THE PERIOD, AND THE COMING OF WINGS
An intelligent South Sea Islander, who had been imported into this
country to stimulate missionary enterprise, on his return had said that
the most marked characteristic of the English of the period was what
they called "snap."
The nearest equivalent in his own language signifying literally "quick
hot words," he had some difficulty in conveying the impression he
desired, and his circle had to rest content that "snap" permeated the
journalism, commerce, politics, drama, and social life of the English,
had assailed their literature, and was beginning to influence religion,
art, and science. It may be admitted that the foreign gentleman's visit
had coincided with a period of national stress, for the week in question
had embraced the more entertaining half of a general election, seen the
advent of two new farthing daily papers, and been marked by the Rev.
Sebastian Tauthaul's striking series of addresses from the pulpit of the
City Sanctum, entitled "If Christ put up for Battersea." It had also
included the launching of a new cocoa, a new soap, and a new
concentrated food.
The new food was called "Chip-Chunks." "A name which I venture to think
spells success of itself," complacently remarked its inventor. "A very
good name indeed," admitted his advertising manager. "It has the great
desideratum that it might be anything, and, on the other hand, it might
equally well be nothing." "Just so," said the inventor with weighty
approval; "just so." A "snap-line" was required that would ineradicably
fix Chip-Chunks in the public mind, and "Bow-wow! Feel chippy? Then
champ Chip-Chunks" was found in an inspired moment. It was, of course,
fully cooked and already quite digested. It was described as the delight
of the unweaned infant, the mainstay of the toothless nonagenarian, and
so simple and wholesome that it could be safely taken and at once
assimilated by the invalid who had undergone the operation of having his
principal organ of digestion removed. So little, indeed, remained for
nature and the human parts to do in the matter of Chip-Chunks as to
raise the doubt whether it might not be simpler and scarcely less
nutritive to open the tin and pour the contents down the drain
forthwith.
As Chip-Chunks was designed for those who were disinclined to exercise
the functions of digestion, so Isabella soap made an appeal to those who
disliked work and had something of an antipathy to soap at all. One did
not wash with Isabella, it was assured: one sat down and watched it. It
had its "snap-lines," too:
"You write it 'wash,' but you call it 'wosh.'
"What is the difference?
"There is 'a' difference.
"There is also 'a' difference between Isabella soap and all other soaps:
"All the difference.
"That's our point. Put it in your washtub and watch it."
* * * * *
Cocoa was approached in a more sober spirit. Soap may blow bubbles of
light and airy fancy, pills _ricochet_ from one gay conceit to another,
meat extracts gambol with the irresponsible exuberance of bulls in china
cups, but cocoa relied upon sincerity and statistics. Kingcup cocoa was
the last word of the expert. It won its way into the great heart of the
people by driving home the significant fact that it contained .00001 per
cent. more phosphorus, and .000002 per cent. less of something fatty,
than any other cocoa in existence. When the newspaper reader of the
period had been confronted by this assertion, in various guises,
seventeen thousand times, he had reached a state of mind in which .00001
per cent. more phosphorus and .000002 per cent. less fat represented the
difference between vigorous manhood and drivelling imbecility.
The Rev. Sebastian was all "snap." His topical midday
addresses--described by himself as "Seven minutes
sandwich-sermonettes"--have already been referred to. Young men who were
pressed for time were bidden to bring their bath buns or buttered scones
and eat openly and unashamed. Workmen with bread and cheese and pots of
beer were welcomed with effusion. This particular series extended over
the working days of a week, and was subdivided thus:
_Monday._--The Issues before the Constituency.
_Tuesday._--His Address to the Electors.
_Wednesday._--The Day of the Contest.
_Thursday._--Which Way are you Voting?
_Friday._--Spoiled Papers.
_Saturday._--At the Top of the Poll and the Leader of
our Party.
* * * * *
Of the new papers, of their sprightliness, their enterprise, their
general all-roundness, their almost wicked experience of the ways of the
world, from a quite up-to-date fund of junior office witticism to a
knowledge of the existence of actresses who do not act, outwardly
respectable circles of society who play cards for money on Sunday, and
(exclusively for the benefit of their readers) places where quite
high-class provisions (only nominally damaged) could be bought cheap on
Saturday nights, it is unnecessary to say much. Of their irresponsible
cock-sureness, their bristling combativeness, their amazing powers of
prophetic penetration, and, it must be confessed, their ineradicable air
of somewhat second-rate infant phenomenonship, their crumbling yellow
files still bear witness. As a halfpenny is half a penny, so a farthing
is half a halfpenny, and the mind that is not too appalled by the
possibilities of the development can people for itself this journalistic
Eden.
_The Whip_ described its programme as "Vervy and nervy; brainy and
champagny." _The Broom_ relied more on solider attractions of the "News
of the World in Pin Point Pars" and "Knowledge in Nodules" order. Both
claimed to be written exclusively by "brainy" people, and both might
have added, with equal truth, read exclusively by brainless. Avowedly
appealing "to the great intellect of the nation," neither fell into the
easy mistake of aiming too high, and the humblest son of toil might take
them up with the fullest confidence of finding nothing from beginning to
end that was beyond his simple comprehension.
But the most cursory review of national "snappishness" would be
incomplete if it omitted the field of politics, especially when the
period in question contained so concentrated an accumulation of "snap"
as a general election. Contests had long ceased to be decided on the
merits of individuals or of parties, still less to be the occasions for
deliberate consideration of policy. Each group had its label and its
"snap-cries." The outcome as a whole--the decision of each division with
few exceptions--lay in the hands of a class which, while educated to the
extent of a little reading and a little writing, was practically
illiterate in thought, in experience, and in discrimination. To them a
"snap-cry" was eminently suited, as representing a concrete idea and
being in fact the next best argument to a decayed egg. That national
disaster had never so far been evolved out of this rough-and-ready
method could be traced to a variety of saving clauses. At such a time
the strict veracity of the cries raised was not to be too closely
examined; indeed, there was not the time for contradiction, and therein
lay the essence of some of the most successful "snaps."
Misrepresentation, if on a sufficiently large scale, was permissible,
but it was advisable to make it wholesale, lurid, and applied not to an
individual but to a party--emphasising, of course, the fact that your
opponent was irretrievably pledged to that party through thick and thin.
In other words, it was quite legitimate for A to declare that the policy
of the party to which his opponent B belonged was a policy of murder,
rapine, piracy, black-mail, highway robbery, extermination, and
indiscriminate bloodshed; that they had swum to office on a sea of tears
racked from the broken hearts of an outraged peasantry, risen to power
on the apex of a smoking hecatomb of women and children, and kept their
position by methods of ruthless barbarism; that assassination, polygamy,
thuggeeism, simony, bureaucracy, and perhaps even an additional penny on
the poor man's tea, would very likely be found included in their
official programme; that they were definitely pledged to introduce
Kalmucks and Ostyaks into the Government Dock-yards, who would work in
chained gangs, be content with three farthings for a fourteen hours'
day, and live exclusively on engine waste and barley-water.
This and much more was held to be fair political warfare which should
not offend the keenest patriot. But if A so far descended to vulgar
personalities as to accuse B himself of employing an urchin to scare
crows at eightpence a day when the trade union rate for crow-scaring was
ninepence, he stood a fair chance of having an action for libel or
defamation of character on his hands in addition to an election.
Under such a system the least snappy went to the wall. Happy was the man
who was armed not necessarily with a just cause, but with a name that
lent itself to topical alliteration. Who could resist the appeal to
Vote for Frank Blarney.
Fresh Brooms in Parliament.
Fewer Bungles during the next five years.
Financial Betterment at home.
Free Breakfast-tables for the People.
Flourishing Businesses all round.
--especially when it was coupled with the reminder that
Every vote given to A. J. Wallflower is a slice of bread filched from
your innocent children's hard-earned loaf.
* * * * *
Of course the schools could not escape the atmosphere. The State-taught
children were wonderfully snappy--for the time being. Afterwards, it
might be noticed, that when the props were pulled away they were
generally either annoyingly dull or objectionably pert, or, perhaps,
offensively dully-pert, according to whether their nature was backward
or forward, or a mixture of both. The squad-drilled units could remember
wonderfully well--for the time; they could apply the rules they learned
in just the way they were taught to apply them--for the time. But they
could not remember what they had not been drilled to remember; they
could not apply the rules in any other way; they could not apply the
principles at all; and they could not think.
High and low, children were not allowed to think; with ninety-nine
mothers out of a hundred its proper name was "idleness." "I do not like
to see you sitting down doing nothing, dear," said every mother to every
daughter plaintively. "Is there no sewing you might do?" So the would-be
thoughtful child was harried into working, or playing, or eating, or
sleeping, as though a mind contentedly occupied with itself was an
unworthy or a morbid thing.
Yet it was a too close adherence to the national character that proved
to be the undoing of Wynchley Slocombe, who is now generally admitted to
have been the father of the form of aerial propulsion so widely enjoyed
to-day. Like everybody else, he had read the offer of the Traffic and
Locomotion Department of a substantial reward for a satisfactory
flying-machine, embracing "any contrivance ... that would by
demonstration enable one or more persons, freed from all earth-support
or connection (_a_) to remain stationary at will, at any height between
50 and 1500 feet; (_b_) at that height to travel between two points one
mile apart within a time limit of seven minutes and without deviating
more than fifty yards from a straight line connecting the two points;
(_c_) to travel in a circle of not less than three miles in
circumference within a time limit of fifteen minutes." Wynchley took an
ordinary intelligent interest in the subject, but he had no thought of
competing.
It was not until the last day of the period allowed for submitting plans
that Wynchley's great idea occurred to him. There was then no time for
elaborating the germ or for preparing the requisite specifications, even
if he had any ability to do so, which he had not, being, in fact, quite
ignorant of the subject. But he remembered hearing in his youth that
when a former Government of its day had offered a premium for a
convenient method of dividing postage stamps (until that time sold in
unperforated sheets and cut up as required by the users), the successful
competitor had simply tendered the advice, "Punch rows of little holes
between them." In the same spirit Wynchley Slocombe took half a sheet of
silurian notepaper (now become famous, and preserved in the South
Kensington Museum) and wrote on it, "Fasten on a pair of wings, and
practise! practise!! practise!!!" It was to be the aerial counterpart of
"Gunnery! Gunnery!! Gunnery!!!"
Unfortunately, the departmental offices were the only places in England
where "snap" was not recognised. Wynchley was regarded as a suicidal
lunatic--a familiar enough figure in flying-machine circles--and his
suggestion was duly pigeon-holed without consideration.
The subsequent career of the unhappy man may be briefly stated.
Disappointed in his hopes of an early recognition, and not having
sufficient money at his disposal to demonstrate the practicability of
his idea, he took to writing letters to the President of the Board, and
subsequently to waylaying high officials and demanding interviews with
them. Dismissed from his situation for systematic neglect of duty, he
became a "poor litigant with a grievance" at the Law Courts, and
periodically applied for summonses against the Prime Minister, the Lord
Mayor of London, and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Still later his name
became a by-word as that of a confirmed window-breaker at the Government
offices. A few years afterwards, a brief paragraph in one or two papers
announced that Wynchley Slocombe, "who, some time ago, gained an
unenviable notoriety on account of his hallucinations," had committed
suicide in a Deptford model lodging-house.
In the meanwhile two plans for flying-machines had been selected as
displaying the most merit, and their inventors were encouraged to press
on with the construction under a monetary grant. Both were finished
during the same week, and for the sake of comparison they were submitted
to trial on the same day upon Shorncliffe plain. _Vimbonne VI._, which
resembled a much-distended spider with outspread legs, made the first
ascent. According to instructions, it was to demonstrate its ability to
go in a straight line by descending in a field near the Military Canal,
beyond Seabrook, but from the moment of its release it continued to
describe short circles with a velocity hitherto unattained in any
air-ship, until its frantic constructor was too dizzy to struggle with
its mechanism any longer. The _Moloch_ was then unmoored, and took up
its position stationary at a height of 1000 feet with absolute
precision. It was built on the lines of a gigantic centipede, with two
rows of clubby oars beneath, and ranked as the popular favourite. Being
instructed, for the sake of variety, to begin with the three mile
circle, the _Moloch_ started out to sea on the flash of the gun, the
sinuous motion that rippled down its long vertebrate body producing an
effect, accidental but so very life-like, that many of the vast
concourse assembled on the ground turned pale and could not follow it
unmoved....
There have been many plausible theories put forward by experts to
account for the subsequent disaster, but for obvious reasons the real
explanation can never progress beyond the realms of conjecture, for the
_Moloch_, instead of bending to the east, encircling Folkestone and its
suburbs, and descending again in the middle of Shorncliffe Camp,
continued its unswerving line towards the coast of France, and never
held communication with civilised man again.
So exact was its course, however, that it was easy to trace its passage
across Europe. It reached Boulogne about four o'clock in the afternoon,
and was cheered vociferously under the pathetic impression that
everything was going well. Amiens saw it a little to the east in the
fading light of evening, and a few early citizens of Dijon marked it
soon after dawn. Its passage over the Alps was accurately timed and
noted at several points, and the Italian frontier had a glimpse of it,
very high up, it was recorded, at nightfall. A gentleman of Ajaccio,
travelling in the interior of the island, thought that he had seen it
some time during the next day; and several Tripoli Greeks swore that it
had passed a few yards above their heads a week later; but the testimony
of the Corsican was deemed the more reliable of the two. A relief
expedition was subsequently sent out and traversed a great part of
Africa, but although the natives in the district around the Albert
Nyanza repeatedly prostrated themselves and smacked their thighs
vigorously--the tribal signs of fear and recognition--when shown a small
working model of the _Moloch_, no further trace was ever obtained of it.
The accident had a curious sequel in the House of Commons, which
significantly illustrates how unexpected may be the ultimate
developments of a chain of circumstance. It so happened that in addition
to its complement of hands, the _Moloch_ carried an assistant
under-secretary to the Board of Agriculture. This gentleman, who had
made entomology a lifelong study, was invaluable to his office, and the
lamentable consequence of his absence was that when the President of the
Board rose the following night to answer a question respecting the
importation of lady-birds to arrest an aphis plague then devastating the
orchards of the country, he ingenuously displayed so striking an
unfamiliarity with the subject that his resignation was demanded, the
Government discredited, and a dissolution forced. In particular, the
hon. gentleman convulsed the House by referring throughout to lady-birds
as "the female members of the various feathered tribes," and warmly
defending their importation as the only satisfactory expedient in the
circumstances.
Wynchley's suggestion remained on file for the next few years, and would
doubtless have crumbled to dust unfruitfully had it not been for a
trivial incident. A junior staff clerk, finding himself to be without
matches one morning, and hesitating to mutilate the copy of--let us say,
the official Pink Paper which he was reading at the moment,
absent-mindedly tore a sheet haphazard from a bundle close at hand. As
he lit his cigarette, the name of Wynchley Slocombe caught his eye and
stirred a half-forgotten memory, for the unfortunate Wynchley had been a
stock jest in the past.
Herbert Baedeker Phipps now becomes a force in the history of aerial
conquest. He smoothed out the paper from which he had only torn off a
fragment, read the stirring "Practise! Practise!! Practise!!!" (at least
it has since been recognised to be stirring--stirring, inspired, and
pulsating with the impassioned ardour of neglected genius), and pondered
deeply to the accompaniment of three more cigarettes. Was there anything
in it? Why could not people fly by means of artificial wings? There had
been attempts; how did the enthusiasts begin? Usually by precipitating
themselves out of an upper window in the first flush of their
self-confidence. They were killed, and wings fell into disfavour; but
the same result would attend the unsophisticated novice who made his
first essay in swimming by diving off a cliff into ten fathoms deep of
water. Here, even in a denser medium, was the admitted necessity for
laborious practice before security was assured.
Phipps looked a step further. By nature man is ill-equipped for flying,
whereas he possesses in himself all the requisites for successful
propulsion through the water. Yet he needs practice in water; more
practice therefore in air. For thousands of years mankind has been
swimming and thereby lightening the task for his descendants, to such an
extent that in certain islands the children swim almost naturally, even
before they walk; whereas, with the solitary exception of a certain
fabled gentleman who made the attempt so successfully and attained such
a height that the sun melted the wax with which he had affixed his wings
(Styckiton in convenient tubes not being then procurable), no man has
ever flown. More, more practice. The very birds themselves, Phipps
remembered, first require parental coaching in the art, while aquatic
creatures and even the amphibia take to that element with developed
faculties from their birth. Still more need of practice for ungainly
man. Here, he was convinced, lay the whole secret of failure and
possible success. "Practise! Practise!! Practise!!!" The last word was
with Wynchley Slocombe.