The Strand Magazine/Volume 4/Issue 21/The Queer Side of Things
The Queer Side of Things
HE two spirits, William and James (whom it again becomes the duty of the faithful reader of The Strand Magazine to remember; whose images, indeed, should be deeply imprinted on his consciousness), had again foregathered in the solemn boundlessness of space and darkness.
"Touching those worlds and human beings whose existence I imagined———" said James.
William yawned wearily, but, unable to plead any sudden excuse for departure discourteously which would not be too transparent, resigned himself to the unavoidable.
"I have been studying this hypnotism of which I spoke as one of my fancies, and if you have no objection I fancy that I could—with your assistance—influence your mind to an extent which might enable you mentally to perceive some of the scenes which might be called into existence by the creation—if that were possible—of intelligent beings———"
"Intell—?" said William.
"Well, well—beings possessed of reason—ah, as opposed to instinct. I have not, perhaps, explained that I should propose the existence of other animals in addition to these human beings; lower animals which would possess only instinct."
"And what would be the difference between reason and instinct?" asked William.
"Well," replied James. "Ah—well—instinct would be infallible, while reason would not. Instinct would arrive—er—instinctively—at fact and truth."
"Ah," said the objectionable William, "now I perceive the meaning of your phrase, 'Reason as opposed to instinct.' However, let us have a game at this hypnotism which I presume I am to you propose to try. I presume I am to attempt to subordinate my mind to yours—subordinate, as it were, instinct to reason for the time being?"
They took the matter methodically in hand, and with such success that, within a few particles of eternity, James asked his companion spirit whether he seemed to perceive anything, and William replied:—
"Why—upon my word, yes! I seem to be conscious of a most hideous hubbub, discord, babel, and confusion—of an incessant wrangling, recrimination, and grumbling. It's perfectly bewildering and awful. I seem to see masses of forms, all struggling, and kicking, and rending one another—crawling over and treading on each other. What a horribly unpleasant state of affairs!"
"That's it!" cried James, with excited enthusiasm. "That's one of my worlds! Those are my human beings! You perceive it all perfectly! Now I wish you to tell me what strikes you most forcibly amid the confusion."
"Why—well—here are a group of human beings screaming with acute lamentation all in one key. They appear to be screaming for 'babies': they are calling upon the sky to rain down babies on their land, and upon the sea to wash up babies on the shore in shoals, like herrings! What can they require all those babies for? Surely not to eat?"
"Oh, no; not to eat. To increase the population. You will recall our touching upon the mania of these human creatures for increase of population, in our last talk on the subject? Well, this group of creatures are the legislators of one of the nations, and they are frantic with grief because the population does not increase with sufficient rapidity."
"All struggling and kicking."
"Ah, yes," said William, "I perceive that they have temporarily ceased their shrieks of lamentation in order to discuss various wild projects for increasing the population more rapidly. They are proposing taxes on bachelors, and premiums on large families, and other equally strange expedients. What very eccentric fellows, to be sure! What can they require all these babies for?"
"To—er—kill! Not to kill while babies, but after they are grown up into soldiers. The beautiful philoprogenitive instinct is very strong in these human beings of mine; their tenderness towards children is really touching. There are many societies for the protection of children; and human Governments are very severe upon violence to children. You see—er—if an infant is killed it is—er—disqualified for being subsequently slaughtered on the field of battle.
"Infanticide is regarded as a most heartless crime. You now perceive that that group of legislators are glaring at an adjacent island containing another nation, and are shrieking with anger and envy! That is because that insular nation has so many more babies, and increases so much more rapidly in population."
"Oh, ah, yes! I perceive the island you mention," said William. "It appears to me to be inconveniently crowded already; in fact, it seems unable to produce food enough to support its population."
"Oh! it is—it is! It is a most happy island; the happiness of a given district being always measured by its population. A large tract of land filled with the beauties of inanimate nature, but having a population insufficient to pollute the air, is considered a very sad sight; and earnest efforts are always made to crowd it with immigrants."
"I perceive an enormous congregation of your human beings on this island—a dense mass of them, all pushing and squeezing for want of space, and seething over each other as if they were boiling," said William.
"Yes," explained James, "that is the capital of the island, and the largest city in this particular world. It is so crowded that the air is unfit to breathe, and is full of sulphur and other poisons from the fires made by the inhabitants. Perfect health is unknown within its bounds. Everybody suffers perpetually from his liver, and has to suddenly 'knock off' from active business for about three weeks in every month; everyone is in the doctor's hands all the year round—that is, while the doctor is not prevented from attending him by being ill in bed himself; you see, as the general illness originates from overwork, and as the doctors are, under the circumstances, the most overworked section of the community, the doctors are generally a little more ill than their patients.
"The doctors are generally more ill than the patients."
"Everybody suffers from chronic nerves, and 'jumps,' and 'blues,' and various other diseases with similar scientific names; in fact, everybody has nothing particular the matter with him—no serious illness—and is in consequence always seriously ill. It is all the result of civilization, or over-population—which are exchangeable terms for the same thing."
"Hum!" grumbled the unreflecting William. "Don't quite see why they need be! Why can't your civilized communities draw the line when the population has reached its comfortable limits, and smother the superfluous individ—"
"Oh, William! How can you? What a horrible idea! Smother their fellow-creatures! No, William; morality, piety, the better feelings of the community would, with one accord, rebel against so hideous and shocking an expedient nay, it would not do at all. I have told you that the surplus population are required to be smashed and torn to death by explosives, and cut to pieces with swords, and so forth. Pray, do not make such dreadful suggestions again! This city increases its population with incredible rapidity; is, in fact, the envy of the world, and is always pointed to as a model."
"What a noise of cheering there is over in that part of the city!" exclaimed William. "There are all sorts of decorations, and illuminations, and triumphal arches."
"Public-spirited joy."
"Ah! that parish has gained the prize for the highest birth-rate; and you perceive it is erecting immense buildings within its bounds. These are new workhouses to receive the increment of population, which will, of course, be unable to find a means of livelihood. That parish is the champion parish of that great city—a guiding star for all the parishes in the world. The paupers in it—two-thirds of the entire population—have just been put on half rations in consequence of the increasing strain on the parish resources; but those paupers are wise enough to perceive that increase of population is the greatest boon, the highest aim, of a community; and are filled with public-spirited joy at the deduction from their allowance of food.
"Let me show you a picture of the place a few hundred years later—a year is a small division of time. It would be difficult to make you understand exactly what I mean by the abstract thing called Time, which I have conceived. Never mind."
Something seemed to whirl past the consciousness of William; and then another picture of the same island seemed to present itself before him. He fell to coughing and gasping violently, and grew purple in the face.
"Oh, dear—what a horrible atmosphere!" he exclaimed. "I can't breathe! Whatever is the matter? What a dreadful pressure of elbows there is all round me; and how the ground moves about under one's feet as if there were an earthquake!"
"Nearly torn to pieces."
"It isn't an earthquake," explained James; "it is merely that part of the population which, being weaker, has got trodden under foot—there being insufficient standing-room on the island for all. The stratum of those trodden under foot is about 15ft. deep by this time; and you may perceive that fresh numbers are continually falling from pressure and suffocation, there being, of course, insufficient air for all.
"But, just consider!—the birth-rate is always steadily on the increase, and the population is more jubilant than ever. It is a most happy island; and all the other nations are mad with envy."
"Here! Help! I don't like this!" screamed William. "I'm being whirled away by the crowd, and nearly torn to pieces! Why are they all rushing so? What's the matter?"
"Oh, they have only caught sight of a scrap of food," said James. "You see, the island can neither produce nor import anything approaching a sufficiency of food for the population, so everyone is chronically ravenous. But this by no means discounts the jubilation at the magnificent birth-rate. Here, give me your hand, and let me help you up to this place of comparative safety, on the roof of this cathedral, where the pressure of the crowd is less great. That's all right."
"What is the matter with that throng over there? Why do they give evidence of such wild indignation?"
"He has decided to emigrate."
"It is a meeting of working-men, convened to express indignation at a suggestion lately made that some of them should emigrate in search of the employment and subsistence which they cannot find here. If they can get hold of the author of the heartless suggestion, they will tear him in pieces. He has had the cynical effrontery to propose that they shall proceed across the ocean, and settle on a fertile tract of country where every one of them would have room, pure air, and plenty of food! As he has gone there himself, they unfortunately cannot get at him to rend him limb from limb."
"And who is this young man over whom so many people are weeping, and who is evidently the victim of some terrible misfortune?"
"Oh! why, he is a very extraordinary person, with a strangely warped mind; in fact, the majority of the population look upon him as insane. He has actually decided to emigrate to that country across the ocean, and get a breath of fresh air and sufficient meals. He is looked upon as the victim of pernicious machinations, and sincerely pitied. See, he is pushing toward the sea-shore, and making his way over the bodies of those who have been squeezed out at the edge of the land into the sea. Now he reaches one of the ships which lie, packed like pilchards, in the channel. Poor fellow! Perhaps he may never more behold the happy land of his childhood, where the birth-rate is so high!"
"There is another meeting," said William. They are lamenting the increasing tendency of young men to remain bachelors, instead of marrying and bringing up large families. This state of things is deplored as very serious and regrettable, and as a very unfortunate omen for the future of the population; and they proceed to suggest and consider means for inducing young men to marry at as early an age as possible. It is a very sad meeting!"
"Yes," said James; "you see they are beginning to fear that the race is dying out. That person speaking is a celebrated statistician, who has made a calculation, showing that, should the birth-rate continue on the same meagre lines, in the course of one hundred years everyone would find space to sit down; in two hundred years folks would be obliged to stick out their elbows in order to touch one another continuously over the whole island.
"Jones."
"What a terrible picture! Tears come into the eyes of the orator as he draws it: 'Where,' he asks, would be that compactness and unity which are the only safeguards of a nation? How could man keep touch with man? Think of that cold, hopeless, terrible void between one beating human heart and another!
"See—they are presenting a testimonial to an extremely deserving citizen, one Jones, a person of the lower middle classes, who is possessed of a family of no less than thirty-seven. That man is certain of a career; he has only to express a wish for any public office, to receive it at once; and see, even now the meeting suggests the creation of a new office in the Ministry on purpose for Jones—the office of 'Encourager of the Birth-rate,' at a salary of five thousand a year."
"Dear me, that is very unfortunate!" exclaimed William.
"What's the matter?" asked James.
"That meeting, just when about to hit upon a practical plan for arresting the decline of the birth-rate, have been all smothered by the pressure of numbers! Ha! What is that? Surely the sound of a trumpet! See—look! That nation which is so filled with envy of the insular nation is about to make war upon it."
"Ha!" cried James, triumphantly. "Now we shall see how the birth-rate tells! Now we shall see how the nation with the largest population has the incalculable advantage over the one which— What is the matter now?"
"Why, the envious nation with the low birth-rate has completely conquered the insular one, and is jumping on its flag!"
"Pooh! All a mistake!" screamed James. "Impossible. How about its vast population, ready at the call of its native land to rise against the foe?"
"Why," replied William, "the vast population ready at the call of its native land somehow smothered and crushed itself to death in the attempt to get to the foe; and, as it was a dense mass, the foe's cannon had greater effect upon it; and then the foe, having a lower birth-rate, and consequently more elbow-room—"
Club Types.
By H. M. Beerbohm.
In a tram car.
Spectator: "No use wasting pennies, governor, it only works up to twenty stone."
The Clock Bed.
The newest thing in lodging-house furniture.