotland and +Ireland, with Wales, are English appanages. It would be foolish to +assert that the Englishman has greatly concerned himself in either the +promulgation or the acceptance of these notions. But he holds them +dear, and they are ineradicably planted in his subconsciousness. + +One is inclined to think, however, that, while the supremacy and +superiority of the Englishman have been received without traverse in +his own dominions, there are those in outer darkness--on the Continent, +in Ireland, and even in Scotland--who admit no such supremacy and +no such superiority. Nay, there be persons breathing the breath of +life who, so far from looking upon the Englishman with the eyes with +which the early savage must have regarded Captain Cook, look upon him +with the eyes with which Captain Cook regarded the early savage. In +Ireland, particularly, hatred of the English has become a deep-grounded +national characteristic. The French dislike of perfidious Albion may +be reckoned to a great extent an intermittent matter. It sputters and +flares when a Fashoda or a Boer War comes along, and it has a way of +finding its deadliest expression in caricature. But the Irish hatred is +as persistent and concrete as it is ancient. In Scotland the feeling +about the English amounts in the main to good-humoured tolerance, +touched with a certain amazement. The least cultivated of Scotsmen--and +such a man is quite a different being from the least cultivated of +Englishmen--will tell you that "thae English" are chiefly notable by +reason of their profound ignorance and a ridiculous passion for the +dissipation of money. The Scot of the middle class thinks his neighbour +is a feckless, foolish person who would pass muster if he could be +serious, and who has got what he possesses by good luck rather than +by good management. Up to a point both are right, for the English in +the mass are at once much more ignorant and much less thrifty than the +people of Scotland, and their good-nature and happy-go-luckiness are +things to set a Scot moralising. + +Years ago Matthew Arnold put the right names on the two more creditable +and powerful sections of English society. The aristocracy he set down +for Barbarians, the middle class for Philistines. The aristocracy were +inaccessible to ideas, he said; the middle class admired and loved the +aristocracy. It is so to this day, and so to an extent which is in +entire consonance with the circumstance that for sheer stupidity the +Englishman of the upper class is without parallel, while the Englishman +of the middle class cannot be paralleled for snobbishness. Arnold's +complaint that neither class was a reading class or at all devoted to +the higher matters still holds. The great, broad-shouldered, genial +Englishman whom Tennyson sang and at whom Arnold gibed is still with +us. That he is as great and as broad-shouldered and as genial as ever +nobody will deny. And, broadly speaking, his outlook upon life remains +exactly what it was. To be ruddy and healthy, to go out mornings with +dogs, to dine hilariously and dance evenings, to be generous to the +poor, and to honour oneself and the King are the rule of his life if +he be a Barbarian; and to ape these things and consider them gifts of +price, if he be a Philistine. Since Arnold, however, the Englishman, +egregious though he undoubtedly was, has taken unto himself a new and +altogether alarming demerit. Out of his love of health and ease and +security and pleasure and well-ordered materialism there has sprung +up a trouble which is like to cost him exceeding dear--a trouble, in +fact, which, if he be not careful, will go far to emasculate him, if +not wholly to destroy him. Of the higher matters, as has been said, +he has taken but the smallest heed. Writer fellows, painter fellows, +philosopher Johnnies, and so forth are not of his world, except in +so far as they may entertain his women-folk, or deck his halls with +commercial canvas, or assist him in the eking out of his small talk +before dessert. It is not to be expected of him that he should take to +his heart persons whom he cannot by any possibility understand. Even +Arnold could forgive him that failing. It was the build of the man, the +breed and constitution of him, that justified him. But since, being +English, he has found his way to the unpardonable sin. It was well +that he should despise persons who, however much they might think, did +little and got little for doing it. It was well that brains which could +not sit a horse, and preferred bed to the moors, and had no rent-roll, +should be despised. It would have been well, too, if that other kind +of brains, which, beginning with nothing, ends in millionairedom and +flagrant barbarianism, might also have continued to be despised and +to be kept at arm's-length. The great, broad-shouldered, genial +Englishman, however, has succumbed. Park Lane has become a Ghetto; my +lord's house parties reek of gentlemen with noses, and names ending +in "baum"; and the English Houses of Parliament, the finest club in +Europe, the mother of parliaments, the most dignified assemblage under +the sun, is just a branch of the Stock Exchange. As the exceedingly +clever young man who recently wrote a book about the Scot might say, +this shows what the English really are. + +It has been remarked, and possibly not without truth, that the Scot +keeps the Sabbath and everything else he can lay his hands upon. He +is credited with being the perfect money-grubber; his desire for +competence, we have been told by the clever young man before mentioned, +has blighted his soul and brought him into opprobrium among Turks and +Chinamen. Well, the Scot does look after money: he desires competence, +he loves independence; and, when he can get them, ease and pleasure are +gratifying to him. If he comes off the rock and attains affluence, he +is not averse to the goodnesses that affluence commands. He will start +a castle and a carriage and a coat-of-arms with the best of them; he +will lift up his family and leave his children well provided for. In +these connections he is just as human as the next man; but he never +has played and he never will play the English game of lavishness and +wastefulness and swaggering profusion, and, least of all, will he +play it on a basis of undesirable association. The Scotsman who has +compassed wealth, even though he be the son of a mole-catcher or a +sweetie-wife or a Glasgow beer-seller, can always remember that there +is such a thing as spiritual integrity. And though he may or may not +boo and boo and boo in accordance with the good old kindly English +legend, he certainly will not do it in Jews' houses. This, I take it, +is where he has some little advantage over Englishmen. + +Perhaps no finer indication of the English spirit, and of the greed +and corruption that have overtaken it, could have been offered than +has been offered by the trend of recent events in South Africa. To +go thoroughly over the ground in such an essay as the present is, of +course, impossible; to state the arguments for both sides would be to +reproduce writing of which everybody is heartily tired. The battling +newspapers have said their say, and we are just beginning to feel the +comfort of a more or less reasonable settlement. All that need be +said here is that the Englishman has not come out of this war with +anything like the honour and the glory and the _éclat_ that he has +been accustomed to expect of himself in similar undertakings. His +bodily prowess, his hardihood, his Spartan capacity for withstanding +the rigours of campaigning, his military abilities, and his very +patriotism have all had to be called in question during the past two +and a half years. When he went out to the fray, his cry was, "Ha! ha!" +and the war was to be over in six weeks. He had the finest equipment, +the finest munitions, the finest men, the finest system, the world had +seen. He was as fit as a fiddle and as hard as nails, and his love of +music prompted him to take a piano with him. Then the English and they +that dwell in outer darkness saw many things. They have been learning +their lesson ever since. They have learned that in a fight the great, +broad-shouldered, genial Englishman, instead of being worth three +Frenchmen, is worth about the fiftieth part of a Boer farmer. They have +learned that the great, broad-shouldered, genial Englishman is not +above selling spavined horses and stinking beef to the country that +he loves. And they have learned that when a great, broad-shouldered, +genial Englishman is discovered in his incompetence or his culpable +negligence or his dishonour, it is the business of all the other great, +broad-shouldered, genial Englishmen to get round him and screen him +from the public gaze and swear that he is a maligned and misunderstood +man. The incidents of the war alone, without any backing or the +smallest distortion or exaggeration, have been quite sufficient to show +that there is something rotten in the condition of the English. It has +been a tale of shame and ignominy and disaster from beginning to end. +It has resulted in a peace which practically settles very little, and +an inquiry with closed doors. Verily Apollo must have a care for his +reputation in the Pantheon. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +THE SPORTSMAN + + +The Englishman who is not a sportsman dares not mention the +circumstance. In the counties he must shoot and hunt, or be for +ever damned. In the towns he must have daily dealings with a +starting-price bookmaker and hourly news from the race-courses and +the cricket-pitches, otherwise Englishmen decline to know him. "I am +a sportsman, sir," is the English shibboleth. "It is the English love +of manly sports that has made the English paramount in every land and +on every sea." The Lord Chief Justice of England rowed stroke for his +college in Oxford _v._ Cambridge in 1815, otherwise he would not be +Lord Chief Justice of England. At eighteen the Lord Chancellor was +one of the best sprinters of his day, otherwise he would never have +dandled his little legs on the Woolsack. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman +is a keen shot, and was one of a party of seven who made the biggest +bag on record in 1865, otherwise he would never have been Leader of +the Opposition. Mr. Henry Labouchere is one of our most brilliant +and daring steeple-chase riders, otherwise he would never have owned +_Truth_. Mrs. Ormiston Chant is a cricket enthusiast; so are the +Archbishop of Canterbury, Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, and Mr. Tommy Bowles. +Lord Roberts can take a hand at croquet with the best young woman out +of Girton, and Mr. John Morley understands a race-horse almost as well +as he understands the Encyclopædists. In fact, the English eminent are +either sportsmen or nothing, and all the other English follow suit. + +Now and again somebody gets up and points out that betting is a great +evil; whereupon the Duke of Devonshire opens one eye and says that he +never had a shilling on a horse in his life. Then everybody says that +horse-racing is good for the breed of horses, employing large amounts +of capital and large numbers of honest persons, and on the whole a +manly and profitable pastime. Incidentally, too, it transpires that +fox-hunting is an equally noble and English form of sport, and that +when farmers cease from puppy-walking, Britain may very well drop the +epithet "Great" from her name. Or perhaps Mr. Kipling, fresh from the +unpleasant truths of South Africa, conceives a distich or two as to +flannelled fools and muddied oafs. In response there is an immediate +and emphatic English howl. Why cannot the little man stick to his +Recessionals? How dare he call sportsmen like Ranji and Trott and +Bloggs and Biffkin flannelled fools, much less the Tottenham Hotspurs +and Sheffield United muddied oafs! Is it not true that the battle of +Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton? Were not flannelled +fools and muddied oafs among the first to throw up their home ties and +fling themselves into the imminent breach when the war broke out? Are +not cricket and football healthy and admirable old English sports, and +pleasantly calculated to keep the youth of the country out of much +worse mischief on Saturday afternoons? And so on right down the line. +The English are sportsmen. Sport is bred in the bone of them. Less +than a century ago they were cock-fighting and man-fighting in the +splendid English way. They would be doing it yet, if their own stupid +laws did not prevent them. Instead they race horses and pursue the +fox, watch cricket and football matches, and play tennis and croquet +and ping-pong. It is sport that keeps England sweet. If it were not +for sport, the English would cease to have red faces and husky voices +and check suits. One presumes, too, that if it were not for sport they +would entirely lose their sense of fair play, their love of honest +dealing, and that spirit of self-sacrifice which notoriously informs +all their actions. It is sport that has made the English the justest +as well as the greatest of the nations. It is sport which keeps her +unspotted of the lower vices, such as drunkenness, indolence, and +misspent Saturday afternoons. It is sport which gives her a standard +of manliness, an all-day press, and a platform upon which prince and +pauper, the highest and the lowest, meet as common men. Long live sport! + +Perhaps it is pardonable in a Scot to note that the only forms of +sport which can be pronounced sane and devoid of offence came out of +Scotland. The grand instance in point, of course, is the ancient and +royal game of golf. Without attempting to say a word that would tend +to exaggerate the value of a pastime which is beloved by all Scotsmen, +and not without its appreciators even in England, it seems fitting to +remark that in golf you have a game which, while every whit as healthy, +as manly, and as invigorating as horse-racing, cricket, football, and +the rest of them, can never by any chance become the mere kill-time of +the idle, unparticipating spectator or the prey of the "professional", +the ready-money bookmaker, and the halfpenny journal. As to other +Scottish sports, one need not here particularise; but they are all +healthy and honest in the broadest sense, and with the single exception +of football, which has been corrupted by the English, they have not +been allowed to deteriorate into vices. The exploitation of popular +pastimes by covetous and unprincipled persons is an unmistakable sign +of national decadence. In England that exploitation goes on without +let or hindrance and in almost every department. Protest brings merely +contempt and objurgation upon the head of the protester, and the +national virility continues to be slowly but surely sapped away. That +the English notion of sport should permit of the orgies of bloodshed, +rowdyism, and partisanship which take place in the coverts and on +football-fields, race-courses, and cricket-grounds serves to indicate +that, in spite of all that has been said and sung in its praises, the +English notion of sport is an exceedingly sad and sorry one. It is +natural that a people given over to display and the getting of money +for the sake of the more unnecessary luxuries money can buy should in +a great measure lose its taste for outdoor sports of the primal order. +The English are losing that taste at a rate which can leave no doubt as +to the ultimate upshot. In brief, the Englishman as sportsman worth the +name seems to be disappearing; and in his place England will have the +adipose, plethoric, mechanical slayer of birds who goes to his shoot +in a bath-chair, and the cadaverous, undersized, Saturday-afternoon +zealot, the chief joys of whose existence are the cracking of filberts +and the kicking of umpires. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +THE MAN OF BUSINESS + + +The English, all the world has heard, are a nation of shopkeepers. +They are understood to keep shop and to glory in it. They have kept +shop, with the other nations for customers, ever since international +shopkeeping became a possibility. In the beginning, one is afraid, +their notion of shopkeeping ran neither to fair trade nor honest +dealing; but gradually there was built up a system of commercial +equity, the main principle of which was the protection of one +shopkeeper against another and the security of shopkeepers generally. + +In course of time the English man of business arose. He had a silk +hat and expansive manners. He lived in a suburb and read the _Times_ +on his way to business in the morning. All day at his office he would +cheat no man, and his word was as good as his bond. His office day was +a day of quite ten hours, and during those ten hours he sweated like +the proverbial nigger. At nights he retired to his suburb, and, with +the wife and children whom he kept there, ate to repletion from the +joint, washed it down with sherry and port supplied to him by merchants +of the type of the late Mr. Ruskin's father; and, hey, presto! by +eleven of the clock he was deep among the feathers. Twice on Sundays he +went to church and held the plate. To Sunday's midday dinner he invited +the vicar or a curate, and there was always beef and batter-pudding +and improving talk, not to mention cabbage and an extra special "glass +of wine, sir." Other recreations the English man of business had none, +save and except perhaps an occasional Saturday-afternoon drive in a +hired chaise with Mrs. Man-of-Business and the children, and a still +more occasional visit to the theatre. In the long run, by the practice +of these virtues he amassed wealth. He put his money into good bottoms; +he owed no man a penny; and as he never robbed anybody and always lived +miles within his income, he had a conscience so easy that it seemed +to sleep. Everybody respected him. He was in demand to take the chair +at the meetings of young men's improvement societies, and to explain +the secret of his success "free, gratis, and for nothing" to the +callow young men thereat assembled. He would tell you unctuously that +he attributed his success (1) to early rising, (2) to never wasting +time [the split infinitive was his], (3) to always saving at least one +third of his income, (4) to never going bond for anybody, and (5) to +marrying Mrs. Man-of-Business--this last, of course, with a chortle. +So he wagged along and helped to build up the commercial greatness +and probity and honour of his country. And when he died he had a +magnificent and costly funeral and was attended to his last long home +by his weeping relict and sorrowing sons and daughters. Next day there +was an account of Mr. Man-of-Business's obsequies in the local papers, +and his sons proceeded to carry on the concern. + +That was forty years ago. To-day the English man of business is +a bird of an entirely different and altogether more entrancing +feather. Indeed, it is a question whether he has not ceased to be a +man of business at all. One might perhaps sum him up best by saying +that he has begun to have notions. Whereas he was once the bulwark +of the Philistine class, he has now gone over, lock, stock, and +barrel--particularly barrel--to the Barbarians. He lives in the manner, +style, and odour of Barbarism; and the ruling ambition of his existence +is to pass for a "county magnate", a man of birth and leisure, rather +than for a man of business. So that he has entirely laid aside the +characteristics which distinguished his early and middle Victorian +prototype. Breadth, girth, weight, the substantial, the ponderous, are +not for him. He does not attribute his success to early rising; he does +not boast that his word is his bond; he does not slap his sides when he +laughs; he never went to business on a tram-car in his life; and as for +his owing all he is to Mrs. Man-of-Business, it is to his association +with that charming bechiffoned, bejewelled little lady that he owes +all he owes. In other words, the new English man of business has made +up his mind that, if life is to be made tolerable at all, it must be +made tolerable through social ways. That is to say, if one's income +runs to a couple of thousand a year out of a butter business, one +must live in precisely the manner of persons whose incomes run to two +thousand a year out of lands and hereditaments. "The glass of fashion +and the mould of form" for a person who would live is Mayfair. Lords +and dukes and the landed gentry have houses in Mayfair; their wives +and female relatives flutter round in flashing equipages and brilliant +toilettes; there is the theatre, the opera, and other people's houses +in the evening, the Park on Sundays, the river in the summer, Scotland +in the autumn, and the Riviera for the winter and early spring. Lords +and dukes and the landed gentry tread this pretty round, and find both +pleasure and dignity in it. Why not the head of the old-established +firm of Margarine, Sons, Bros. & Co.? Why not, indeed? Old Margarine, +founder of the house, never missed a day at the office for forty years. +Young Margarine will tell you that, "after all, you know, it is rather +amusing to drop into the office sometimes and see the fellows sit up." +All the same, the business is a beastly bore, and there are moments +when he wishes it at the deuce. + +As for Mrs. Margarine, Mrs. Man-of-Business, the erstwhile portly +mother of daughters and only begetter of her spouse's success, really, +if you saw her in her boudoir, in her carriage, at Princes, at the +opera, at Brighton, or at Monte Carlo, you would not recognise her. She +is young and slim; her hair is of flax; she has rings on her fingers, +and probably bells on her toes; her diamonds are the envy of duchesses; +"and as for Margarine, my dear, I never think either about it or him. +My little boys are at Eton, and Dickie is going into the Guards." +Sometimes even Mr. and Mrs. Man-of-Business manage to get presented. +Then, as you may say, their cup runneth over; hand in hand they stand +upon their Pisgah and stare at the Pacific as it were. There are no +more worlds to conquer. They come down with a light upon their faces, +and Margarine, Sons, Bros. & Co. can be hanged. In point of fact, +Margarine, Sons, Bros. & Co. sooner or later becomes Margarine, Sons, +Bros. & Co., Limited. Margarine himself drops out, taking with him all +the money he can get. When he comes to die, if you said "Margarine," he +would do his best to insult you. + +That is all. Of course, I have taken an extreme case, but apparently +the desire of the latter-day English man of business is wholly in these +directions. Be he in a great or small way, he is fain to step westward; +he is fain to live as the Barbarians and to be undistinguishable +from them. And rather than be beaten he will enter into that kingdom +piecemeal. Surpluses that would have gone to consolidation and +extension in the old days now go to personal and feminine expenditure. +Bond Street captures what the wise would have dumped into Threadneedle +Street; and instead of resting our hope upon the business methods +of Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Budgett, our heart inclines to the +excellent precepts of our millionaire friend "Yeth Indeed." Which is to +say that the English man of business, like the English sportsman, is +dying out of the land. Whether his loss will be deplored by countless +thousands is another question. Anyway, he is going. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE JOURNALIST + + +I am dealing here with the English journalist, because in my opinion, +after the English sportsman and the English man of business, there is +nothing under the sun so wonderfully English and so fearfully foolish. +The elegant and austere writer who gave us _The Unspeakable Scot_ has +said much which he no doubt hoped would lead people to believe that +the British Press was entirely in the hands of Scotsmen, and that this +accounted at once for its dulness and its continual advertisement of +Scottish virtues. For my own part, I have no hesitation in asserting +that Mr. Crosland's view of the situation is quite a mistaken one. +In any case, it is obvious that, even if Fleet Street be, as Mr. +Crosland suggests, eaten up with louts from over the Border, the +English journalist is not yet wholly extinct, and somewhere in the land +the remnant of him stands valiantly to its guns. It is well known, +however, that, as a fact, the remnant very largely outnumbers its +hated rival, the proportion of Scots to the proportion of Englishmen +on the staffs of most newspapers being probably no higher than as one +is to three. So that for the stodginess and flat-footedness of the +English newspaper--the epithets are Mr. Crosland's own--the Englishman +is at least equally to blame with the Scot. Mr. Crosland's main +complaint against the newspaper press of his country is that it lacks +brilliance. So far as I am aware, it has never before been asserted +that the function of a newspaper is to be brilliant. News is news all +over the world. To write brilliantly of a dog-fight or of the suicide +of a defaulting clerk may be Mr. Crosland's ambition in life, but +most persons possessing such an ambition would transfer their finical +attentions from the field of journalism to that of belles-lettres. No +doubt, if Mr. Crosland had his way, the morning papers, in which the +soul of the average Englishman so delighteth, would be published from +the Bodley Head or at the Sign of the Unicorn, or haply at Mr. Grant +Richards's. + +It is not my intention, however, to enter into a sort of ten nights' +discussion with Mr. Crosland. He has had his say and taken the whipping +he deserved. My business is with the English journalist; and while I +shall not descend to personalities in dealing with him, I hope to show +that his brilliance and liveliness and smartness, though much vaunted, +are neither a boon nor a blessing either to journalism as a force or +to society at large. I think that it may be fairly set down for a fact +that the fine flower and consummate expression of English journalism +is the halfpenny newspaper. At any rate, nobody would pretend to find +in the halfpenny newspaper the sententious dulness and flat-footedness +which are supposed to characterise the journalistic work of the Scot. +The smartness of the halfpenny press is indeed not even American. +There is but one epithet for it, and that is English. Broadly speaking, +its appeal is directly and exclusively to the bathotic. In England +the bathotic has always had the majority in its grip. The majority +notoriously has no mind. It is a thing of one emotion, an instrument +of one stop. On that stop--the bathotic stop--the English journalist +makes a point of playing. There has been a time in his history when he +believed in the educative possibilities and duties of his profession. +He long held with the Scot that the Press was a power, and that it was +becoming that it should glory in being a power for the betterment of +the race. After many shrewd searchings and commercial gropings, the +English journalist discovered that the way to fame and fortune lay in +the mastery of the bathotic stop. He learned to sing songs of Araby +in one squalid key every morning, and he has since been able to keep +a gig and out-circulate everything that considers itself possessed of +circulation. He has played, as one might say, old Harvey with the +_Daily Telegraph_. He has put the _Times_ to the shame of being a +journal that "nobody reads." More than all, he has said flatly to the +English people, "You are a rabbit-brained crowd, and here for your +delectation and your coppers is the worst that can be written for you." + +When England comes to her day of reckoning, in the hour when she +shall see her own mischance and is fain to remember the names of her +destroyers, none of them will seem to her so flagrant and so to be +deprecated as the English journalist. "Behold," she will say, "the +monster who convinced me that it was beautiful to split infinitives; +that it was elegant to begin six paragraphs on one page with the +blessed statement, 'A dramatic scene was enacted in Mr. Thingamybob's +court yesterday'; that good books are to be worthily pronounced upon by +sub-editors in the intervals of waiting for the three o'clock winner; +and that, so far from being a reproach to one, the bathotic was the +only honourable and creditable attitude of mind." + +If a man wish to perceive to what degraded passes the art of writing +may come and yet retain the qualities of intelligibility and apparent +reasonableness, let him peruse the morning papers and die the death. +The reek and offence of them smells to heaven. They are a sure +indication of the decadence of the English mind and of the cupidity +and unscrupulousness of the English journalist. There has been nothing +like them, nothing to compare with them, for cheapness and futility and +banality in the history of the world. They are more to be fearful of +than the pestilence, inasmuch as they spell intellectual debasement, +the corruption of the public taste, and the defilement of the public +spirit. Their very literal innocuousness condemns them. It is their +boast that they may be read in the family without a blush. Their +assumption of morality and puritanical straitlacedness is admirable. +Beneath it there lie a licentiousness of purpose, a disregard for +what is just, and a contempt for what is decent and of good report +which are calculated to make the angels weep. When one inquires into +the personnel of the staffs by which these papers are run, one is +confronted with exactly the kind of man one expects to meet. First +of all, he is English, and as shallow and flippant and irresponsible +as only an Englishman can be. The saving touch of seriousness does +not enter into his composition. He neither reads nor thinks. Beer, +billiards, and free lunches, free entry to the less edifying places of +amusement, a minimum of work and a maximum of pay, constitute his ideal +of the journalist's career, and he is always doing his best to live +up to it. Of responsibility to anybody save his immediate chief, who, +after all, is only himself at a little higher salary, he has not the +smallest notion. His duty is neither by himself nor by the public. All +that is expected of him is loyalty to his chief and to his paper, and +it is his pride and joy that this loyalty is invariably forthcoming. + +Very occasionally one hears that, in consequence of a change in +the political policy of a newspaper, the editor of that paper has +considered it to be his duty to resign his editorship. Probably not +more than two such resignations have occurred in English journalism +during the past twenty years. In both instances the self-denying +editors have been held up by the English papers as sublime examples of +honour and martyrdom. That there is nothing extraordinary in sticking +to one's principles, even though it means loss of livelihood, does not +appear to have dawned upon the lively English mind. Of course, it will +be said that, if every member of the staff of a newspaper, down even +to the junior reporters, were allowed to have beliefs and principles, +and were not expected to write anything in antagonism to them, an +exceedingly remarkable kind of newspaper would result. Compromise, at +any rate on established matters, must be the rule of the journalist's +life. On the other hand, I incline to the opinion that the English +journalist is far too swift to acquiesce in doubtful procedure, and +that where the morals, good report, and high character of a paper are +concerned it is better to have a Scotch staff than an English one. +Nothing is more characteristic of the English journalist of to-day than +the circumstance that he is literally without opinions of his own. +He takes his opinions from his chiefs, just as his chiefs take their +opinions from their proprietors, or from the wire-pullers with whose +party the paper happens to be associated. In a sense it is impossible +that it should be otherwise. Yet you will find that in the main +Scottish journalists do have opinions of their own, and that somehow +they manage to be loyal to them. For weal or woe the Scot is immovable +and unchangeable as the granite of his own hills. You can never get him +to see that half-measures are either desirable or necessary. He will +not stretch his conscience nor palter with his soul for any man or any +man's money. The Englishman is all the other way--that is why he makes +such a nimble and even brilliant journalist. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE EMPLOYED PERSON + + +The English are a nation of employed persons. Wherever you go, from +Berwick to Land's End, you will find that in the main the men you +meet are somebody's employees. The better kind of them possibly write +"manager" on their cards; some of them even are managing directors; +others, again, are partners in wealthy houses or heads of such houses. +Yet, as I have said, they strike you almost to a man as being in +somebody's employment. Even the most prosperous of them have the +strained, repressed, furtive look which comes of the long turning of +other people's little wheels; while the masses, the employed English +masses, give you, as regards appearance, physique, and habit of mind +alike, an excellent notion of what a galley-slave must have been. The +fact of being employed is indeed the only big and abiding fact in the +average Englishman's life. It has its effect on the whole man from the +time of his youth to the time of his death; it influences his actions +and the trend of his thoughts to a far greater extent than any other +force--love and religion included. In the Englishman's view, to be +employed is the only road to subsistence, and, if one be ambitious, the +only road to honour. He must work for somebody, otherwise he cannot +be happy. The notion of working for himself appals him; and if by any +chance he be persuaded to take the plunge, the consideration that +he has no master weighs so heavily upon him that his end is usually +speedy ruin of one sort or another. That is to say, he either takes +advantage of his freedom to the extent of doing no work at all, or, +in the absence of the guiding hand, he loses his judgment and throws +to the winds the caution that kept him his place. It is a pity, there +can be no doubt; but the thing is in the English blood. If you are +an Englishman, you must be employed; if you are unemployed, you are +unhappy, and worse. For a full century the rich merchants, enterprising +manufacturers, colliery-owners, mill-owners, and what not, in whom +the English put their trust, have been preaching and fomenting this +doctrine by every means in their power. To their aid in spreading +the glorious truth they have brought the moralists and the Churches: +"'if a man will not work, neither shall he eat.' 'Servants, obey your +masters.' Punctuality is the soul of business. Be faithful over a few +things. Begin at the bottom rung of the ladder. Mr. So-and-so, the +notorious billionaire, was once a poor working-boy in Manchester. +Furthermore, if you _don't_ work and at our price--well, to say the +least of it, God will not love you." + +And the English--poor bodies!--carry on their lives accordingly. +The whole scheme of things is arranged to fit in with the ideas of +employers as to what work means, under what conditions it should +be performed, and what should be its rewards. To live in the manner +pronounced to be respectable by the moralists and the Churches, you +must take upon yourself exactly the labours, and no others, prescribed +by the employers. In other words, to keep an eight-roomed house with a +piano in it, a wife with blouses and four new hats a year, and a little +family who can go to church on Sunday mornings dressed as well as any +of them, you must keep Messrs. Reachemdown's books, and pass through +your hands many thousands of Messrs. Reachemdown's moneys, for a salary +of £150 a year. When you get old and half blind through years of poring +over Reachemdown's figures, they will pension you off at a pound a +week, and get a younger man to do the work for the other £2. You, good, +easy Englishman, will, in your heart of hearts, be exceedingly grateful +to Reachemdown & Reachemdown, and count it not the least of your many +blessings that you have never wanted good work and kind employers. +You will say to your English son, "My boy, make up your mind to serve +people well, and in your old age they will never forget you. Always be +industrious, obliging, and respectful. Remember that a rolling stone +gathers no moss, and never forsake the substance for the shadow." And +the chances are that your fine English boy will do exactly what you, +his fine English father, have done. Indeed, if he be old enough at the +time of your "retirement," he might very appropriately take your place +at Reachemdown & Reachemdown's; then he will marry, he will live in a +house with a piano in it, his wife will have four new hats a year, and +his children will go to church on Sundays as well dressed as any of +them. + +On the whole, I should be sorry to say that this sort of thing was +not desirable. If a nation is to be great, it is essential that it +should contain a large body of workers, and the more industrious and +dependable and trustworthy that body of workers, the better it is for +the State and for the pillars and props of the State, the employers +included. But the point is that the English take too much credit for +it and get too much ease out of it. It has been complained by Mr. +Crosland and other masters of elegant English that the Scot goes +to London and the smaller industrial markets and there enters into +successful competition with the English employed, and it appears to +annoy Mr. Crosland that the Scot should not be content with good work, +say book-keeping from nine to six, good wages, say £150 per annum, and +kind employers, say Messrs. Reachemdown & Reachemdown, all his life. +It seems to annoy him, too, that the Scot never acquires that pathetic +satisfaction in being employed which permeates the beautiful spirit of +his English competitor. You will meet hoary and bald-headed Englishmen +who will tell you with a quaver that they have been in the employment +of one and the same house, man and boy, for over half a century, sir! +Somehow the Englishman tells you this with a look of pride, and rather +expects you to regard him as a sort of marvel. It never occurs to +him that he is really bragging of his own ineptitude,--to use Mr. +Crosland's favourite abstraction,--his own lack of enterprise. The +number of Scots who have been in the employment of one house for forty +years, least of all the number of Scots who brag about it, is probably +not a round dozen. As a general rule, when a Scot has been in a house +forty years, it is his house. + +Another matter in which the English employee appears to me to err +mightily is his treatment of his employer. In concerns of great +magnitude personal relations between employer and employed are often +impossible, because the employer seldom comes near the place where his +money is made for him. Quite frequently, however, he is accessible; +yet the employee knows him not. He would no more think of walking up +and shaking hands with him than he would think of casting himself from +the top of the factory chimney-stack. It is the unwritten law of the +English that the employer is a better man than the employed. For the +employee to say "How do!" to the employer; for the employee to meet +the employer in the street and omit to make respectful obeisances; +for the employee to assert anywhere outside his favourite pot-house +that Jack's as good as his master, would never do. If you are paid +wages, you must be grateful and respectful; and though you know quite +well that your employer is paying you just as little as ever he can, +you must still respect him. Broadly speaking, we manage these things +better in Scotland; and, for that matter, the Scot manages them +better in England. The English employee quirks and crawls before his +employer, because he knows that his employer can exercise over him +powers which, if they do not mean exactly life and death, do mean a +possibly long period of out-of-workness. And out-of-workness is, as a +rule, the most fearful thing in life that can happen to an Englishman, +for the simple reason that he never has anything behind him. If he +has been earning fifty pounds a year, he has spent it all; if he has +been earning a thousand a year, he has spent it all and more to it. +With the Scot it is different. No matter how small his earnings, he +invariably contrives to save a portion of them. When he has saved a +hundred pounds, he is practically an independent man, for a Scot with +a hundred pounds at his disposal can defy, and can afford to defy, any +employer that ever breathed the breath of life. Besides, hundred pounds +or no hundred pounds, the Scot will not grovel. He does his work and +his duty, and the rest can go hang. His days are not spent in blissful +contemplation of the joys of being in good work; he has no anxieties +as to how long it is going to last; he admits no superiorities; he is +afraid of no man. Some day, perhaps, the Englishman will learn to take +a leaf out of his book. The Englishman will learn that to be employed, +excepting with a view to greater things than subsistence, is to be in +a condition which borders very closely on degradation. He will learn +that services rendered and energies expended for long periods of years +without adequate reward, and with only a pretence at advancement, are a +discredit and not an honour. He will learn that a man's a man, and that +it is no man's business to be so faithful to another man that he cannot +be faithful to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +CHIFFON + + +It pains me beyond measure to say it, but I think there can be no +doubt that the accumulated experience and wisdom of mankind goes to +show that at the bottom of most troubles there is a woman. Since Eve +and the first debacle, it has been woman all along the line. I do not +say that it is her fault, but the fact remains. White hands cling +to the bridle-rein, and the horse proceeds accordingly. It is woman +that shapes our ends, rough-hew them as we will. She has a delicate +finger in everybody's pie. No matter who you are, some woman has got +you by a little bit of string. Occasionally you are the better for +being so entangled; but nine times out of ten it is a misfortune for +you. When one comes to look closely at the decadence of the English, +and endeavours to account for it in a plain way and without fear +or prejudice, one cannot help perceiving that here again one has a +pronounced case of woman, woman, woman. Further,--and once more I +pray that I may not seem impolite,--the woman with whom you have to +contend in England, though her hand be full of power, is not, perhaps, +a woman, after all. I sometimes think that she may be best and most +properly expressed in the word "Chiffon." Whatever she may have been +in the past, however sweet, however demure, however capable, however +beautiful, the Englishwoman of to-day is just a foolish doll, a +thing of frills and fluff and patchouli, a daughter of vanity, and a +worshipper of dressmakers. Under her little foot, under her mild, blue, +greedy eye, the Englishman has become a capering carpet-knight, one +who dallies at high noon, a buck, a dandy, an unconvinced flippancy, +the shadow of his former self. Be he father or merely husband of the +fair, his case is pretty much the same. Both at home (if he can find +it in his heart to call his conglomeration of cosey-corners home) and +abroad it is Chiffon that runs him. Chiffon must have a house full of +fal-lals: so must the Englishman. Chiffon delights in Chippendale that +a sixteen-stone male person dare not sit upon: so does the Englishman. +Chiffon must dine late off French kickshaws with champagne to them: so +must the Englishman. Chiffon must not have more than two children, whom +she must visit and kiss once a day: it is the same with the Englishman. +Chiffon does not like the way in which you are running your newspaper: +the Englishman forthwith runs his newspaper another way. Chiffon does +not like that cross-eyed clerk of yours; she is sure there is something +wrong about him; she wouldn't trust him with a hairpin, my dear! He +gets fired. Chiffon is fond of motor-cars and tiaras of diamonds and +eight-guinea hats and three or four new frocks a week, and she hates to +be worried about money matters. "Poor little Chiffon!" says the good, +kind Englishman; "she shall be happy, even though we drift sweetly +toward Carey Street. We must keep it up, though the heavens fall; and +when I come to think of it, I have read somewhere of a man who had only +£500 year, and is now in receipt of £16,000 simply through marrying +an expensive wife." Lower down the scale it is just the same: Chiffon +will have this, Chiffon will have that, and so will the Englishman. It +is only four-three a yard, and it will make up lovely! The Englishman +never doubts that it will. Chiffon discovers that Chiffon next door +has got an oak parlour-organ and a case of birds on the instalment +system. "She is getting them off a Scotsman," says Chiffon; "and I +want some too." "Dry those pretty eyes," says the Englishman; "I will +apply at once for an extra two-bob a week, and it shall be done." The +children of Chiffon next door are "taking music lessons off a lidy in +reduced circumstances." Chiffon's children are as good as the children +of Chiffon next door any day in the week--they, too, shall take music +lessons. The Englishman concurs. + +This, of course, is all when you are married to her. When you are +Chiffon's _fiancé_ (she would not have you say sweetheart or lover +for worlds), you enjoy what is commonly called in England a high old +time. First of all, she will flirt with you till your reason rocks +upon its throne. Then, when you are about as confused as a little boy +who has fallen out of a balloon, she brings you to the idiot-point, +informs you that it is so sudden and that she doesn't quite know +what you mean, and asks you if you do not think it would have been +more manly on your part to have spoken first with her papa. Being an +Englishman, and having nothing better to do, you put up with it and +go guiltily off to Chiffon's delectable male parent. He inquires into +your income in pretty much the manner of a person who is going to +lend you £20 on note of hand only, grunts a bit, asks to be excused +while he has a word with the missis; comes back, says, "Yes, you can +have her," and next morning you find yourself on the same old stool, +in front of the same old shiny desk, wondering what in the name of +heaven you have done. There is a three-years' courtship, all starch +and theatre-tickets and bouquets and fretfulness and anxiety; there is +a wedding pageant, got up specially for the purpose of annoying the +neighbours; you have a whirling twenty minutes before a company of +curates, who persist in calling you by the wrong name; you go home in +shivers; you drink soda-water to prevent you from getting drunk; you +make a speech in the tone of a man who has just been hung; you find +yourself feeling rather queer aboard the Dover packet,--and Chiffon +is yours. Such an experience at a time of life when a man is callow, +shy, full of nerves, and unversed in the serious matters of life is +bound to leave its mark upon the character. It takes the heart out of +most men, and some of them never get it back again. It is an English +institution and a stupid one. Like many another English institution, it +has its basis in pretentiousness and display, instead of in the vital +issues of life. In Scotland we make marriages on different and more +serious principles. There are no Chiffons in Scotland, whether maids +or matrons. Consequently in Scotland there are precious few fools. +Hard heads, sound sense, high spirits, indomitable will, inexhaustible +energy, are not the offspring of mammas who know more about cosmetics +than about swaddling-clothes, and who suckle their children out of +patent-food tins. One of the rebukers of Mr. Crosland has pointed out +with some pertinence that the Scotswoman approximates more closely to +the Wise Man's view of what a good wife should be than almost any other +kind of woman in the world. Here, as Mr. Crosland would say, is Solomon: + + Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies. + + The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall + have no need of spoil. + + She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. + + She seeketh wool, and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands. + + She is like the merchants' ships; she bringeth her food from afar. + + She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her + household, and a portion to her maidens. + + She considereth a field, and buyeth it: with the fruit of her hands + she planteth a vineyard. + + She girdeth her loins with strength, and strengtheneth her arms. + + She perceiveth that her merchandise is good: her candle goeth not out + by night. + + She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her hands hold the distaff. + + She stretcheth out her hand to the poor; yea, she reacheth forth her + hands to the needy. + + She is not afraid of the snow for her household: for all her household + are clothed with scarlet. + + Her husband is known in the gates, when he sitteth among the elders of + the land. + + She maketh fine linen, and selleth it; and delivereth girdles unto the + merchant. + + Strength and honour are her clothing: and she shall rejoice in time to + come. + + She openeth her mouth with wisdom; and in her tongue is the law of + kindness. + + She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the + bread of idleness. + + Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he + praiseth her. + +Yes, Mr. Crosland, it _is_ "very, very, very Scotch." What poor little +Chiffon would think of it, if it were put before her as a standard of +wifely qualification and duty, nobody but the Englishman knows. Perhaps +she would shrug her shoulders and say, "How absurd!" Perhaps she would +not understand it at all. + +The Englishwoman's love of petty display and cheap fripperies, her +desire to outshine the neighbours and to put all she has on her back, +and to pass everywhere for a woman of means and station, no doubt +had its beginning in a laudable anxiety to make the best of things. +Unfortunately, however, the tendency has been developed out of reason, +to the neglect of the qualities which make a woman the inspiration +and strength of a man's life. To dress, and to talking and thinking +about it, the Englishwoman devotes unconscionable hours. The bare +business of robing and disrobing takes up pretty well half her waking +day. Her transference from the bath to the breakfast-table cannot be +accomplished under fifty minutes. Before she will appear in the open +she will make yet another toilet. She is a full twenty minutes tidying +herself before lunch. In the afternoon there is an hour of getting into +tea-gowns; and, crowning rite of all, my lady "strips" for dinner. +From morn to dewy eve her little mind is busy with dress. The shopping, +over which she makes such a fuss, is almost invariably a matter of new +frocks, new hats, new shoes, new feathers, matching this, exchanging +that, sitting on high stools before pomatumed counter-skippers, and +dissipating, in the purchase of sheer superfluities, gold that men have +toiled for. Her visiting is equally an unmitigatedly dressy matter; +she goes to see her friends' frocks, not her friends, and it is the +delight of her soul to turn up in toilettes which render her friends +frankly and miserably envious. Of the real purport of clothes she knows +nothing; and if you endeavour to explain it to her, she will charge +you with the wish to make an old frump of her before her time. As for +the expense of it all, she never bothers her pretty head about money +matters; she tells you in the most childlike way that her account at +the bank seems to be perpetually overdrawn, but that "Randall is a +dear, kind boy, though he does swear a bit when some of the bills come +in. Besides," she says, "I am sure it helps him in his profession to +have a well-dressed wife." + +And the pity of it is, that quite frequently the person upon which +these adornments are lavished is really not worth the embellishment, +and would indeed be far better served and make a far better show in +the least elaborate of garments. For, notoriously, the physique of the +Englishwoman of the middle and upper classes is not now what it was. +In height, in figure, in suppleness and grace of build, the Scottish +woman can give her English sister many points. In the matter of facial +beauty, too, the Englishwoman cannot be said particularly to shine. At +a Drawing-Room, at the opera, the beauty of England spreads itself for +your gaze; and the amazing lack both of beauty and the promise of it +appals you. If we are to believe the society papers, there is not an +ugly nor a plain-featured woman of means in all broad England. Every +week the English illustrated journals give you pages of photographs, +beneath which you may read in entrancing capital letters, "The +beautiful Miss Snooks," or "Lady Beertap's two beautiful daughters." +Yet the merest glance at those photographs convinces you that Miss +Snooks is about as good-looking as the average kitchen-wench, while the +two beautiful daughters of Lady Beertap have faces like the backs of +cabs. The fact is, that the so-called English beauty is a rare thing +and a fragile thing. Fully seventy-five per cent. of Englishwomen are +not beautiful to look upon. Of the other twenty-five per cent., one +here and there--perhaps one in a thousand--could stand beside the Venus +of Milo without blenching. For the rest, they have a girlish prettiness +which accompanies them into their thirtieth year, and sickens slowly +into a sourness. At forty, little Chiffon, who was so pretty at twenty, +has crow's-feet and flat cheeks, and a distinct tendency to the +nut-cracker type of profile. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE SOLDIER + + +"With a tow-row-row-row-row-row for the British Grenadiers!" Which, +of course, means the English Grenadiers, inasmuch as there never were +any Scottish Grenadiers. To-day, however, the English do not sing this +song. Their grandfathers delighted in it, and the tune still survives +as a soldier-man's march. But when the modern English wish to celebrate +the English soldier vocally, they do it in their own decadent, bathotic +way. They have an idiot-song called _Tommy Atkins_. The chorus of it +goes somewhat in this wise: + + Oh! Tommy, Tommy Atkins, + You're a good 'un, heart and hand; + You're a credit to your nation + And to your native land. + + May your hand be ever ready! + May your heart be ever true! + God bless you, Tommy Atkins! + Here's your country's love to you! + +And since the outbreak of the late war, at any rate, the English do not +speak of soldiers, but of Tommies; and the principal English poet has +gone farther, and dubbed them Absent-Minded Beggars. Since the outbreak +of the war, too, it has been necessary to issue from time to time words +of caution to the great English public. Lord Roberts--"Little Bobs," +I suppose, I should call him, in the choice English fashion--has on +two or three occasions deemed it advisable to let it be known that +his desire was that the great English public should discontinue the +practice of treating Cape-bound or returned Tommies to alcoholic +stimulants, and substitute therefor mineral waters or cocoa. This was +very wise on Little Bobs's part, and it has no doubt saved at least +two Cape-bound or returned Tommies from the degradation of an almighty +drunk. I mention this because it illustrates in an exceedingly quaint +way the attitude of the English towards the soldier. When there is +war toward, the soldier is absolutely the most popular kind of man in +England. In peace-time an English soldier is commonly credited with +being socially vile and unpresentable. There is a popular conundrum +which runs, "What is the difference between a soldier and a meerschaum +pipe?" and the answer, I regret to say, is, "One is the scum of the +earth, and the other the scum of the sea." Tommy's place in the piping +times of peace is just at the bottom of the social ladder; there he +must stay, and drink four ale, and smoke cheap shag, and sit at the +back of the gallery in places of amusement. Then war comes along, and +the English bosom expands to the sound of the distant drum, and to +the rumour of still more distant carnage. Who is it that's a-working +this 'ere blooming war? Blest if it ain't our old friend Tommy Atkins! +Fetch him out of the four-ale bar at once. The nation's heroes have +no business in four-ale bars. The saloon bar is the place for them, +and the barmaid shall smile upon them, and they shall have free drinks +and free cigars till all's blue; for they are the nation's heroes, and +they deserve well of their country. Furthermore, if they wish to visit +those great and glorious centres of enlightened entertainment commonly +called the Halls, they shall no longer be stuffed obscurely away in the +rear portion of the gallery, but they shall come out into the light of +things; they shall come blushingly and amid acclaim into the pit or the +stalls, or, for that matter, into any part of the 'ouse. + +Throughout the war this has been so. It was so till yesterday. But +the ancient English smugness has begun to assert itself once more; +and Tommy--dear Tommy, God-bless-you Tommy, in fact--finds staring +him in the face, as of yore, "Soldiers in uniform not served in this +compartment"; "Soldiers in uniform cannot be admitted to any part of +this theatre except the gallery." The English Kipling hit the whole +matter off in his vulgar way when he wrote _Tommy_: + + I went into a theatre as sober as could be; + They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me; + They sent me to a gallery, or round the music-'alls; + But when it comes to fightin'--Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls! + + For it's Tommy this and Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside"; + But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide-- + The troopship's on the tide, my boys--the troopship's on the tide + Oh! it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide. + +We were told that this war, if it were doing England no other good, +was at least bringing her to a right understanding of the soldier-man. +It was teaching her to take him by the hand, to recognise in him a +creditable son and an essential factor in the State. It has ended in +the way in which pretty well every English revival does end--namely, in +smoke. Though England has as much need of the soldier and is as much +dependent upon him for peace and security as any other nation, she has +never been able--excepting, as I have said, in time of war--to bring +her greedy mind to the pass of doing him the smallest honour or of +rendering to him that measure of social credit which is obviously his +by right. + +That the English Tommy is not altogether a delectable person, however, +goes, I think, without saying. According to General Buller and other +more or less competent authorities, the men in South Africa were +splendid. I do not doubt it in the least. On the other hand, the +"returns" from that country have not struck one as reaching a high +standard of savouriness or manliness; and, however splendid he may +have been as a campaigner, as an ex-campaigner the English Tommy has +scarcely shone; so that in a sense the changed attitude of the English +public mind towards him is not to be wondered at. + +Elsewhere in this essay I have pointed out that the late war has not +reflected any too much credit upon that chiefest of snobs--the English +military officer. To go into the army has long been considered good +form among the English Barbarians, and to be an officer in a swagger +regiment may be reckoned one of the best passports to English society. +It gives a man a tone, and puts him on a footing with the highest, +because an officer is a gentleman in a very special sense. But it +is well known that, during the past half-century or so, the English +Barbarians have been too prone to put their sons into the army for +social considerations only, and without regard to their qualification +or call for the profession of arms. And in the long result it has come +to pass that the English army is officered by men who know as little +as possible and care a great deal less about their profession, and are +compelled to leave the instruction, and as often as not the leadership, +of their men to non-commissioned officers. Over and over again in the +South African campaign it was the commissioned officer who blundered +and brought about disaster, and the non-commissioned officers and the +horse sense of the rank and file that saved whatever of the situation +there might be left to save. Probably the true history of the British +reverses, major and minor, in South Africa will never be made public. +But I believe it can be shown that in almost every instance it was +the incapacity or remissness of the English commissioned officer +which lay at the root of the trouble. The fact is, that the monocled +mountebank who is in the army, don't you know, seldom or never +understands his job. He is too busy messing, and dancing, and flirting, +and philandering, and racing, and gambling, and speeding the time +merrily, ever to learn it. That the honour of Britain, and the lives +of Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Irishmen, should be in his listless, damp +hand for even as long as five minutes is an intolerable scandal. That +he should haw and haw, and yaw and yaw, on the barrack-square, and +take a salary out of the public purse for doing it, shows exactly how +persistently stupid the English can be. Of course, the common reply +to any attack upon these shallow-pated incompetents is that you must +have gentlemen for the King's commissions, and that the pay the King's +commissions carry is so inadequate that no gentleman unpossessed of +private means can afford to take one. This is a very pretty argument +and exceedingly English. The money will not run to capable men; +therefore let us fling it away on fools. Army reform, sweeping changes +at the War Office, new army regulations, an army on a business footing, +and so on and so forth, are always being clamoured for by the English +people, and always being promised by the English Government. But +until the day when the granting of commissions and promotion are as +little dependent upon social influence and the influence of money as +advancement in the law or advancement in the arts, the English army +will remain just where it is and just as rotten as it is. + +For downright childishness the modern English soldier, whether he be +officer or file-man, has perhaps no compeer. When the South African War +broke out, Tommy and his officers were men of scarlet and pipe-clay and +gold lace and magnificent head-dresses. Also all drill was in close +order; you were to shove in your infantry first, supported by your +artillery, and deliver your last brilliant stroke with your cavalry. +The men should go into the fray with bands playing, flags flying, and +dressed as for parade. You commenced operations with move No. 1; the +enemy would assuredly reply with move No. 2; you would then rush in +with move No. 3; there would be a famous victory, and the streets of +London would be illuminated at great expense. In South Africa matters +did not quite pan out that way; the enemy declined absolutely to play +the stereotyped war-game, for the very simple reason that they did +not know it, and that South Africa is not quite of the contour of a +chess-board. And so the English had to change their cherished system, +and to learn to ride, and to throw their pretty uniforms into the +old-clothes baskets, and to get out of their old drill into a drill +which was no drill at all, and to give up resting their last hope on +the British square, and to get accustomed to deadly conflict with an +enemy whom they never saw and who never took the trouble to inform +them whether they had beaten him or not. It was all very trying and all +very bewildering, and it is to the credit of the English army that in +the course of a year or two it did actually manage to understand the +precise nature of the work cut out for it and made some show of dealing +with it in a workman-like way. + +Here was a lesson for us, and we learned it. An Englishman, you know, +can learn anything when he makes up his mind to it. And he has learned +this South African lesson thoroughly well; so well, indeed, that it +looks like being the only lesson he will be able to repeat any time +in the next half-century. For what has he done? Well, to judge by +appearances, we must reason this way: "I was not prepared for this +South African business. It was a new thing to me. It gave me a new +notion of the whole art and practice of war. The old authorities were +clean out of it. Therefore I solemnly abjure the old authorities. For +the future I wear slouch-hats and khaki and puttees and a jacket full +of pockets, and I drill for the express notion that I may some day +meet a Boer farmer. The entire sartorial and general aspect of my army +shall be remodelled on lines which might induce one to think that the +sole enemy of mankind was Mr. Kruger, and the great military centre of +the world was Pretoria." It does not seem to occur to the poor body +that his next great trial is not in the least likely to overtake him +in South Africa. He has had to fight on the Continent of Europe before +to-day, and I shall not be surprised if he has to do it again before +many years have passed over his head. Yet, wherever his next large +fighting has to be done, you will find that he will sail into it in his +good old infantile, stupid English way, armed cap-a-pie for the special +destruction of Boers. It is just gross want of sense, and that is all +that can be said for it. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE NAVY + + +Since Trafalgar, the English navy has been the apple of the +Englishman's eye. He holds that the English power is a sea-power; +that these leviathans afloat, the King's ships, are his first line of +defence; and that so long as he keeps the English navy up to the mark +he can defy the world. His method of keeping it up to the mark is most +singular. It consists of tinkering with old ships generation after +generation, laying down new ones which seemingly never get finished, +and of being chronically short of men. The naval critics of England +may be divided sharply into two camps. In the one we have a number +of gentlemen who are naval critics simply because they happen to be +connected with newspapers. These young persons are naturally anxious +to do the best that can be done for their papers and for themselves. +They recognise that if they are to be in a position to obtain immediate +and first-hand information--not to say exclusive information--as +to naval doings, they must stand well with the Admiralty and the +authorities. The Admiralty and the authorities are not in need of +adverse critics. What they like and what they will have are smily, wily +reporters, who will swear with the official word, see with the official +eye, and take the rest for granted. In the other camp of naval critics +you have a bright collection of book-compilers, naval architects, +and patent-mongers, all of whom have some sort of fad to exploit or +some private axe to grind. Hence the amiable English taxpayer knows +just as much at the present moment about his navy as he knew three +years ago about his army. In spite of the perfervid assurances of Mr. +Kipling, and of the ill-written, anti-scare manifestoes of the morning +papers, the English taxpayer knows in his heart that all is not so +well as it might be with the English navy. What is wrong the English +taxpayer cannot tell you; but there it is, and he has a sort of feeling +that, when the big sea-tussle comes, the English navy, being tried, +will be found wanting. Herein I think he shows great prescience. The +superstition to the effect that the English rule the waves has of late +begun to be known for what it is. There are nowadays other Richmonds +in the field, all bent on doing a little wave-ruling on their own +account. And after the first start of surprise and astonishment, the +sleepy, slack, undiscerning Englishman has just let things go on as +they were, and has just dilly-dallied what time the new wave-rulers +were building and equipping the finest battle-ships that modern science +can put afloat, and making arrangements for the acquisition of as much +naval supremacy as they can lay their hands on. And whether the English +navy be or be not as efficient as the Admiralty and the admirals would +have us believe, it is quite certain that, in consequence of budding +wave-rulers, the English navy is not, on the whole, so formidable a +weapon or so impregnable a defence as it ought to be. The fact is, +that in the matter of naval strength, offensive and defensive, the +English are just a quarter of a century behind. They slept whilst their +good friends the French, the Russians, and the Germans were climbing +upward in the dark; and when they woke it was to perceive that another +navy had sprung into existence by the side of the English navy, and +that the task of catching up, of putting the old navy into a position +of absolute supremacy over the new, was well-nigh an impossible one. +You cannot build line-of-battle ships in an hour. Furthermore, the +yards of England, though capable of extraordinary achievements, are +not capable of a greater output than the yards of France, Russia, and +Germany conjoined. Half a century ago the English had a distinct and +preponderating start. When the other powers began to show increased +activity in the matter of shipbuilding, the English said, "It is of +no consequence; let 'em build." They threw their start clean away. The +probabilities are that they will never be able to regain it. + +Quite apart from the large general question, however, and granting +that on paper England's sea-power is equal to that of any three powers +combined, it cannot have escaped the attention of the interested that +the foreign naval experts view our whole flotilla with a singular calm, +and appear to be quite amused when we talk of naval efficiency and +advancement. It is pretty certain that this calm and this amusement are +not based entirely in either ignorance or arrogance. Ships built and +fitted in Continental yards may lack the advantage of being English +built, but they are fighting-ships nevertheless, and they have not much +to lose by comparison with the best English fighting-ships, even when +the comparison is made by English experts. Indeed, it is very much +open to question whether some of the Continental ships are not a long +way ahead of some of the best English ships in destructive power and +possibilities for fight. Of course the common reply to this is, that +it is no good having a fine machine unless you have the right man to +handle it. And Jack, of course,--the honest English Jack,--is the only +man in the world that really knows how to handle fighting-ships. Well, +it may be so, or it may not be so. The Englishman will undoubtedly keep +his engines going and stick to his guns till chaos engulfs him. It +seems possible, too, that he has made himself thoroughly familiar with +every detail of the machine he has got to work, and that he knows his +business in a way which leaves precious little room for more intimate +knowledge. In spite of all this, however, it cannot be denied that the +Continental navy-man is slowly but surely creeping up to the English +standard. That as a rule he is a man of better family than the English +navy-man, that his conditions of service are more favourable, and +that his food and accommodation are better, are all in his favour. +He may lack the steadiness and the grit of the old original English +hearts of oak. Still, he is coming on and making progress; whereas the +old original English hearts of oak do not appear to be getting much +"forrader." Besides, it is well known that the English do not possess +anything like enough of them, and those whom they do possess have such +a love for the service that they take particularly good care to warn +would-be recruits off it. + +From time immemorial the English have made a point of treating the +saviours of their country meanly and shabbily. In the Crimea the +English troops were half-starved and went about in rags, while a lot +of broad-shouldered, genial Englishmen made fortunes out of army +contracts. It was the same in the Transvaal, and it will be the same +whenever England is at war. In peace-time she does manage to keep her +soldiers and sailors decently dressed, but it is notorious that she +nips them in the paunch, and that the roast beef and plum-pudding and +flagons of October which are supposed to be the meat and drink of John +Bull are not considered good for his brave defenders. A beef-fed army +and a beef-fed navy are what Englishmen believe they get for their +money. The rank and file of the army and navy are better informed. With +a navy that is undersized, undermanned, underfed, and underpaid, the +English chances of triumph, when her real strength is put to the test, +are problematical. Meanwhile, we may comfort ourselves with Mr. Kipling +and the _Daily Telegraph_. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE CHURCHES + + +The English have one sauce. But the number of their religions is as the +sands of the sea. Roughly speaking, they divide themselves religiously +into two classes--Anglicans and Nonconformists. The Anglicans, one may +say, are reformed Catholics; the Nonconformists, reformed Anglicans. +Apparently all English religions--with the exception, of course, of +the Catholic religion, which is not counted--date from or since the +Reformation. We know what the Reformation means in Scotland, though +the English notion of it seems to be a trifle vague. We also know in +Scotland what religion means. I doubt if the English have any such +knowledge. One has only to visit an average Anglican or Nonconformist +church on the Sabbath to perceive that in England religion is under +a cloud and has almost ceased to be a spiritual matter. In the first +place, you will notice that the congregation is for the most part +composed of women and children. Englishmen are too busy or too bored to +go to church on the Sabbath. What little faith, what little religious +fervour or feeling, they ever possessed has been knocked out of them, +and they no longer go to church. And this change has been accomplished, +not by the failure of dogmas, not by the spread of free-thought, not +by secularists, anti-clericalists, or philosophers, but simply by an +indolent clergy on the one hand and cheap railway fares on the other. +The mediocre preacher and the new-fangled English week-end have emptied +the churches of England's manhood. The women and children are left, a +puling, bemused crowd, and to these the English shepherds and pastors +blate their cheap ritual and read their ill-considered sermons. + +It is curious to note how easily an English parson or Nonconformist +minister can make a reputation for greatness as a preacher. Let him +be just a little more competent than the average, and people flock +to hear him. I doubt if there is a really great preacher alive in +England to-day. Yet there are three or four who pass for great, and +who are supposed to be in line with St. Paul, John Knox, and Wesley. +To give instances would be invidious, but I have no hesitation in +asserting that the preachments offered in London at the three or four +great churches which are supposed to enshrine orators are, as a rule, +exceedingly feeble efforts, tricked out with gauds and mannerisms, +packed with trite sentiment, and utterly devoid of doctrine, +inspiration, and value. There are not three bishops on the English +bench that can furnish forth a sermon worth going fifty yards to hear. +There is not a Nonconformist minister who has a soul above stodginess, +convention, and a convenient if threadbare Scriptural tag. The +Salvation Army, perhaps, have the fervour and the courage, but they +lack wisdom, and they have no art. The Congregationalists have some of +the wisdom and a touch of the art, but they have no fervour. Indeed, +wherever you turn you find that the recognised English religionists +have given themselves up to a decadent, Hebraic emotion, and let the +solid things of the spirit--the Hebraic culture, the Hebraic vision, +the Hebraic passion--pass by them. + +Gradually the churches of this remarkable country are ceasing to +have anything to do with religion at all. "Religion be hanged!" say +those that run them. "Religion no longer appeals to the wayward, +stony-hearted, over-driven, half-educated English populace. What is +wanted is social brightness and warmth, the religion of brotherhood +and the full belly; so that we will give magic-lantern entertainments +in our churches on the Lord's Day, we will go in 'bald-headed' for +pleasant Sunday afternoons, hot coffee and veal-and-ham pies, and +screws of tobacco given away at the doors, wrapped up in a tract, +which you are at liberty either to read or to light your pipe with." +As for the English priests that had the authority of God, they are no +longer sure whether they have that authority or not. Of course, they +believe they have it in a sacerdotal, canonical, and private way; but +not one of them dare stand up and swear by his powers publicly. The +bishops are all for peace and quietness. "If you please, we are your +friends, and not your masters," say they to their clergy; and their +clergy, to use an English vulgarism, "wink the other eye." And the +clergy, too, in turn are the friends and not the masters of common +men; they are so much your friends, indeed, that, providing you mount +a silk hat on Sunday and put a penny on the plate, you can depend +upon a friendly shake of the hand and a kindly grin of recognition +six days in the week, even though you happen to be a bookmaker or the +keeper of a bucket-shop. For the Nonconformist clergy, if clergy they +may be called, they speak humorously at tea-parties, they enter into +hat-trimming competitions at bazaars, and they play principal guest +at the tables of over-fed tradesmen. There is not a man amongst them +who can say boo to a goose. There is not a man amongst them who as a +social unit is worth the £150 a year and a manse, with £10 per annum +for each child, that a glozing, unintellectual English congregation +hands over to him. Out of the ease and security and respectability +and _dolce far niente_ which the Church of England provides for a +considerable proportion of her priests, she has managed to evolve +a few scholars, a few men of letters, perhaps an odd saint or two, +and an odd man of temperament and mark. But what have the English +Nonconformists produced? Dr. Horton and Dr. Parker, and that G.R. Sims +of religionists, the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes. To this distinguished +triumvirate--though the English Nonconformists will hold up pious hands +of horror at the notion--one may add that valiant thumper of the pulpit +drum, General Booth, who is doing a work in religious decadence and +bathoticism which it will take centuries to undo. Want of heart and +want of mind, coupled with the blessed spirit of tolerance, have indeed +played havoc with the English Churches. + +The loosening of the grip of the Church on English society has, of +course, not been without its results on English morals and on English +society at large. There is a general feeling abroad that religion is +played out, that the system of Hebrew ethics which has been drilled +into the English blood by generations of the faithful was all very +well for the faithful, but is altogether impracticable and out of +harmony with the present intelligent times. You will find Englishmen +nowadays complaining that the taint of spiritualism, asceticism, and +ethical faith which they have inherited from their people is a source +of hindrance to them in the matter of their commercial or social +progress, and their lives are spent in an endeavour to eradicate or to +triumph over that taint. The Archbishop of Canterbury could not run +a tea-shop by the rules laid down in the Sermon on the Mount, they +will tell you; and, what is worse, the Archbishop of Canterbury agrees +with them. "Take all thou hast, and give it to the poor" is out of the +question even for Dr. Horton. Since those blessed words were said, we +are told, the Poor Law has sprung up; we give all that is necessary +for pauperism in the poor-rate; and, thanks to the excellence of our +social system, it is now impossible for man, woman, or child to die +of starvation, provided only that they will work. I have heard it +stated by an English Nonconformist minister that his chief complaint +against the Roman Catholic community in his district was their habit +of being over-liberal to the poor. "No man is refused," observed my +Nonconformist friend, "no matter how dissolute or idle or irreligious +he may be." + +Then in the large question of the employment of human flesh and blood +to make money for you, the modern Englishman finds that he must either +tear the effects of his religious bringing-up out of his heart, or +forego the possibility of becoming really rich, don't you know. It is +all a matter of supply and demand; and if the mass of humanity live +starved lives and die daily in order that I may be fat and warm and +cultured and possessed of surpluses at banks, it is not my fault. You +must really blame supply and demand. With this fine phrase on his lips, +the English capitalist confutes all the philosophies and sets his foot +on the majority of the decencies of life. Of course, I shall be told +that the prince and chief of all hide-bound industrial capitalists is +Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who happens to be a Scot. And I cheerfully admit +that Mr. Carnegie is a very serious case in point. But for our one Mr. +Carnegie, the English have fifty Mr. Carnegies. They may not be so +rich or so famous; but there they are, and the blood and spirit of the +English people suffer accordingly. The religion of the wealthy does not +prevent them from grinding the face of the poor; and the religion of +the middle classes is of pretty much the same order. It is at the hands +of the English middle classes that the English poor suffer a further +and a bitterer depredation. For when you have earned money hardly, you +want good goods for it; and the English middle classes, who are nearly +all shopkeepers, either directly or indirectly, make a point of palming +off on you the very worst goods the law will allow them to sell. + +And, in spite of all, the churches continue to open their doors, new +churches continue to be built, million-pound funds are raised, the +missionary speeds over the blue wave to the succour of the 'eathen, +and English women and children have their pleasant Sunday afternoons, +and bishops keep high-stepping horses; Church and State are grappled +together with hooks of steel, and England is a Christian country. +Till the churches get out of their slippers and their sloth and their +tea-bibbing and their tolerance, matters will go on in the same old +futile, scandalous way. If they are to have charge and direction of +the soul of man, they must remember that the soul of man is a greater +thing than ease, and a greater thing than the Church; they must not +play with the immortal part of humanity, and they must not trifle +with the things which they believe to be of God. In no other country +save England would such churches and such priests as the English now +possess be tolerated or supported; it is the English decadence which +has rendered Englishmen blind to the stupidity and banality of their +pastors and spiritual guides, and it is the English easy-heartedness +which permits the game of cant and cadge and sham to go on unchecked. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE POLITICIAN + + +The flower and exemplar of well-nigh everything that is choicely and +brutally English may be summed up in the English politician. Such a +tub-thumper, such a master of claptrap and the arts and feints and +fetches of oratory, has never been known before since the world began. +He is English, and therefore he knows his business. He has made a study +of it as a business, and without regard to its more serious issues. His +position is, that, if he would do himself well, he must tie himself +hand and foot to some party, and serve that party through thick and +thin. Then in the end, and with good luck, will come reward. You may +be born in a chandler's shop. By birth, therefore, you belong to the +very lower English middle class. Through the practice of a number of +commercial virtues, and with the help of considerable speculation +outside your own business, you become wealthy. Now, wealth without +honour is nothing to an Englishman. He cannot brook that his wealth, +his shining, glorious superfluity, should be hidden under a bushel. +Therefore he seeks municipal honours; he becomes a town councillor, an +alderman, a mayor even. + +But these, after all, are not the summits; they lead at best only to +a common knighthood, and any fool can get knighted if he wants to. So +you determine to seek Parliamentary honours. You subscribe liberally +to the funds of your party, and by-and-by a constituency is found +for you to contest. You lose the fight and subscribe again; another +constituency is found for you, and you win by the skin of your teeth or +with a plumping majority, as the case may be. You are now a full-blown +member of Parliament; it is worth the money and much better than being +a mayor. Up to this time you have been an orator of sorts. You have +held forth from schoolroom platforms and the tops of waggons what time +the assembled populace shouted and threw up its sweaty nightcaps. You +have been carried shoulder high behind brass bands rendering _See, the +Conquering Hero Comes_. Now however, you are really in Parliament; and +for the nonce--for several years, in fact--you must give up talking. +There is plenty for you to do; you may put questions on the paper, +you may get a look in at committee work, you may show electors round +the Houses, and you may go on subscribing liberally to the party +funds. When you have subscribed enough, it is just within the bounds +of possibility that the heads of the party--the Front Bench people, +as it were--will begin to discover that there is virtue in you. You +will be encouraged to make a speech or two at the slackest part of +debates, and some fine day you may be entrusted with the fortunes of +a little Bill which your party wishes to rush through. All the while +you are subscribing liberally to the party funds. After many years, +when you are least expecting it, the bottom seems to fall out of the +universe--that is to say, there is a General Election. You have to +fight your seat; you win; you come nobly back; behold, your party is in +power. Then comes the grand moment of your life. You are shovelled into +the Cabinet on account of services rendered. From this point, if you +possess any ability at all, you can have things pretty much your own +way; and if your ambition has been to hear yourself called "My lord" +before you die, and to see your wife in the Peeresses' Gallery on great +occasions, and your sons swanking about town with "Hon." before their +names, you can manage it. It is a slow job, and it involves many years +of hard work and lavish expenditure; but it is politically possible in +England for a man to be born on the flags and to die properly set forth +in Burke and Debrett. + +I do not say for a moment that the end and aim of every English +politician is the peerage; but I do say that, as a rule, his labours +are directed towards some end of honour or emolument, and seldom or +never to the good of the State. It is ambition, and not patriotism, +that fires his bosom; it is self-aggrandisement, and not a desire +for the welfare of the English people, that keeps him going; and it +is party, and not principle, that guides and rules his legislative +actions. Of course, the great art of being a politician is to hide +these facts from the public. If you went down to your constituency +like an honest man and said, "Gentlemen, I wish you to return me to +Parliament in order that I may make a high position for myself, in +order that I may become a man of rank and the founder of a family," +your constituency would hurl dead cats at you. Therefore you go down +with an altogether different tale: "I am going to the House of Commons, +gentlemen, in your interests and not in mine. It will cost me large +sums of money; besides which, as your member, I shall be expected to +subscribe to all the local cricket clubs. But I have the best interests +of Muckington at heart; and, if you honour me by making me your +representative, money is no object." + +It is a wonderful business, and a great and a glorious. One stands in +astonishment before the bright English intelligence which takes so +much on promise and gets so little performed. An English party never +goes into power with the intention of doing more than half of what it +has promised to do. At election times its great business is to capture +votes: these must be had at any price short of rank bribery. And, once +landed with the blest, the party immediately settles down, not to the +work of carrying out its promises, but to the far more serious business +of keeping itself in power. From the point of view of the careless +lay-observer, the House of Commons is an assemblage for the discussion +of Imperial affairs, with a view to their being managed in the best +possible way. To the politician it is just an arena in which two sets +of greedy men meet to annoy, thwart, ridicule, and bring about the +downfall of each other. + +The amount of interest the Englishman is supposed to take in this +amazing assemblage and its doings makes it plain that the Englishman +himself is well-nigh as foolish and well-nigh as oblique as the person +whom he elects to represent him. Next to royalty itself there is nobody +in England who can command so much attention and such a prominent +place in the picture as the politician. If he be a Cabinet Minister +of any standing, it is impossible for him to walk through the streets +either of London or of any of the English provincial towns without +being immediately recognised and "respectfully saluted"; whereas, if he +happens to have come to any metropolitan district or provincial town +on political business bent, he may depend upon being received at the +proper point by the local authorities, supported by a guard of honour +of the local Volunteers, and he may also depend upon more or less of +an ovation on his way to and from the place of meeting. + +Year in and year out, too, the illustrated papers of every degree +blossom with his latest photograph. Mr. So-and-so in his new motorcar; +Mr. So-and-so playing golf; Mr. So-and-so and the King; Mr. So-and-so +addressing the mob from the railway train,--these are pictures in which +every Englishman has delighted from his youth up, and in which he will +always find great artistic and moral satisfaction. As for the journals +which live out of the personal paragraph, they must give--or imagine +they must give--pride of place to the politician, or perish. Little +anecdotes of the sayings and doings of the politically great are always +marketable. It is not necessary that they should have the slightest +foundation in truth; but they must be neat, reasonably amusing, and +flattering to the personage involved. + +It is when one turns to the English daily papers, however, that one +begins to understand what an extraordinary hold the political interest +has upon the English public mind. It is well known that, in the main, +the debates in the House of Commons are quite dull, colourless, and +somnolent functions. Half of them take place in the presence only of +the Speaker and a quorum. That is to say, nine nights out of ten, +members spend the greater portion of their time in the smoke-rooms, +dining-rooms, and lobbies, and not in the House itself, the simple +reason being that, as a rule, the debates are not interesting. When +some reputable champion of either party gets on his legs, or when +some wag is up, members manage to attend in force; but it is only +at these moments that they do so. Yet, if you pick up an English +morning newspaper, you will find six columns of that sheet devoted to +a report of the proceedings in Parliament; another three columns of +descriptive matter bearing on the same proceedings; and, out of four or +five leaders, three at least deal with the political question of the +moment. Even when Parliament is not sitting, the first leader is never +by any chance other than political. From the point of view of the +dull English mind, nothing more important than a political happening +can happen in this world. Mr. Somebody has called Mr. Somebody else +a liar across the floor of the House of Commons. It is essential +for the well-being of the country at large that the episode should +be reported with a separate subhead and great circumstance in the +Parliamentary report; that the scene should be described by the lively +and picturesque pen of the writer of the Parliamentary sketch; that +the appearance of the gentleman who called the other gentleman a liar +should be dwelt upon in the notes; that instances of other gentlemen +having called gentlemen liars across the floor of the House should +also be given in the notes; and, finally, that a rotund and windy +leader should be written, wherein is discussed gravely the general +advisability of gentlemen calling other gentlemen liars across the +floor of the House; wherein one is assured that, in spite of occasional +regrettable instances of the kind, the English Parliament is the most +decorous and dignified assemblage under the sun; and wherein we cannot +refrain from paying our tribute of respectful admiration to the Right +Honourable the Speaker, whose tact, good sense, and gentleman-like +spirit, coupled with the firmness, resolution, and knowledge of the +procedure of the House becoming to his high position, invariably enable +him to still the storm and to repress the angry passions of our heated +legislators before any great harm has been done. So that a gentleman +who calls another gentleman a liar across the floor of the House of +Commons really renders a great service to Englishmen, inasmuch as he +provides them with a gratuitous entertainment, about which they may +read, talk, and argue for at least twenty-four hours. + +Recognising their own love of politics and political strife, and +knowing in their hearts that the talk in the House of Commons--not to +mention the House of Lords--is, generally speaking, of the flattest +and flabbiest, one would imagine that the wise English would be at +some pains to take measures calculated to brighten up the Parliamentary +debates and render them of real interest. But no such precautions are +taken. When a would-be member of Parliament is heckled, he is never +by any chance asked if he is prepared, at the psychological moment, +to pull the nose of one of the right honourable gentlemen opposite. +Any member of Parliament who, in the middle of a dull debate, would +walk across the floor and box the ears of, say, Mr. Balfour, or Lord +Hugh Cecil, would thereby earn for himself the distinction of being +the best-discussed and best-described man in England for quite half +a week. Considering the small amount of exertion required for such a +proceeding, and the very large amount of notoriety which would accrue +to the person who ventured on it, one wonders that it has never been +done. + +In spite of the abnormal share of publicity and applause which is +extended to the English politician, however, the solemn fact remains +that he is seldom a person of any real force, capacity, understanding, +or character. Commonplace, mediocre, insincere, inept, are the epithets +which best describe him. He passes through the legislative chamber or +chambers, says his say in undistinguished speeches, casts his vote, +earns his place, his pension, or his peerage, and passes beyond our +echo and our hail. The daily papers manufacture for him an obituary +notice varying in length from five lines to a couple of columns, and +nobody wants to hear anything more about him. As a matter of fact, he +has left the world neither wiser nor wittier nor happier than he found +it. If he has made one phrase or uttered one sentiment that sticks in +men's minds, he is fortunate. Neither history nor posterity will have +anything to say about him, though in his day he kicked up some fuss and +took up a lot of room. In short, politics as a career in England is +not a career for solid, serious men. It merely serves the turn of the +specious, the shallow, the incompetent, and the vainglorious. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +POETS + + +It may be set down as an axiom that a nation which is in the proper +enjoyment of all its faculties, which is healthy, wealthy, wise, and +properly conditioned, must be producing a certain amount of poetry. +From the beginning this has been so; it will be so to the end. When +England was at her highest, when the best in her was having full play, +she produced poets. Right down into the Victorian Era she went on +producing them. Then she took to the Stock Exchange and an ostentatious +way of life, and the supply of poets fell off. If we except Mr. +Swinburne, who does not belong rightfully to this present time, +there is not a poet of any parts exercising his function in England +to-day. Furthermore, any bookseller will tell you that the demand for +poetry-books by new writers has practically ceased to exist. + +These statements will be called sweeping by a certain school of +critics, and I shall be asked to cast my eye round the English nest of +singing-birds, and to answer and say whether Mr. So-and-so be not a +poet, and Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. So-and-so, and Mr. So-and-so. I shall +also be asked to say if I am prepared to deny that of Mr. So-and-so's +last volume of verse three hundred copies were actually sold to +the booksellers. For the propounders of such questions I have one +answer--namely, it may be so. + +In the meantime let us do our best to find an English poet who is worth +the name, and who is prescriptively entitled to be mentioned in the +category which begins with Chaucer and ends with Mr. Swinburne. Shall +we try Mr. Rudyard Kipling? Tested by sales and the amount of dust he +has managed to kick up, Mr. Kipling should be a poet of parts. He is +still young, and, happily, among the living; but it cannot be denied +that as a poet he has already outlived his reputation. Two years ago he +could set the English-speaking nations humming or reciting whatever he +chose to put into metre. Some of his little things looked like lasting. +Already the majority of them are forgotten. To the next generation, +if he be known at all, he will be known as the author of three +pieces--_Recessional_, the _L'Envoi_ appended to _Life's Handicap_, and +_Mandalay_. What is to become of such verses as the following? + + 'Ave you 'eard o' the Widow at Windsor, + With a hairy gold crown on 'er 'ead? + She 'as ships on the foam--she 'as millions at 'ome, + An' she pays us poor beggars in red. + ('Ow poor beggars in red!) + + There's 'er nick on the cavalry 'orses, + There's 'er mark on the medical stores-- + An' 'er troopers you'll find with a fair wind be'ind + That takes us to various wars. + (Poor beggars! barbarious wars!) + + Then 'ere's to the Widow at Windsor, + An' 'ere's to the stores and the guns, + The men an' the 'orses what makes up the forces + O' Missis Victorier's sons. + (Poor beggars! Victorier's sons!) + +At the time of their appearance these lines and the like of them +were vastly admired; everybody read them, most people praised them. +They were supposed to stir the English blood like a blast of martial +trumpets. Here at length was the poet England had been waiting for. +There could be no mistake about him; he had the authentic voice, the +incommunicable fire, the master-touch. He had come to stay. At the +present moment the bulk of his metrical work is just about as dead and +forgotten as the coster-songs of yesteryear. He has not even made a +cult; nobody quotes him, nobody believes in him as a poetical master, +nobody wants to hear any more of him. His imitators have all gone back +to the imitation of better men. If a copy of verses have a flavour +of Kipling about it nowadays, editors drop it as they would drop a +hot coal. So much for the poet of empire, the poet of the people, the +metrical patron of Thomas Atkins, Esq. + +Another poet of empire--Mr. W.E. Henley--has fared very little better. +"What can I do for England?" is, I believe, still in request among the +makers of a certain class of anthology; but English poetry in the bulk +is just the same as if Mr. Henley had never been. Even the balderdash +about "my indomitable soul" has fallen out of the _usus loquendi_ of +young men's Christian associations and young men's debating societies. +_The Song of the Sword_ is sung no longer; _For England's Sake_ has +gone the way of all truculent war-poetry; and out of _Hawthorn and +Lavender_ perhaps a couple of lyrics remain. Mr. Henley attacked Burns +when Burns had been a century dead. Who will consider it worth while to +attack Mr. Henley in, say, the year 2002? + +Possibly the real, true English poet who will in due course put on the +laurel of Mr. Austin is Mr. Stephen Phillips. Yet Mr. Stephen Phillips +is a purveyor of metrical notions for the stage, and in his last great +work--_Ulysses_--I find him writing as follows: + + ATHENE. Father, whose oath in hollow hell is heard, + Whose act is lightning after thunder-word, + A boon! a boon! that I compassion find + For one, the most unhappy of mankind. + + ZEUS. How is he named? + + ATHENE. Ulysses. He who planned + To take the towered city of Troy-land-- + A mighty spearsman, and a seaman wise, + A hunter, and at need a lord of lies. + With woven wiles he stole the Trojan town + Which ten years' battle could not batter down: + Oft hath he made sweet sacrifice to thee. + + ZEUS (_nodding benevolently_). I mind me of the savoury smell. + + ATHENE. Yet he, + When all the other captains had won home, + Was whirled about the wilderness of foam: + For the wind and the wave have driven him evermore, + Mocked by the green of some receding shore. + Yet over wind and wave he had his will, + Blistered and buffeted, unbaffled still. + Ever the snare was set, ever in vain-- + The Lotus Island and the Siren strain; + Through Scylla and Charybdis hath he run, + Sleeplessly plunging to the setting sun. + Who hath so suffered, or so far hath sailed, + So much encountered, and so little quailed? + +Which is exactly the kind of poetry one requires for the cavern scene +of a New Year's pantomime. + +Possibly, again, the real, true English poet is Mr. William Watson, +with his tiresome mimicry of Wordsworth and his high-and-dry style of +lyrical architecture. Mr. Watson is believed to have done great things, +but his rôle now appears to be one of austere silence; he is what the +old writers would have termed a costive poet. And if his _Collected +Poems_ are to be the end of him, his end will not be long deferred. +Or, possibly, the one and only poet our England of to-day would wish +to boast is Mr. Arthur Symons. Mr. Symons writes just the kind of +poetry one might expect of a versifier who, in early youth, had loved a +cigarette-smoking ballet-girl, and could never bring himself to repress +his passion. Here is a sample of Mr. Arthur Symons at his choicest: + + The feverish room and that white bed, + The tumbled skirts upon a chair, + The novel flung half open where + Hat, hair-pins, puffs, and paints are spread. + + * * * * * + + And you, half dressed and half awake, + Your slant eyes strangely watching me; + And I, who watch you drowsily, + With eyes that, having slept not, ache: + + This (need one dread? nay, dare one hope?) + Will rise, a ghost of memory, if + Ever again my handkerchief + Is scented with White Heliotrope. + +No doubt, if the English continue to descend the moral Avernus at their +present rate of speed, Mr. Symons will become, by sheer process of +time, the representative poet of the nation. It is part of a poet's +duty to look into the future, and Mr. Symons appears to have taken the +next two or three generations of Englishmen by the forelock. May he +have the reward which is his due! + +For the rest, they all mean well, and they all aim high; but one is +afraid that nothing will come of them. There are Francis Thompson, and +Laurence Housman, and Henry Newbolt, and Laurence Binyon, and F.B. +Money-Coutts, and Arthur Christopher Benson, and Victor Plarr--amiable +performers all, but each a standing example of poetical shortcoming. +Perhaps one ought not to mention Mr. John Davidson and Mr. W.B. Yeats, +because Mr. Davidson is a Scot, and Mr. Yeats, putatively, at any rate, +an Irishman. In some respects these twain may be considered the pick +of the basket. I am constrained to admit, however, that neither of them +has as yet fulfilled his earlier promise. + +So that, on the whole, England is practically without poets of marked +or extraordinary attainments. The reason is not far to seek. She is +losing the breed of noble bloods; her greed, her luxuriousness, her +excesses, her contempt for all but the material, are beginning to find +her out. Her youths, who should be fired by the brightest emotions, are +bidden not to be fools, and taught that the whole duty of man is to be +washed and combed and financially successful. Consequently that section +of English adolescence which, in the nature of things, begins with +poetry and gladness very speedily throws up the sponge. Consecration +to the muse is no longer thought of among Englishmen. They cannot be +content to be published and take their chance. The dismal shibboleth, +"Poetry does not pay," wears them all down. What is the good of +writing verses which bring you neither reputation nor emolument? One +must live, and to live like a gentleman by honest toil, and devote +one's leisure instead of one's life to poetry, is the better part. +Meanwhile, England jogs along quite comfortably. She can get Keats for +a shilling, and Shakespeare for sixpence. Why should she worry herself +for a moment with the new men? + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +FICTION + + +After much patient thinking, the English have come to the conclusion +that there is but one branch of literary art, and that its name is +Fiction. And by fiction the English really mean the six-shilling novel. +I do not think it is too much to say, that since the six-shilling novel +was first thrust upon our delighted attention it has never brought +within its covers six shillings' worth of reading. The high priest +and the high priestess who serve to the right and left of the altar +of six-shillingism are, as every one knows, Mr. Hall Caine and Miss +Marie Corelli. Each of them wears a golden ephod, with a breastplate of +jewels arranged to spell out the magic figures, One Hundred Thousand. +All the other priests of the Tabernacle look with awe and envy upon +these two, because the other priests' breastplates have hard work to +spell out fifty thousand, and some of them do not even achieve one +thousand five hundred. Burnt-offerings of Caine and Corelli therefore +fill the place with savour. A pair of sorrier writers never was on sea +or land. Everybody knows it, nobody denies it, and nobody seems sad +about it. The six-shilling novel is an established English institution. +Caine and Corelli are its prop and stay, and the rest do their best to +keep in the running and pick up the minor money-bags. + +The perusal of six-shilling fiction is practically a sort of mania. It +has seized in its grip the fairest England has to show, particularly +matrons, the younger women, and stockbrokers. For the Englishwoman the +daily round would lose its saltness did she not have handy the newest +six-shilling novel by Mr. Caine, Miss Corelli, or the next literary +bawler in the market-place. There are shops called "libraries," to +which the Englishwoman repairs for her supplies of literary pabulum. +Here the six-shilling novel has a great time. Strapped together +in sixes, or packed in boxes of dozens, it is handed forth to the +carriages of its fair devourers, and taken right away to its repose +in the cultured homes of Bayswater and Kensington. From morning till +night many Englishwomen do little but read this precious stuff. What +they get out of it amounts in the long run to hysteria and anæmia. It +brings about a general deadening of the mind and a general jaggedness +of the emotions, coupled with an utter incapacity to take any save an +exaggerated view of the facts of life. Discontent, disillusionment, +ennui, boredom, ill-temper, a sharp tongue, and a cynical spirit are +other symptoms which the six-shilling novel is prone to evoke. The +habit is worse than opium or haschisch or tea cigarettes. It is just +the devil, and that is all you need say about it. The persons employed +in the opium traffic are supposed to be very wicked. To my mind, the +persons employed in the fiction traffic are as wicked as wicked can +be. When the foul disease began first to make its ravages obvious, +there were not wanting persons who would have checked it and provided +remedies for it. These persons squeaked somewhat, and nothing more +has been heard of them. So the thing goes on unrestrained, and even +applauded by press and pulpit alike; and the Englishwoman has become +a confirmed, inveterate, and incurable fiction-reader. If a man have +an enemy to whom he would do an abiding injury, let him persuade that +enemy to obtain the six more popular six-shilling novels of the moment, +and read them through. If the man's enemy sticks to his bargain--at +which, however, he will probably shy in the middle of the second +volume--the chances are that he gets up from that reading a broken and +spiritless man. His brain will be as saggy as a sponge full of treacle, +and his vision as unreliable as that of the alcoholist who always saw +two cabs, and invariably got into the one that was not there. + +Seriously, however, what is there about this English fiction--or, +for that matter, about Scottish fiction--that men and women should +buy it and devour it to the exclusion of all other literary fare? +It is ill-written, it is not original, it is not like life, it is +not beautiful, it is not inspiring, it does not touch the profound +emotions, it means nothing, and it ends nowhere. The reason of its +popularity is, that it appeals to an indolent habit of mind, and, as a +general rule, is calculated to excite the passions, and particularly to +open up questions which experience has shown to be best left alone. In +nine cases out of ten, where a popular work of fiction is concerned, +it is always possible to put one's finger on the chapter or passages +on which its popularity is based; and in nine cases out of ten that +chapter or those passages have to do with sexual matters. The questions +which arise out of the relation of man and woman are no doubt vitally +important and most interesting; but that they should be discussed in +an unscientific, irresponsible, and catch-penny way by everybody who +can trail a pen is something of a scandal. If an author can succeed in +inventing a sexual situation which could not by any possible chance +exist for a moment in real life, or if he can put a glow and a gloss on +the tritenesses of love and lust, his success as a fictionist is to all +intents and purposes assured. What is sometimes spoken of as wholesome +fiction scarcely exists--anyway, nobody reads it. It is the carefully +constructed book about sex that sells and is read. Such a book need +not be flagrant, as was once thought to be the case; it can be "a work +of art"--a thing of veiled suggestion, delicate, unobjectionable, and +seemingly meet to be read. + +One has hesitation in asserting that such books ought not to be written +or ought not to be circulated. It is difficult to justify any attitude +of intolerance in such a matter; yet the fact remains that the maids +and matrons of England, together with the men who have the leisure and +sufficient lack of brains to read fiction, are being stuffed season by +season and year by year with about the most undesirable kind of sexual +philosophy that could well be placed before them. Of any Englishwoman +of the leisured class above the age of sixteen years it may be said, +as was said of the late Professor Jowett in a different sense, "What +I don't know isn't knowledge." And the instructor in all cases is a +fictionist. If a man took his notion of business, or politics, or art, +out of six-shilling novels, he would be set down for a fool. Yet most +Englishwomen get their view of love and the married relation from these +extraordinary works, and it is taken for granted that nobody is a penny +the worse. For my own part, I should incline to the opinion that the +only persons who are a penny, not to say six shillings, the worse, are +the English middle and upper classes as a body. + +Much has been said in derision of what the English call the Kailyard +school of fiction--Kailyard fiction being, I need scarcely say, a +brand of fiction written by Scotsmen usually in Scotland, and sold in +the English and the American markets. Everybody of taste and judgment +cheerfully admits that Kailyarders are not persons of genius. For +the delectation of the Southerner they have made a Scotland of their +own, the which, however, is not Scotland. They have made a Scottish +sentiment, a Scottish point of view, a Scottish humour, a Scottish +pathos, and even a Scottish dialect, which may be reckoned quite +doubtful. At the same time, one looks in vain to the Kailyarders for +anything that is worse than slobber--anything really noxious and +dreadful, that is to say. One might read Kailyard for ever and a day +without coming to great moral grief. Indeed, I would point out that, +on the whole, the Kailyard system of ethics partakes somewhat of the +character of the system of ethics which used to be unfolded in the +melodrama of our grandfathers' days. Virtue rewarded, vice punished, +is the moral upshot of it. And in any case, and let it be as bad +and as meretricious and as greatly to be deprecated as one will, we +must always remember that the Kailyard book is a work invented and +manufactured, not for Scotsmen, but for the Anglo-Saxon--the Englishman +and his offshoots. + +Some months back a considerable hubbub arose in English literary +circles because M. Jules Verne had been saying to an interviewer, +at Amiens of all places in the world! that the novel as a form of +literary expression was doomed, and would gradually die out of popular +favour. It is safe to say that, in the eyes of sundry critics of +pretty well every nationality, the novel has been doomed any time this +last fifty years. Yet the novel comes up smiling every time. Since it +was reduced in price to six shillings in England it has undoubtedly +deteriorated, not only as a piece of writing, but also in the matter +of ethical intention. So long as it remains the prey of some of its +latter-day exploiters, so long will it continue to deteriorate. So +long as the English mind continues to be feeble and unwholesome, and +to yearn for artificial thrills and undesirable emotions, so long will +English fiction continue to be of its present decadent quality. As the +capitalist says, it is all a question of supply and demand. The great +aim of writers of fiction, or at any rate of ninety-nine per cent. of +them, is to produce an article that will sell. You must turn out what +the public want, and they will assuredly buy it. The knack of hitting +the public taste looks easy to acquire, and the fictionist strives +after it with all his might. Many are called to make fortunes out of +novel-writing: few are chosen. But nobody can examine the work of those +few without perceiving that for weal or woe--principally for woe--they +know their business. + +Of course, it goes without saying that a very considerable amount of +fiction is published in England which is just as mild and just as +innocuous as tinned milk. To this puling variety of fiction, however, +the English do not appear to be very greatly drawn. It crops up with +great regularity every publishing season, it is solemnly reviewed in +the critical journals, and it even stands shoulder by shoulder with +stronger meat in the bookshops. But the fact remains that it does +not sell; to see "Second Edition" on it is the rarest occurrence. In +fine, the English will have their fiction spiced, and highly spiced, +or not at all. Mealy mouthed writers, over-reticent, over-blushful, +over-austere writers, they do not want; neither have they any +admiration for a writer who is plagued with a feeling for style, and +who may be reckoned an artist in the collocation of words. Their +much-vaunted Meredith has never had the sale of a Crockett or a Barrie +or a Hocking, or, for that matter, of a J.K. Jerome. The English have +little or no literary taste, little or no literary acumen, and they +expect their fictionists to give them anything and everything save what +is edifying. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +SUBURBANISM + + +Of old--that is to say, twenty years ago--the great majority of the +English people suffered from a mental and general disability which was +termed "provincialism." If you hailed from Manchester, or Liverpool, +or Birmingham, or Edinburgh, or Glasgow, the kind gentlemen in London +who size people up and put them in their places assured you that you +were a provincial, and that you would have to rub shoulders a great +deal with the world--by which they meant London--before you could +rightly consider yourself qualified to exist. Against the epithet +"provincial," however, not a few persons rebelled, when it was applied +flatly to themselves. Most men of feeling felt hurt when you called +them provincial. In the world of letters and journalism to call a +man provincial was the last and unkindest cut of all, and it usually +settled him, just as to say that he has no sense of humour settles +him to-day. Then up rose Thomas Carlyle and Robert Buchanan and a few +lesser lights, who said, "You call us provincials: provincials we +undoubtedly are, and we glory in the character." This rather baffled, +not to say amazed, the lily-fingered London assessors, and gradually +the term "provincial," as a term of opprobrium, passed out of use. + +It is admitted now on all hands that the provincial is a very useful +kind of fellow; and when the metropolis feels itself running short of +talent and energy, the provincial is invariably invited to look in. +Latterly, however, the Londoner and the dweller in English provincial +cities have begun to exhibit a distinctly modern disorder, which may be +called, for want of a better term, "suburbanism." In London, which may +be taken as the type of all English cities, suburbanism is pretty well +rampant. It has its origin in what the Americans would call "location." +A man's daily work lies, say, in the City or in the central quarters of +London. For various reasons--such, for example, as considerations of +health, expenditure, and custom--it is practically impossible for him +to live near his work. He must live somewhere; so he goes to Balham, +or Tooting, or Clapham, or Brondesbury, or Highgate, or Willesden, or +Finchley, or Crouch End, or Hampstead, or some other suburban retreat. +London is ringed round with these residential quarters, these little +towns outside the walls. A visitor to any one of them is at once struck +with its striking and painful similarity to all the others. There is +a railway station belonging to one of the metropolitan lines; there +is a High Street, fronted with lofty and rather gaudy shops; there is +a reasonable sprinkling of churches and chapels; there is a brand-new +red-brick theatre; and the rest is row on row and row on row of villa +residences, each with its dreary palisading and attenuated grass-plot +in front, and its curious annex of kitchen, or scullery, behind. Miles +and miles of these villas exist in every metropolitan suburb worth the +name; and though the rents and sizes of them may vary, they are all +built to one architectural formula, and all pinchbeck, ostentatious, +and unlovely. No person of judgment, nobody possessed of a ray of the +philosophic spirit, can gaze upon them without concluding at once that +the English do not know how to live. Take a street of these villas, big +or little, and what do you find? You note, first, that nearly every +house, be it occupied by clerk, Jew financier, or professional man, +has got a highfalutin name of its own. The County Council or local +authority has already bestowed upon it a number. But this is not enough +for your suburbanist, who must needs appropriate for his house a name +which will look swagger on his letter-paper. Hence No. 2, Sandringham +Road, Tooting, is not No. 2, Sandringham Road, Tooting, at all; but +The Laurels, if you please. No. 4--not to be outdone--is Holmwood; +No. 6 is Hazledene; No. 8, The Pines; No. 10, Sutherland House; and +so forth. Then, again, if you walk down a street and keep your eye on +the front windows of this thoroughfare of mansions, you will note that +every one of those windows has cheap lace curtains to it, and that +immediately behind the centre of the window there is a little table, +upon which loving hands have placed a green high-art vase, containing a +plant of sorts. And right back in the dimness of the parlour there is a +sideboard with a high mirrored back. + +If you made acquaintance with half a dozen of the occupiers of these +houses, and were invited into the half dozen front rooms, you would +find in each, in addition to the sideboard before mentioned, a piano +of questionable manufacture, a brass music-stool with a red velvet +cushion, an over-mantel with mirrored panels, a "saddle-bag suite," +consisting of lady's and gent's and six ordinary chairs and a couch; +a centre-table with a velvet-pile cloth upon it, a bamboo bookcase +containing a Corelli and a Hall Caine or so, together with some +sixpenny Dickenses picked up at drapers' bargain-sales, Nuttall's +_Dictionary_, _Mrs. Beeton's House Book_, a Bible, a Prayer Book, +some hymn-books, a work-basketful of socks waiting to be darned, and +a little pile of music, chiefly pirated. At night, when Spriggs comes +home to The Laurels, he has an apology for late dinner, gets into +his slippers, and retires with Mrs. Spriggs, and perhaps his elder +daughter, into that parlour. There he reads a halfpenny newspaper till +there is nothing left in it to read; then he talks to Mrs. Spriggs +about that beast So-and-so, his employer; and Mrs. Spriggs tells him +not to grumble so much, and asks the elder daughter why she doesn't +play a chune to 'liven us up a bit. "Yes," says Spriggs, "what is the +good of having a piano, and me buying you music every Saturday, if you +never play?" Whereupon the elder daughter rattles through _Dolly Gray_, +_The Honeysuckle and the Bee_, and _Everybody's Loved by Some One_; +and Spriggs beats time with his foot till he grows weary, and thinks we +had better have supper and get off to bed. + +This kind of thing is going on right down both sides of Sandringham +Road--at Holmwood, at Hazledene, at The Pines, and at Sutherland House, +as well as at The Laurels--every week-day evening between the hours of +eight and midnight. In point of fact, it is going on all over Tooting. +It is the suburban notion of an 'appy evening at home; and, hallowed as +it is by wont and custom, everybody in Tooting takes it to be the best +that life can offer after business hours. Perhaps it is. Just before +supper, or haply a little afterwards, however, Spriggs says that he +believes he will take a little stroll "round the houses." He puts on +a straw hat in summer and a tweed cap in winter, and proceeds gravely +down the Sandringham Road until he reaches a break in the long array +of villas, and is aware of a rather flaring public-house. Into the +saloon bar of this hostelry he walks staidly, nods to the company, +and asks the barmaid for a drop of the usual. "Let me see," says that +sweet lady; "Johnny Walker, is n't it?" "Well, you know it is," says +Spriggs, as he hands over threepence. With the glass of whisky in his +hand he retires to the nearest red plush settee, and looks listlessly +at the illustrated papers on the little table in front of him, drinks +somewhat slowly, smokes a pipe, exchanges a word about the weather with +the landlord of the establishment, says there's time for another before +closing time, has another, and at twelve-thirty trots off home. + +The seven or eight other men in the saloon bar being respectively the +occupiers of Holmwood, Hazledene, The Pines, Sutherland House, etc., +have done almost exactly as Spriggs has done in the way of drinks and +nods and illustrated papers and having a final at twenty minutes past +twelve. But during the whole evening they have not exchanged a rational +word with one another. They have nothing to talk about; therefore they +have not talked. They are neighbours, and they know it; but they all +hold themselves to be so much superior to one another that they have +scorned to speak to each other, except in the most cursory and casual +way. Next morning, at a few minutes to nine o'clock, they will all be +scooting anxiously along the Sandringham Road with set faces, damp +brows, and a fear at their hearts that they are going to miss their +train. They will travel in packed carriages, half of them standing up, +while the other half growls, to Ludgate Hill or Moorgate Street, as the +case may be, and then rush off again to their respective offices, in +fear and trembling this time lest they should be three minutes late and +the "governor" might notice it. + +This is the life of the males in the Sandringham Road year in and +year out. Through living in the same houses, in the midst of the +same furniture, listening to the same pianos, drinking at the same +public-houses, going to business in the same trains, they become as +like one another as peas. They are all anxious, all dull, all short of +sleep, all short of money. In brief, they have become suburbanized. +The monotony and snobbery and listlessness of their home life are +reflected in their conduct of the working-day's affairs. There is not a +man amongst them who has a soul above his job. Each of them sticks at +business, not because he loves it or likes it, but simply because he +knows that, if he were discovered in a remissness, he would get what he +calls "the sack." Each of them "lunches"--oh, this English lunch!--at +the bar of a public-house on a glass of bitter beer and a penny Welsh +rare-bit. Each of them feels a bit chippy and not a little sleepy of +an afternoon, and each of them races for his train in the evening, +chock-full of worry and bad-temper. You must live in the suburbs if you +are to live in London at all, and there is no escape from it. + +The lines of the female suburbians are cast in more or less pleasant +places. They do not need to go to town every day. There are shops +galore, filled with just the goods they want, round the corner; and +there is always the next female on both sides to gossip with. For, +unlike the male suburbian, the female suburbian will talk to her +neighbours. Her conversation is of babes, and butchers' meat, and the +piece at the theatre, and the bargains at the stores in the High Road, +and "him." He, or "him," means the good lady's husband. She never by +any chance refers to him either by his Christian name, or his surname, +or as "my husband." It is always, "He said to me this morning," or, "As +I was saying to him before he went to business,"--which, I take it, +is a peculiarly English habit. The female suburbian goes out to tea +sometimes, usually at the house of some suburban relative. Her dress is +a curious blend of ostentation and economy. She will be in the fashion; +and, being an Englishwoman, "expense is no object," providing she can +get the money. She has no notion of thrift; she is perennially in +arrears with the milk and the insurance man; and when money gets very +tight indeed, she lectures her husband on his wicked inability to make +more than he is getting. The whole life, whether for male or female, is +dreary, harried, unrelieved, and destructive of everything that tends +to make life affable and tolerable. + +In view of the obvious evils suburbanism has brought about in the +English metropolis, it might have been expected that the English +provincial cities would have done their best to avoid similar troubles +in their own areas. So far from this being the case, however, the craze +for suburbanism is making itself apparent wherever one turns. City +and borough councils lead the way by erecting, at the public expense, +artisans' and clerks' dwellings well out of the town. They hold that +fresh air, the open country, and cheap railway fares are all that is +wanted to make the English citizen's life a perennial joy to him. +Yet the dwellings they erect are of the shoddiest and least homelike +kind, the fresh-air which is to do the worker and the children so +much good is a doubtful quantity, and the cheap railway fares are +bragged about without regard to the time taken up in travelling and the +hurry and anxiety to catch trains. Suburbanism as a stereotyped and +soul-deadening institution is of purely English origin. In no other +country in the world do convention and what other people will say so +rule the lives of men as they do in England. Suburbanism is in many +ways the most obvious of the many products of English convention. It +is at once an indication of brainlessness, want of intelligence, and +incipient decay. Apparently there is to be no limit to it. Outside +London new suburbs spring up almost weekly. But their newness brings no +changes in its train. Each new suburb is mapped out and built exactly +on the lines of the old ones; each is destined for the reception of +exactly the same kind of stupid people; each will be the living-ground +of generations of people still more stupid. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +THE MAN-ABOUT-TOWN + + +The English man-about-town--and I am not acquainted with any other +sort--is, to put it mildly, a devil of a fellow. Who he may be, how +he gets a living, whether he gets a living, how and why he became a +man-about-town, and whether, after all, he is really a man-about-town, +are matters which are wrapt in mystery. Everybody knows him, yet nobody +knows much about him. You meet him everywhere, yet nobody can tell +you how he gets there. His acquaintance is astonishing, ranging from +dustmen to dukes, as it were; he cuts nobody, though he is intimate +with nobody; he is familiar with his world and all that it expects of +him; and he plays the game skilfully, correctly, and as a gentleman +should. There are droves of him in London; probably no other city in +the world could, with comfort, accommodate so many of him. He lives +in the sun; he is the joy and pride of the restaurateurs' and the +café-keepers' hearts; no billiard-room is complete without him; he +shines at bars of onyx; music-halls and theatres could not get on +without him; and, on the whole, it is his useful and pleasing function +to keep the West End of London and its offshoots going. What the West +End of London means to the man-about-town is a large question. It means +clubs in the morning, with a tailor, a hatter, a bookmaker or two, +thrown in; it means expensive lunches, lazy, somnolent afternoons, big +dinners, hard drinking, cards, night clubs, and a day that ends at +three o'clock in the morning. Nobody but an Englishman could stand the +racket; nobody but an Englishman could find satisfaction in so doing. + +The man-about-town is the last expression of an unhealthy plutocracy; +he is the child of means, the son of his father, the pampered darling +of his mother; and he has never understood that life was anything more +than a frivolous holiday. Whether he has money or happens to have spent +it all, he sets the standard of expenditure for everybody who would be +considered in the movement. He also sets the fashion in hats, coats, +trousers, fancy waistcoats, shoes, walking-sticks, and scarf-pins for +Englishmen at large. It never occurs to him that he does this, but he +does it. He it is, too, who is the prime supporter and patron of the +manly English sports, horse-racing, glove-fighting, coaching, moting, +polo, shooting, fishing, yachting, and so forth. In these exercises he +finds great delight. When he is not busy dining and wining and painting +the town red, sport is the mainstay of his existence. + +He is usually young till he reaches the age of thirty, when he begins +to decline rapidly. But the older he gets the younger he gets. Although +he may lose his hair, and be compelled to have resort to false teeth +and elastic stockings, his spirits are invariably of the cheerfullest, +his laugh is boisterous, his interest in life acute, and he continues +to be passionately fond of food and drink. It is not till his locks +become hoar, his purse well-nigh empty, and the number of his years +well over threescore-and-ten that he begins to droop. Englishmen will +point him out to you in cafés, and say with hushed voices, "You see +that man,--the one with the frowsy beard and his hat atilt--well, he +spent a hundred and fifty thousand twice! A hundred and fifty thousand, +my boy! What did he do with it? Oh, well, what do people do with money? +There's a man, sir, that's seen life: used to have a house in Berkeley +Square; has owned three Derby winners; built the Thingamybob Theatre +for Miss Jumpabouty; knows everybody; has hobnobbed with the King when +he was Prince of Wales; used to be hand-in-glove with the Duke of ---- +and that crowd; and now, damme! he hasn't a pennypiece." + +All this with the air of a person who is showing you something worth +seeing. It is the English fatuity, first of all, to admire the man who +is possessed of wealth; secondly, to admire a man who is throwing his +money away; and, thirdly, to look with respectful awe upon the man who +has thrown it away. It warms the English heart and fires the English +imagination to see the son of a recently deceased provision-dealer +playing the prince at the best hotels, plunging at Ascot and Monte +Carlo, buying up the stalls at the Frivolity at the behest of Lottie +Flutterfast, and generally flinging to the winds the hard-earned and, +to a great extent, ill-gotten estate of his late lamented parent. +By all the best people--by all the best English people, that is to +say--such a youth is received and made welcome, if not exactly taken to +the bosom. Englishmen ask him to dinner simply because he has money. +They are aware that his courses will not bear examination, that his +tastes are gross, that his intellect is none of the brightest. He has +nothing to say for himself; he is neither entertaining, nor amusing, +nor instructive. The Englishman has no ulterior designs upon him; he +does not hope to get him into this or that financial swim, neither does +he desire to marry his daughter to him; he simply feels that it is well +to be friendly with money and the man-about-town. + +Even a bankrupt or "broke" man-about-town is better to the Englishman +than none at all. With such a person he will foregather and be pleasant +in the sight of all men. "Old So-and-so," he says, "is a dear old +sort. He is broke, of course, and sometimes he rather worries one +for sovereigns. But I have never deserted a pal in adversity in my +life, and I am not going to begin with Old So-and-so." Thus your good +snob Englishman would lead you to believe that he was on terms of +intimacy and affection with Old So-and-so in Old So-and-so's palmy +money-squandering days. Whereas, in point of fact, he never clapped +eyes on the man till he had spent his last farthing. + +It is all very English, and to a mere Scot a trifle astonishing. The +Scot, if I know him at all, takes no joys of spendthrifts, however +prettily dressed, and, least of all, can he be brought to court the +society of a man who has reduced himself to beggary by extravagance and +riot. The bare gift of prodigality and the bare reputation of having +been wealthy are nothing to the Scot. If he wants men to admire, he +can find men of solider quality. The Englishman, on the other hand, +has no great love for either solidity or worth; the first makes him +envious; the second bores him. Though he may himself be a person of +judgment and sober life, he likes to have about him men who are going +or who have gone the whole hog, and who pursue their pleasures without +restraint, remorse, or fear. Hence the man-about-town will always +figure interestingly in English society. There is romance about him. He +has been foolish, and perhaps even wicked; but he belongs to the select +coterie of people who, when all is said, make the gay world go round. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +DRINK + + +Mr. Crosland has very kindly suggested that "under the inspiring +tutelage of the national bard Scotland has become one of the drunkenest +nations in the world." I shall not retaliate as one might do, but shall +content myself by referring the reader to the easily accessible tables +of statistics, which render it quite plain that Scotland's drunkenness +is very considerably exceeded by the drunkenness of England. + +In London, at any rate, strong drink flows like a river. There are 5300 +licensed houses in the metropolitan area alone. In Kilburn, a suburb +of more or less irreproachable respectability, there are twenty-five +churches and chapels and thirty-five public-houses. During late +years public-house property has begun to be looked upon in the light +of a gilt-edged investment. Turn where one will, one finds the older +inns are being swept away, while on their sites are erected flaring +gin-palaces, with plate-glass fronts, elaborate mahogany fitments, +gorgeous saloon and private bars, painted ceilings, inlaid floors, and +electric light throughout. Behind the bar, instead of mine host of a +former day and his wife and daughter, there are half a dozen perked-up +barmaids with rouged cheeks and Rossetti hair, and a person called +the manager, who for £2 a week runs the place for its proprietors--a +Limited Company, which owns, perhaps, twenty or thirty other houses. +In the conduct of these mammoth drinking-places three great points are +kept in view: namely, that a quick-drinking, stand-up trade pays better +than any amount of slow regular custom; that the English drinker of +the lower class cannot tell the difference between good drink and bad, +often preferring, indeed, the bad to the good; and that, as bad liquor +is cheaper than good, the sound commercial thing to do is to supply bad +liquor. + +With these admirable axioms continually before it, the English trade +has prospered amazingly. More drink and worse drink is sold in England +to-day than has ever been sold in England before. Through legislation +intended to ensure sound liquor and the proper conduct of licensed +houses the proprietors have consistently made a point of driving the +usual brewer's dray. "In order to meet the Food and Drugs Adulteration +Act, all spirits sold at this establishment, while of the same +excellent quality as heretofore, are diluted according to strength." +"The same excellent quality as heretofore" is choice, and so is +"diluted according to strength." As for the beer, we dilute also the +beer according to strength. When we are caught at it, it is a mistake +on the part of the cellarman, who has been discharged; and the fine is +so small in proportion to the profit on selling water, that we smile at +the back of our necks and keep on diluting according to strength. Our +whole system, in fact, is designed to make people drink, and to make +them drink the worst that we dare put before them. + +Now, the Scot, drunkard or no drunkard, does have something of a taste +in liquor. The best clarets have gone to Scotland (in spite of Mr. +Crosland) since claret became a dinner wine. You cannot put off a Scot +with either bad whisky or bad beer. He knows what whisky should be and +what beer should be, and in Scotland, at any rate, he never has any +difficulty in getting them. But the English, taking them in the mass, +are quite the other way. Any sort of wine, provided it be properly +fortified and sophisticated, passes with them for the real thing. +Their Scotch whisky is about the most wholesome thing they drink; but +large quantities of this are bought by English merchants in a crude +state, and rammed down the public throat without a thought to maturing, +blending, and otherwise rendering the spirit potable. English beer, we +have been told in song and story, is the finest beer in the world. Yet +nobody can visit an English brewery without discovering that English +beer is not English beer at all. Glucose in the place of malt, quassia +and gentian in the place of hops, finings in the place of storage, are +the universal order; and so depraved and perverted has the fine old +English taste in beer become that brewers who have set up to provide an +honest article and sent it out to their customers have had it returned +with the curt comment that "nobody would drink such hog-wash, and what +the customers wanted was beer, and not brewer's apron." Every now and +again scares crop up in consequence of the use of improper ingredients; +there is an inquiry, a Royal Commission, and the Englishman still +goes on stolidly drinking. Arsenic will not drive him away from his +favourite tipple, neither will _cocculus indicus_ or any of the round +dozen abominations upon which the brewer's chemist takes his stand. + +If there is one thing more than another that is considered the chief +necessity of life in the English household of the poorer class, it is +beer, and its sister beverage, porter. From morning till night the +can is continually going between the house of the artisan and the +neighbouring "public." The first thing in the morning the artisan +himself must have a couple of goes of rum and milk; by eleven o'clock +he is ready for a pint of four-half; at noon, when he knocks off for +dinner, he will imbibe a quart or more of the same beverage; and at +night, after work, he sits in the taproom till closing-time, and drinks +as much as ever he can pay for or chalk up. Meanwhile, his wife must +have her drop of porter in the morning, her drop of bitter to dinner, +and her drop of something hot before going to bed. Also on Saturday +afternoons, when the twain go marketing together, they must have a few +drinks, just to show there is no ill-feeling; while on Saturday night +the artisan not infrequently improves the shining hours by "getting +blind," to use his own elegant phrase. Thus it quite commonly happens +that a third and even a half of the total income of a household of the +artisan class is spent in alcohol. Thrift, provision for a rainy day +and for old age, become an impossibility. Underfeeding usually walks +hand in hand with overdrinking; the man loses his nerve, the woman her +comeliness and her capacity; and the end is pauperism and a pauper's +grave, if nothing worse. + +Among the English middle and upper classes there is distinctly a +greater tendency to moderation than among the lower classes. For all +that, the middle classes especially can point to a great many brilliant +examples of the fine art of soaking. Publicans, betting-men, commercial +travellers, proprietors of businesses, solicitors' clerks, journalists, +and the like get through an amount of drinking in the course of a day +which would probably appal even themselves if they kept an account +of it. "Let's 'ave a drink," is invariably one of the first phrases +dropped when two Englishmen meet. "We'll 'ave another" is sure to +follow; and so is, "'Ang it, man! we _must_ have a final." Among the +middle classes, too, as also among the upper classes, there is a very +great deal of secret drinking, particularly among women and persons +whose professional or official positions necessitate the maintenance +of an appearance of extreme respectability. The grocer's license and +his fine stock of carefully selected wines and spirits offer a ready +means of supply to the female dipsomaniac, who would not be seen in +a public-house for worlds; besides, gin can be charged as tea in a +grocery account, and many a bottle of brandy has figured in such +accounts under the innocent pseudonym of "rolled ox-tongue." + +Though the English upper classes, as I have said, drink with a certain +moderation, their moderation really embraces a quantity of liquor which +would send the artisan quite off his head. Whiskies-and-sodas at noon, +Burgundy at lunch, with cognac to one's coffee, three kinds of wine at +dinner, followed by liqueurs and whisky, make no appreciable mark on a +man who is living at his ease and can sleep as long as he likes; but +the sum total of alcohol is quite considerable, and probably greater +than that consumed by the "drunken sot" for whom my lord has such +contempt. + +Of English drinking, generally, one may remark that it is done in a +very deliberate and unsociable way. The English cannot be said to drink +for company's sake. They do not foregather and carry on their drinking +merrily. In their cups they are neither witty nor happy, but just dull +and dour and inclined to be quarrelsome. They drink for drinking's +sake,--for the sake of intoxication, and to drown trouble. I wish them +good luck and less of their vile concoctions! + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +FOOD + + +The subject of diet--he prefers to call it diet--is apparently one of +unlimited interest to the Englishman. Meet him where you will, he is +ever ready to discuss, first, the weather, and then the things--that +is to say, the kinds of food--that agree with him. Indeed, you could +almost stake your life on extracting from any strange Englishman you +happen to come across some such statement as, "I can't abide eggs," +or, "Veal always makes me bilious," within ten minutes of opening +up a conversation with him. The Englishman's house, we are told, is +his castle; and the Englishman's hobby, surely, is his digestion. In +point of fact, ninety-nine per cent. of adolescent and adult English +people suffer from chronic indigestion in a more or less severe form. +Flatulence, heartburn, colic, and "liver" are the Englishman's mortal +heritage. He is invariably troubled with some of them, and quite +commonly with all. If you relieved him of them he would scarcely thank +you, because he has nursed them from his youth up, and what he really +wants is amelioration, and not cure. Probably this is the reason why in +the midst of his wails and his unholy talk about diet he continues to +feed in precisely the grossest, greasiest, and least rational manner +that generations of bad feeders have been able to develop. + +Of mornings, if you sojourn with an English family, you will be invited +to breakfast at half-past eight. Promptly at that hour they serve a +sort of sickly oatmeal soup, compounded apparently of milk and sugar, +which they call porridge. Then follow thick and piping-hot coffee with +'am and eggs, fish, or a chop, and bread and butter and marmalade as +a sort of wind-up. The man who tackles this menu goes to business +belching like a torn balloon. By eleven o'clock, however, he is ready +for a little snack--oysters and chablis, prawns on toast, a mouthful +of bread and cheese and a bottle of Bass, or something of that kind. +Then at half-past one there is lunch, practically a dinner of several +courses, or a cut from the joint, accompanied by what the English +euphoniously term "two veg." At tea-time your Englishman must needs +lave himself in a dish of Orange-Pekoe or Bohea, to the accompaniment +of lumps of cake. And at long and last comes dinner, the crowning +guzzle of the Englishman's day, and a function usually spread over a +couple of hours. It will be perceived that this gustatory programme or +routine has been copied from the French. The French put away two good +meals per diem, one at noon and the other in the evening, and there +is no reason why the English should not do the same. When you come to +think of it, dinner in the middle of the day is a low, under-bred, +undistinguished arrangement; also not to dine at night is to run the +risk of not losing one's figure, and of having the neighbours say that +one cannot afford it. + +The French programme would be all very well if it were carried out +on French lines all through. But it is not. When you say "soup" in a +French restaurant, it means that you will be served with half a dozen +table-spoonfuls of _consommé_, or _petite marmite_, or _bisque_, as the +case may be. When the Englishman says "soup," he means enough thick +stock to wash a bus down. What is more, he gets it and swallows it. And +it is so all down the menu--too much of everything, and don't you think +you can put me off with your blooming homoeopathic portions. A liberal +table, no stint, good food, and plenty of it, is one of the bulwarks of +English respectability. That bad digestion and talks about diet follow +is nobody's fault. + +This profusion--this overfood, as it were--has been brought to its +noblest expression by the English aristocracy, whose tables literally +groan with costly viands, whose spits are always turning, and whose +scullions and kitchen wenches are as an army. It is related that when +a certain duke found it necessary to retrench, and was advised by his +family solicitor to get rid of his fifth, sixth, and seventh cooks, +his grace remarked, "But ----, So-and-so, a man must have a biscuit!" +And the English middle class of course faithfully imitates to the best +of its powers the English upper class, and so on through the grades. +Among all classes there is a rooted prejudice against food that happens +to be cheap. To this day people who eat escallops are rather looked +down upon, for no other reason than that oysters run you into half a +crown a dozen, while you can get excellent escallops at ninepence. So +the herring, the whiting, and other kinds of cheap fish are considered +little better than offal by persons who can afford to pay for sole +and salmon. Turtle soup is infinitely to be preferred to any other +soup in the world because it is dearer, and champagne is drunk, not +because people like it, but because it looks swagger and testifies to +the possession of means. These gustatory idiosyncrasies are purely +English, and obviously they are the offspring of the English love of +display and superfluity. + +Among the lower classes the general feeding, though cheaper, is just +as wasteful and just as gross. Excluding bread, it consists chiefly +of inferior cuts of butcher's meat with _charcuterie_ and dried fish +thrown in. It has been complained against the Scot that he is none +too clean a feeder, delighting hugely in inferior meats. Haggis is +held forth as a great exemplar in point. But it cannot be denied that +throughout England the one kind of emporium for the sale of comestibles +which flourishes and is unfailingly popular is the pork or ham-and-beef +shop. And here what do you obtain? Why, exactly the meats which +gentlemen of the type of Mr. Henley describe as offal. They include, in +addition to pork in and out of season, pig's feet, pig's heads, pig's +liver and kidneys, pig's blood sausages, the "savoury duck" or mess of +seasoned remnants, tripe boiled and raw, and chitterlings. So that +the haggis of Scotland is fairly well balanced. I am not suggesting +for a moment that the English display other than a proper judgment in +devouring these dainties. But if they will favour the pork shop and its +contents, they can scarcely expect to be set down for an angel-bread +and manna-eating people. + +Perhaps the chief scandal about English feeding lies in the condition +of the English hotels. On the Continent an hotel is an establishment +for the accommodation of travellers requiring food and rest. In England +an hotel is an establishment for the accommodation of landlords and +waiters. "High class cuisine," says the tariff card, also "wines and +spirits of the best selected quality." Yet one's experience tells one +that, though the bill will be heavy, neither the cuisine nor the wines +will be more than passable, much less high class. A menu which is the +same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, bad cooking, careless service, +and a general lack of finish, are the things one may expect at an +English hotel with the tolerable certainty of not being disappointed. +To complain is to draw forth the ill-disguised contempt of bibulous +head-waiters and the stiff apologies of haughty proprietors. But +beyond that mortal man will never get, because the English hotel is an +immemorial and conservative institution, and as wise in its own conceit +as the ancient sphinx. Of late and in London attempts have been made to +organise hotels adapted to the best kind of requirement. So far as I am +aware, only two of them have really succeeded, and the charges at both +places are quite prohibitive. + +Closely identified, one might almost say affiliated, to the English +hotel is the English railway-buffet, of which so much has been said +in song and story. The sheer horribleness of the "refreshments" here +provided has passed into a proverb. The English themselves admit that +if you wish to know the worst about refreshments, you should drink +the railway-buffet tea and partake of the railway-buffet sandwich. +They also admit that for abominations in the way of aërated waters, +milk, beer, and whisky, pastry, cakes, hard-boiled eggs, cold meats, +boiled chicken and ham, and chops and steaks from the grill, the +railway-buffet takes the palm; and they admit further that the Hebes +who dispense these comestibles to the hungry and howling mob have the +manners of duchesses. Yet the English without their railway-buffets +would be an utterly woebegone and miserable people. Put an Englishman +down at a strange railway-station with a half-hour wait before him. +He has but one resort: he inquires right off for the buffet, and +there he gorges and swizzles till the warning bell advises him of the +departure of his train. If there is no buffet, he becomes a dejected, +pallid man, and threatens to write to the newspapers. So long as the +railway-buffets continue to exist, the English digestion can never +aspire to perfection, even though English feeding and cooking outside +railway-stations became ideal; for a single "meal" of railway-buffet +viands would permanently disorganise the digestive capabilities of the +most ostrichy ostrich that ever walked on two legs. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +LAW AND ORDER + + +The English love to be ruled, just as eels are said to take delight +in being skinned. They hold that a nation which is properly ruled +cannot fail of happiness. Their notion of rule may be summed up in the +phrase, "Law and order." The Englishman believes that law and order are +heaven-sent blessings especially invented for his behoof. "Where else +in the world," he will ask you grandiloquently, "do you get such law +and such order as you get in England--the land of the free?" If anybody +picks his pocket, or encroaches upon his land, or infringes his patent +rights, or diverts his water-courses, the Englishman knows exactly +what to do. There is the law. They keep it on tap in great buildings +called courts, and persons in wigs serve out to you precisely what you +may deserve with great gusto and solemnity. The man picked your pocket, +did he? Three months' imprisonment for the man. Somebody is making +colourable imitations of your patent dolls' eyes. Well, you can apply +for an injunction. And so on. + +This is law. All Englishmen believe in it, particularly those who have +never had any. When it comes to the worst, and the Englishman finds +that he really must take on a little of his own beautiful specific, he +usually begins by falling into something of a flutter. Those bewigged +and sedate persons seated in great chairs, with bouquets in front of +them and policemen to bawl "Silence!" for them, begin to have a new +meaning for the Englishman. Hitherto he has regarded them complacently +as the bodily representatives of the law in a free country. He has +smacked his lips over them, rejoiced in their learning, wit, and +acumen, warmed at the notion of their dignity, and thanked God that +he belonged to a free people--free England. Now, when it comes to +a trifling personal encounter before this mountain of dignity--this +mountain of dignity perched on a mountain of precedent, as it were--the +Englishman shivers and looks pale. But his solicitor and his counsel +and his counsel's clerk--particularly his counsel's clerk--soon put him +at his ease, and instead of withdrawing at the feel of the bath, he is +fain to plump right in. Whether he comes out on top or gets beaten is +another matter; in any case, the trouble about the thing is that, win +or lose, it is infinitely and appallingly costly. Law, the Englishman's +birthright, is not to be given away. If you want any, you must pay for +it, and pay for it handsomely, too. Otherwise you can go without. The +English adage to the effect that there is one law for the rich and +another for the poor is one of those adages which are very subtly true. +There is a law for the rich, certainly. There is also a law for the +poor--namely, no law at all. On the whole the Englishman who has not +had his pristine dream of English law shattered by contact with the +realities is to envied. All other Englishmen, whether their experience +has lain in County Courts, High Courts, or Courts of Appeal, talk +lovingly of English law with their tongues in their cheeks. + +With respect to order, the much bepraised handmaiden of law, I do not +think that the English get half so much of her as they think they +do. She costs them a pretty penny. The up-keep of her police and +magistrates and general myrmidons runs the Englishman into some noble +taxation; yet where shall you find an English community that is orderly +if even an infinitesimal section of it has made up its mind to be +otherwise? In London at the present moment there are whole districts +which it is not safe for a decently dressed person to traverse +even in broad daylight; and these districts are not by any means +slum districts, but parts of the metropolis in which lie important +arteries of traffic. There is not a square mile of the metropolitan +area which does not boast its organised gang of daylight robbers, +purse-snatchers, watch-snatchers, and bullies who would beat a man +insensible for fourpence, and whose great weapon is the belt. + +For convenience' sake these people have been grouped together under +the term "Hooligan." The police--the far-famed London police--can +do nothing with them. They admit that they are ineradicable and +irrepressible. The magistrates and the newspapers keep on asseverating +that "something must be done." That something apparently consists +in the capture of a stray specimen of the tribe, who is forthwith +given three months, with perhaps a little whipping thrown in. But +hooliganism is a business that continues to flourish like the green +bay-tree, and London is no safer to-day than it was in the time of +the garotters. As the belt is the weapon of the London robber, and as +Hooligan is his name, so we find in all the larger provincial towns +gangs of scoundrels with special instruments and slang names of their +own. In Lancashire and the Black Country kicking appears to be the +favourite method of dealing with the order-loving citizen. In some of +the northern towns the knuckle-duster, the sand-bag, and the loaded +stick are requisitioned; and in all cases we are told the police are +powerless. The fact is, that, on the whole, England cannot be reckoned +an orderly country. The "hooligans" and their provincial imitators are +just straws that show the way of the wind. When these persons say: "We +will do such and such things in contravention of the law," there is +practically nothing to stop them. In the same way, when a community +determines to run amuck on an occasion of "national rejoicing" (such +as the late Mafeking night), or because a strike is in progress, or a +charity dinner has been badly served, or the vaccination laws are being +enforced, it does so at its own sweet will, and order can be hanged. +Once a week, too,--namely, on Saturday nights,--English order, like +the free list at the theatres, is entirely suspended. Saturday night +is the recognised and inviolable hour of the mob. Throughout the +country your flaring English gin-palaces are at their flaringest; the +beer-pumps sing together with a myriad voices, and the clink of glasses +takes the evening air with beauty. Until, perhaps, eight o'clock all +goes well; then the quarrelsomeness which the English masses extract +from their cups begins to assert itself, and the chuckers-out (in what +other country in the world are there chuckers-out?) and the police +begin to be busy. Till long after midnight their hands are full, and +it is not until the Sabbath is a couple of hours old that the English +masses seek their rest. In the meantime what squalid indiscretions, +what sins against humanity, what outrages, have not been committed? The +bare consumption of drink alone has been appalling; the bickerings, +angry shoutings, indulgences in pugilism and hair-pulling, have been +infinite; and on Monday morning the police-courts will have their usual +plethora of drunks and disorderlies, wife-beatings and assaults on the +police, with, perhaps, a case or two of manslaughter and a murder to +put the crown on things. + +In the main, therefore, law and order may be counted among John Bull's +many illusions. They are, as one might say, sweet to meditate upon; +they look all right on paper, and they sound all right in the mouths +of orators. For the rest the Englishman who is wise smiles and keeps a +folded tale. One may note, before leaving this entertaining subject, +that in England lawyers and laymen alike take a special pride in +admitting a certain ignorance. At the bare mention of Scots law they +lift up pious hands and impious eyes and say, "Thank Heaven, we know +nothing about it!" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +EDUCATION + + +Lord Rosebery, whom the worthy Mr. Crosland dislikes on purely racial +grounds, is usually credited as the originator of what has latterly +become the Englishman's watchword, "Educate, educate, educate!" +Whether it was the Scotch half of Lord Rosebery or the English half +that prompted him to this simple human cry, I shall not pretend to +say. On the other hand, it is certain that when his Lordship offered +the English such a profound piece of advice, he gave them exactly +the counsel that they most needed; for, though the English boast of +their knowledge, though they are the arrogant possessors of seats of +learning out of which can come nothing but perfection, though they +possess ancient universities and ancient public schools, though they +have a school-board system and free education, and though their country +is overrun with middle-sized men who play billiards and drink bitter +beer and call themselves schoolmasters, they are indubitably and +unmistakably an uneducated people. + +Until the passing of the Elementary Education Act of 1870, learning +in England amounted practically to a luxury. Only the rich might be +permitted to know things. It was a case of schools, colleges, and +universities for the sons of noblemen and gentlemen. The rascally lower +classes might look after themselves. It is open to question whether the +rascally lower classes were not, on the whole, educationally better +off in that day than they are at present. That, however, is by the +way. But in the later sixties the reformer got his eagle eye on the +rascally lower classes. He perceived that the rascally lower classes +were in bad case. They got drunk, they used foul language, they smoked +short pipes, and, Heaven help them! they could not read. Anticipating +the English or Scotch half of Lord Rosebery, as the case may be, the +reformer said, "Educate, educate, educate!" And it was so. The English +have been educating ever since. They educated to such purpose that +thirty years later Lord Rosebery felt it incumbent upon himself to bid +them educate, educate, educate! In those thirty years the rascally +lower classes learned somewhat. They were supposed to discover, _inter +alia_, that knowledge was power. They were told that a hodman who could +write his name was a better hodman than the hodman whose sign-manual +was a cross. They were led shrewdly to infer that their pastors and +masters and general betters owed their supremacy to knowledge; and +that if they, the rascally lower classes, would only instruct their +children, these same children might wax great in the land and carry +burdens no more. The rascally lower classes sent their children to +school, some of them cheerfully, some of them with groans; and the +stars began to shine over England's darkness. + +What has come to pass all men know. Every Englishman gets the +smatterings of a literary education, and believes in his heart that +he was cut out by the Almighty to be a clerk. The honest trades and +handicrafts are no longer desirable in the minds of English youth. To +take one's coat off with a view to livelihood is a business for dolts +and fools. Advertise in England for an office-boy and you shall receive +five hundred applications; advertise for a boy to learn plumbing, and +you will be offered, perhaps, two daft-looking lads, who after much +thrashing have managed to attain the age of fourteen years. + +The fact is, that the English do not know what education means. At +the public schools, and at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, +education has become, to a great extent, a social matter. You go to +these places to learn, certainly; but you also go with a view to the +formation of a desirable and influential acquaintance, and to get +upon your forehead the mark which is supposed to make glorious the +public-school and university-bred Englishman. As a general rule, that +mark is altogether imperceptible to the eyes of the unelect, who, if +the truth must be told, discover the university man not so much by +his manners or conversation as by his ineptitudes. When one comes to +consider the principles upon which the public-school and university +system are worked, one is quite prepared to admit that, were it not for +the element of snobbery patent in the system, English public schools +and universities alike would in the long run have to be disestablished. +As it is, they are the conventional resort of aristocratic adolescence, +and permitted to exist only on condition that, if a low middle-class +person can find the money and keep up the style, he, too, may join the +angelic host. To the man of temperament, to the scholar, to the man +who loves learning for learning's sake, the English universities have +precious little to offer. + +After Oxford and Cambridge, one turns to London and the non-resident +foundations, all of them, I believe, modern. Here, as it seems to +me, the English err again. Broadly speaking, these institutions, +wittingly or unwittingly, devote their energies to the preparation of +young men for the Civil Service. If you are an English board-school +teacher at £80 a year and you discover that a second-class clerk in +the Circumlocution Department commences at £300 a year, and that, +roughly, the examination to be passed is the same as for matriculation +at London, you naturally go in bald-headed for matriculation at +London. For the learning you get by these efforts you have not the +smallest respect. If, on presenting yourself for examination by the +Civil Service Commissioners, you come out sufficiently high on the +list to secure an appointment, well and good. If not, your labour +has been wasted. It is this spirit which is at the bottom of the +English ignorance. With them, learning, education, is a means to an +end, and not in the least its own exceeding great reward. Hence a +properly educated Englishman is almost as rare as a blue rose. For the +masses--the rascally lower orders, that is to say--there are the board +schools. Here for thirty years past has been enacted about the sweetest +travesty of education that the mind of man could conceive. For the +teaching of the children of the rascally lower orders, the wise English +Government, with the assistance of the wise English school boards, has +invented what is to all intents and purposes a new type of man. And +his name shall be called Schoolmaster. He began Heaven knows how. But +if you inquire into him, you will find that he has spent three years +at a Government training college, and that prior to this experience +he was for some years a pupil teacher; also that he is a son of the +people, and that his father drove an engine or kept a shop. In these +latter circumstances he was, perhaps, fortunate. The marvellous fact +about him is that, in spite of his years of pupil-teachership and of +his three years at a Government training college, he is not a man of +either learning or culture. I am told that an English pupil teacher is +not expected to fash himself by the study of either Latin or Greek. Two +books of Euclid will see him through the stiffest of his examinations. +He does not need to have even a nodding acquaintance with modern +languages; and as for science, if he really wants some, he must pick it +up at evening classes. Even when he passes into the Government training +college,--where, by the way, he is instructed and boarded and lodged +gratis,--his studies do not become in any way profound. The history of +England, the geography of the world, arithmetic according to Barnard +Smith, algebra according to Dr. Todhunter, Latin and Greek according +to Dr. William Smith (Part I.), with a little French,--a very little +French,--bring him to the end of his tether. + +Really, the whole business is childish. Any youth of average capacity +should get through the entire three years' course in six weeks. Of +course, there is the so-called technical training to reckon with; +that is to say, a man at one of these colleges is supposed to spend +a great deal of his time, and no doubt does, in perfecting himself +as a teacher; but one would have thought that actual practice in an +ordinary school would be the best instructor in this respect. In +any case, nobody can consider closely the English schoolmaster as +manufactured at Government training colleges without perceiving that +the Government turns out a very remarkable article indeed. I have no +desire to belittle a hard-worked, and probably underpaid, body of +public servants. Their profession is a thankless one. I do not think +for a moment a single man of them went into it with his eyes open, +and I know for a certainty that the school boards and the Government +between them have so hedged it round with petty annoyances that a +man possessed of feeling must loathe it. It is probably this feeling +of loathing of his work that keeps the English schoolmaster down. He +knows that it is vain for him to go a hair's-breadth out of the beaten +tracks. The school boards must have grants; the Government inspectors +must be satisfied. There is only one method of ensuring these desirable +consummations: that one way amounts to sheer mechanism and slog. The +English schoolmaster must have no temperament. If he possess such a +thing, he is bound to come to great grief. Hence the whole weight of +the English system is, from first to last, employed in the work of +knocking temperament out of him and keeping it out. His three years' +free training particularly tend to make a slack, unthinking sap-head +of him. He gets a parchment which entitles him to call himself a +certificated teacher, and he is taught to imagine that for downright +learning there is nothing like himself under the sun. In this latter +surmise he is quite right. The schoolmaster in England, though he will +probably be another quarter of a century waking up to the fact, counts +for next to nothing. Men of parts avoid him; men of no parts laugh at +him. For himself, I imagine, he will long continue to believe in his +heart that he is a great man, a little lower, perhaps, than a parson, +but certainly a little higher than a policeman. + +The real value of English education, like the real value of most other +things, becomes apparent when it is put to the test of practical +affairs. Any employer of labour will tell you that, whether an English +boy come to him from a board school or a school of a higher grade, +whether he be the son of a ploughman or of what the English call a +professional man, he is always and inevitably a good deal of a fool. +You have to teach him how to lick stamps. You have to teach him that, +excepting in so far as he can write and read, what he has learned at +school is not wanted; you have to teach him how many beans make five; +you have to teach him that punctuality and accuracy are worth more in +business than all the botany he ever learned; and all the time you +have to watch him like a cat watching a mouse. "Fire out the fools!" +once exclaimed Dr. Robertson Nicoll. I do not think it is too much to +say that, if the average English employer took the hint, he would have +nobody left to do his business for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +RECREATION + + +To amuse oneself is the great art of life. From the English +point of view, the finest kind of amusement is to be obtained by +killing something. Fox-hunting, deer-stalking, grouse-shooting, +pheasant-shooting, pigeon-shooting, and even rabbit-shooting still +stand for a great deal among the best class of Englishmen. Of old, the +masses had their bull-baitings, dog-fights, and cock-fights. These, +however, are no longer regarded as legitimate forms of amusement, +and the masses, being for various reasons unable to hunt foxes and +shoot pheasants, have to fall back on recreations in which killing +takes place only by accident. There is the race-course and the +football-field. The masses are expected to consider themselves happy. +Outside racing and football, however, the come-day, go-day Englishman +has a good many facilities for recreation. Although in most communities +the grandfatherly authorities have abolished the old feasts and fairs, +which provided periodic saturnalia of merry-go-rounds and wild-beast +shows, it is a poor townlet which cannot nowadays boast its permanent +settlement of cocoanut-shies and shooting-galleries, where on Saturday +evenings the true-born Englishman may find substantial joys. Then, for +the Londoner, in addition to this kind of thing, there are from time to +time provided vast orgies at Hampstead Heath, the Welsh Harp, Barnet +Fair, and other choice resorts. Here, again, it is a case of cocoanuts, +shooting-galleries, swing-boats, steam-roundabouts, and aërial flights, +backed up with donkey-rides, a free use of the tickler and the ladies' +teaser, unlimited confetti throwing, and unlimited beer. These +amusements, of course, are on the face of them quite innocent, and +equally English and unintellectual. + +Failing merry-go-rounds and cocoanut-shies, the delights of which are +apt to pall, the English masses have still left to them their main +redoubt of rational enjoyment, which, for reasons no man may skill, +is called the music-hall. The English music-hall is practically an +expansion or efflorescence of the old-fashioned "sing-song." Sixty +years ago the man who went out to take a stoup of ale at his inn was +accustomed to be regaled with a little music free of charge. Mine +host had possessed himself of a second-hand piano, and secured the +services of some broken-down musician to play it for him. There was +a great singing of old songs, and the time sped merrily, as it did +in the golden age. These feasts of harmony brought custom, and in +course of time the evening "sing-songs" at certain hostelries became +organised institutions and were run on lines of great enterprise, the +piano being supplemented by an orchestra, and the pianist by a number +of professional singers and entertainers. Within the last fifty years +the "sing-song" has been separated from its parent the alehouse, and +has developed into the music-hall. To-day the English music-halls +are almost as thick on the ground as churches and chapels. In the +metropolis you would have a difficulty to count them. In the provinces +every town of size supports two or three halls, and insists on London +talent and London style. The class of entertainment provided may be +costly and amusing, but it is certainly not edifying. The performers +almost to a man, and one might say to a woman, are persons who can be +considered "artists" only in the broadest sense, and whose ignorance +and vulgarity are as colossal as their salaries. + +Roughly, the entertainment may be divided into two sections, the one +concerned with feats of strength, juggling, and the like, and the +other with laughter-making and vocalism. As regards the first of these +sections, a man who can balance a horse and trap on the end of his +chin appears to give great satisfaction to an English audience. Why +this should be so, nobody knows. The good purpose that may be served +by balancing a horse and trap on the end of one's chin is not obvious; +but the English masses are ravished by the spectacle. They also have +a great fondness for the stout lady who catches cannon-balls on the +back of her neck, for the other stout lady who risks her life nightly +on the flying trapeze, for the gentleman who walks about the stage +with a piano under one arm and a live mule under the other, and for +the gentleman who rides the bicycle standing on his head. To the mind +of the English masses these are marvels and well worth the money. They +give a zest to life, they provide material for conversation, and their +attraction seems perennial. + +The great stand-by of the halls, however, is the laughter-making and +vocal department. Here shine the great stars whose names are familiar +on English lips as household words. Here is purveyed the culture, the +song, and the humour of the English masses. It is from the music-hall +stage that the vast majority of Englishmen take their tone and their +sentiment. That renowned comedian, Fred Fetchem, strolls on to the +boards of the Frivolity some night, and, assuming a fiendish grin, +exclaims idiotically; "There's 'air!" Next morning and for many weeks +thereafter all England says; "There's 'air!" on any and every occasion. +"What ho she bumps!" "Now, we sha'n't be long," "Not half," "Did he?" +and similar catchwords, all popular and all meaningless, capture the +English imagination in their turn, and for a season, at any rate, +Englishmen can say nothing else. It is the same with the music-hall +song. Always there are current in England three or four "songs of the +hour," which every Englishman worth the name sings, whistles, or hums; +and always these songs, from whatever point of view regarded, are of +the most blithering and bathotic nature. At the present moment the +prime and universal favourite is that pathetic ditty, _Everybody's +Loved by Some One_. For the benefit of the English, I quote the first +stanza and the chorus of this work: + + A lady stood within a busy city, + Her darling little daughter by her side; + She'd stopped to buy a bunch of pretty violets + From a ragged little orphan she espied. + The words she spoke were kinder than the boy had heard for years; + And in reply to what she asked, he murmur'd through his tears, + + Everybody's loved by some one, everybody knows that's true, + Some have father and mother dear; sister and brother, too. + All the time that I remember, since I was a mite so small, + I seem to be the only one that nobody loves at all. + +With this enchanting song the English welkin resounds by day and night. +The great, broad-shouldered, genial Englishman, full of four-ale and +bad whisky, howls it in chorus at his favourite "public," work-girls +sing it in factories, mothers rock their children to sleep with it, and +every English urchin whistles or shouts it at you with unflagging zest. +Of course, there are others; for example, there is _I'm a P'liceman_, +which goes like this: + + In the inky hour of midnight, when the clock is striking three, + As I stroll along my beet-root, many curious things I see: + Ragged urchins stagger past me to their mansions in the west; + Millionaires, through cold and hunger, on our doorsteps sink to rest; + Dirty dustmen in their broughams, off to supper at the "Cri."; + Then "Bill Sykes," the burglar, passes, with an eye-glass in his eye. + + Such are the sights I witness when I am on my beat, + Filling my heart with sawdust, filling my boots with feet; + Covering half the pavement up with my "plates of meat," + Though mother sent to say that I'm a p'liceman-- + +which--need one remark?--is intended for what the Scots are supposed to +call "wut." Also, there is _He Stopped_: + + Pendlebury Plum had a wart on his gum, + And he rubbed it with sand-paper hard; + The wart on his gum made Plum fairly hum, + When it stuck out about half a yard. + The wart grew so quick, when he rubbed it with a brick, + Till it looked like a short billiard-cue; + Said Plum to himself, "I shall die on the shelf, + For I'm darned if I know what to do." + + So he went and got a pick-axe and shov'd it underneath, + Then he lifted up his jaw, and he swallowed all his teeth; + Then he stopped! + +The verses I have quoted are a good, true, and fair sample of the kind +of thing that finds favour among the English masses. I do not think +that anything better is being proffered, and it is pretty certain that +anything less inane would be doomed to failure. The fact is that the +English mind in the lump is flat, coarse, and maggoty, and the English +understanding is as the understanding of a feeble and ill-bred child. +A couple of generations ago the songs popular among Englishmen had +some claim to coherence, decency, and common sense; nowadays, however, +the Englishman admits that "he cannot sing the old songs." He has gone +farther and fared worse, and among the many symptoms of his decadence, +none is more pronounced than his easy toleration of the balderdash that +is being served up to him by the "'alls." + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +STOCK EXCHANGE + + +There is nothing in England more astounding or more tigerish than +the city man. Englishmen have a fixed idea that they are the soul of +generosity, indifferent to money, and not in the least sordid. When +they are put to it for a type of sheer greediness it pleases them to +point a finger at the Scot. Yet there can be no doubt that of late +years the desire for riches has become the absorbing English passion. +The ostentation and vulgar displays of the aristocracy and the newly +rich have stirred the middle-class English heart to envy. How comes +it that such and such a man sleeps on lilies and eats roses? He has +"means," my friend. And what are "means"? Just money. If you are going +to be happy in this life, if you insist upon a full paunch of the +choicest--upon the ease and softness which are so grateful to decadent +persons, if you would be in a position to possess all that the soul +of the decadent person covets, you really must have money. And as you +are a middle class Englishman whose people have omitted to leave you a +million or so, it is very awkward for you. Life is short; the cup goes +round but once. + +You have £500. How is it to be made into £50,000, and that while the +flush of youth still incarnadines your ambitious cheek? There is only +one way: you must speculate--judiciously, if you can; but you must +speculate. You are an Englishman and a sportsman, and sometimes you get +your £50,000. Then all the world marvels and would fain do likewise, so +that the ball is kept rolling. It is a ball full of money, and it rolls +cityward. The generous, open-handed Englishmen who are the City take as +much as they want and toss you the balance. The game is as fashionable +as ping-pong: everybody plays it, and, win or lose, everybody calls +it the Stock Exchange. I am told that the Stock Exchange proper is a +reputable institution and essential to the well-being of the country. +I do not doubt this for a moment; but round it there has grown up a +specious and parasitical finance which is rapidly transforming the +English into a nation of punters. "Fortunes made while you wait," is +the lure to which the latter-day Englishman has been found infallibly +to respond. The remnant of the common sense possessed by his excellent +grandparents arouses in him a sneaking suspicion that the golden +promises of the outside broker and the bucket-shop keeper are not to be +depended upon. Yet he reads in his morning paper that no end of stocks +and shares have risen a point or dropped a point, as the case may be, +and he knows that if he had been in on the right side he would have +made more money in a few hours than his excellent grandparents could +have made in the course of a whole grubby lifetime. Hence, sooner or +later, his patrimony, or few hundred of surplus capital, is planked +into the ball that rolls citywards, on the off-chance that it may come +back arm in arm, as it were, with thousands. + +Even the more cautious sort of Englishman, who looks upon speculation +with a deprecating eye and pins his faith on legitimate investment, +is rapidly descending into the gambling habit. Schemes which promise +fat dividends inflame his imagination and drag him out of the even +tenor of his way. He is perfectly well aware that fifteen, twenty, +and twenty-five per cent. in return for one's money is quite wrong +somehow. But, on the other hand, the prospect ravishes, and there are +concerns in the world which pay such dividends year by year without +turning a hair. Only sometimes there is a colossal smash, and half the +shopkeepers of England put on sackcloth and ashes and get up funds for +one another's relief. To the looker-on the whole system is highly +diverting; to the players in the game the fun will never be obvious. + +The real truth about the matter is simply this--the standard of living +in England is an inflated and artificial standard. Practically every +Englishman lives, or longs to live, beyond his means. The workman +and the workman's wife must put on the style of the foreman and the +foreman's wife, and the foreman and the foreman's wife must appear +to be nearly as comfortably off as the manager, the manager as his +employer, all employers, shopkeepers, factory owners, iron-masters, +engineers, printers, and even publishers as prosperous as each other, +and so on till you come to dukes, than whom, of course, nobody can be +more prosperous. It would be possible to bring together six Englishmen +whose incomes ranged from £1 10_s._ a week to £50,000 a year, and +whose dress and tastes would be pretty well identical. Fifty years ago +the sons of the middle classes had really no inclination toward the +superfluities. The dandy was rather laughed at among them, the gourmet +was a monster they never by any chance encountered, and the libertine +was a sad warning and a person to be eschewed. Nowadays it is all the +other way: the gilt and tinsel and glamour and rapidity of the gay +world have captured the English understanding and brought it exceeding +low. There is little moral backbone left in the country. Money, money, +money, to be ill gotten and ill spent, is the English ideal. The man +who can go without is considered a crank or a fool or worse, or he is +set down for an indolent fellow who should be given a month or two on +the treadmill for luck. The whole duty of man--of Englishmen, that is +to say--is to have money in ponderable quantities; the man without it +is of no account at all. Nobody believes in him, nobody wants him, +nobody tolerates him. He may be wise and witty and chaste and blessed +with all the virtues, and still be received with great coldness by bank +managers; and it is well known that the attitude of a bank manager +towards a man is the attitude of society at large. If the bank manager +beams and rubs his hands, "God's in His heaven: all's right with the +world." If the bank manager frowns and sends you impertinent letters, +you may last a week or a fortnight or a few months, but you are on thin +ice, and you must please take care not to forget it. I should not be +at all surprised if the omnipotent official whose business it is to +discover what persons are or are not qualified to approach our British +fountain of honour were one day found to be a bank manager in disguise. + +So that, on the whole, the Englishman has every inducement to get +rich and to be very quick about it. His dealings with the "Stock +Exchange"--that is to say, with the City--are but the natural +expression of his anxiety to oblige all parties concerned. It is a pity +that getting and spending should become the main concerns of his life; +but, as he pathetically puts it, "One must do as Rome does, and some +women are never content." The Stock Exchange is the only way. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +THE BELOVED + + +What is more beautiful or meet to be taken to the bosom than the +Englishman? Everybody loves him; his goings to and fro upon the earth +are as the progresses of one who has done all men good. He drops +fatness and blessings as he walks. He smiles benignity and graciousness +and "I-am-glad-to-see-you-all-looking-so-well." And before him runs one +in plush, crying, "Who is the most popular man of this footstool?" And +all the people shall rejoice and say, "The Englishman--God bless him!" + +Hence it comes to pass that in whatever part of the world the +Englishman may find himself, he has a feeling that he is thoroughly +at home. "I am as welcome as flowers in May," he says. "These pore +foreigners, these pore 'eathen are glad to see me. They never have +any money, pore devils! and were it not for our whirring spindles at +home, I verily believe they would have nothing to wear." In brief, the +Englishman abroad is always in a sort of Father Christmassey, Santa +Claus frame of mind. He eats well, he drinks well, and he sleeps well. +He calls for the best, and he PAYS for it. It is a wonderful +thing to do, and it goes straight to the hearts of the "pore foreigner" +and the "pore 'eathen." This, at any rate, is the Englishman's own +view. It is a pleasing, consoling, and stimulating view, and it would +ill become an unregenerate outsider rudely to disturb it. Indeed, I +question whether the Englishman in his blindness and adipose conceit +would allow you to disturb it. + +When persons in France say, "_À bas l'Anglais_," your fat Englishman +smiles, and says, "Little boys!" When people put rude pictures of +him on German postcards, he smiles again, and says that the flowing +tide of public opinion in Germany is entirely with him. When Dutch +farmers propose to throw him into the sea, he becomes very red in the +neck, splutters somewhat, and says, "I'm sure they will make excellent +subjects in time." And when the savage Americans desire to chaw him up +and swallow him, he says, "You astonish me. I have always been under +the impression that blood was thicker than water." His desire is to +live at peace with all men; but his notion of peace is to have his +hand in both your pockets and no questions asked. He owns two-thirds +of the habitable globe (_vide_ the geography books), and every pint of +sea is his (_pace_ the popular song); he owns also everything that is +worth owning. He is the Pierpont Morgan of the universe. Who could help +loving him? + +On the other hand, the excellent J.B. has not escaped calumny. If I +were disposed to reproduce some of the slanders upon him, it goes +without saying that they would make a rather large chapter. All manner +of foreign writers have time and time again had a fling at the +Englishman. They love him, but their love is not blind. They perceive +that he has faults of a grievous nature, and they write accordingly. +Curiously enough, too, quite severe criticisms of John Bull have been +written in his own household. Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, for example, +who is an Englishman, and apparently innocent of Celtic taint, actually +goes so far as to call the Englishman an Anglo-Norman dog: + + Down to the latest born, the hungriest of the pack, + The master-wolf of all men, called the Sassenach, + The Anglo-Norman dog, who goeth by land and sea, + As his forefathers went in chartered piracy, + Death, fire in his right hand. + +And the English poet goes on to elaborate his indictment against the +Englishman, thus: + + He hath outlived the day + Of the old single graspings, where each went his way + Alone to plunder all. He hath learned to curb his lusts + Somewhat, to smooth his brawls, to guide his passionate gusts, + His cry of "Mine, mine, mine!" in inarticulate wrath. + He dareth not make raid on goods his next friend hath + With open violence, nor loose his hand to steal, + Save in community and for the common weal + + 'Twixt Saxon man and man. He is more congruous grown; + Holding a subtler plan to make the world his own + By organized self-seeking in the paths of power + He is new-drilled to wait. He knoweth his appointed hour + And his appointed prey. Of all he maketh tool, + Even of his own sad virtues, to cajole and rule. + +We are told, further, that the Beloved has tarred Time's features, +pock-marked Nature's face, and "brought all to the same jakes," +whatever that may mean. Also: + + There is no sentient thing + Polluteth and defileth as this Saxon king, + This intellectual lord and sage of the new quest. + The only wanton he that fouleth his own nest, + And still his boast goeth forth. + +This is an English opinion, and, consequently, worth the money. Mr. +Blunt assures us that in putting it forth he has the approval of no +less a philosopher than Mr. Herbert Spencer, and no less an idealist +than Mr. George Frederick Watts. "I have not," says Mr. Blunt, "shrunk +from insisting on the truth that the hypocrisy and all-acquiring greed +of modern England is an atrocious spectacle--one which, if there be +any justice in Heaven, must bring a curse from God, as it has surely +already made the angels weep. The destruction of beauty in the name +of science, the destruction of happiness in the name of progress, +the destruction of reverence in the name of religion, these are the +Pharisaic crimes of all the white races; but there is something in the +Anglo-Saxon impiety crueller still: that it also destroys, as no other +race does, for its mere vainglorious pleasure. The Anglo-Saxon alone +has in our day exterminated, root and branch, whole tribes of mankind. +He alone has depopulated continents, species after species, of their +wonderful animal life, and is still yearly destroying; and this not +merely to occupy the land, for it lies in large part empty, but for his +insatiable lust of violent adventure, to make record bags and kill." + +When the Beloved comes across reading of this sort he no doubt sheds +bitter tears, and remembers how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to +have a thankless child. And he goes on his way rejoicing, unimpressed +and unreformed. + +The fact of the matter is, that from the beginning, John Bull, though +possessed of a great reputation for honesty and munificence, has never +really been any better than he should be. When he interfered between +tyrant and slave, when he went forth to conquer savage persons and to +annex savage lands which somehow invariably flowed with milk and honey, +he made a point of doing it with the air of a philanthropist, and for +centuries the world took him at his own estimate. Even in the late +war the great cry was that he did not want gold-mines. As a general +rule he never wants anything; but he always gets it. It is only of +late that the world has begun to find him out and that he himself has +begun to have qualms. He feels in his bones that something has gone +wrong with him. It may be a slight matter and not beyond repair, but +there it is. He cannot put his hand on his heart and say; "I am the +fine, substantial, sturdy, truth-speaking, incorruptible, magnanimous, +genial Englishman of half a century ago!" The fly has crept into the +ointment of his virtue, and the fragrance of it no longer remains. His +attitude at the present moment is the attitude of the anxious man who +perceives that life is a little too much for him, and keeps on saying, +"We shall have to buck up!" + +He is in two minds about most things over which he was once cock-sure. +He could not quite tell you, for example, whether he continues to stand +at the head of the world's commerce or not. Once there was no doubt +about it; now--well, it is a question of statistics, and you can prove +anything by statistics. Out of America men have come to buy English +things which were deemed unpurchasable. The American has come and seen +and purchased and done it quite quickly. The Englishman is a little +puzzled; his slow wits cannot altogether grasp the situation. "We must +buck up!" he says, "and take measures while there is yet time." He +does not see that the newer order is upon him, and that inevitably and +for his good he must be considerably shaken up. His own day has been +a lengthy, a roseful, and a gaudy one; it has been a day of ease and +triumph and comfortable going, and the Beloved has become very wealthy +and a trifle stout in consequence. Whether to-morrow is going to be +his day, too, and whether it is going to be one of those nice loafing, +sunshiny kind of days that the Beloved likes, are open questions. It +is to be hoped devoutly that fate will be kind to him: he needs the +sympathy of all who are about him; he wants encouragement and support +and a restful time. + +It is said that his Majesty of Portugal, who has just left these +shores, on being asked what had impressed him most during his +visit, replied, "The roast beef." "Nothing else, sir?" inquired his +interlocutor. "Yes," said the monarch; "the boiled beef." And there +is a great deal in it. Through much devouring of beef the English +have undoubtedly waxed a trifle beefy. It is their beefiness and +suetiness--that fatty degeneration, in fact--which impress you. + +Recognising his need of props and stays and abdominal belts, as it +were, the Beloved has latterly taken to remembering the Colonies. He +is now of opinion that he and his sturdy children over-seas should be +"knit together in bonds of closer unity," "to present an unbroken front +to the world," "should share the burdens and glories of Empire," and so +on and so forth. The Colonies--good bodies!--saw it all at once. They +had been accustomed to be snubbed and neglected and left out of count, +and they had forgotten to whom they belonged. In his hour of need the +Beloved cried, "'Elp! I said I didn't want you, but I do--I do!" and +the Colonies sent to his aid, at a dollar a day per head, the prettiest +lot of freebooters and undesirable characters they found themselves +able to muster. Later, they sent several landau loads of premiers and +politicians, who were fed and flattered to their hearts' content, +and went home, no doubt, greatly impressed with the English roast and +boiled beef. These gentlemen made speeches in return for their dinners; +they were allowed to visit the Colonial Office and kiss the hand of Mr. +Chamberlain; they saw Peter Robinson's and the tuppenny tube: and the +bonds of Empire have been knit closer ever since. + +Not to put too fine a point upon it, the Englishman's attempt to +buttress himself up out of the Colonies has proved a ghastly failure. +The scheme fell flat. The English may want the Colonies, but the +Colonies do not want the English--at any rate, on bonds of unity lines. +The banner of Imperialism which has waved so gloriously during the +past lustrum will have to be furled and put away. The great Imperial +idea declines to work; it has been brought on the political stage half +a century too late. At best it was a fetch, and it has failed. The +All-Beloved will have to find some other way out. Whether he is quite +equal to the task may be reckoned another question. One supposes +that he will try; for there is life in the old dog yet, at any rate, +according to the old dog. + + + + + * * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's note: + +Original spelling has been retained. + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56453 *** |