"Yesterday at the police court of Surbiton-on-Thames Mary Forrester, a
servant in the employ of Mr. S. Bung was taken into custody on a charge
of having put a noxious preparation, possibly poison, into the coffee of
her employer's family. The young woman was remanded for a week."
Look at that. Mary Forrester a servant?
How wide was she round the chest? It doesn't say. Mr. S. Bung? Of
what club was he a member? None, apparently. Then who cares if he is
poisoned? And "the young woman!" What a way to speak of a decent girl
who never did any other harm than to poison a club man. And the English
magistrate! What a tame part he must have played: his name indeed
doesn't occur at all: apparently he didn't enlarge on the girl's good
looks, or "comment on her attractive appearance," or anything. I don't
suppose that he even asked Mary Forrester out to lunch with him.
Notice also that, according to the English way of writing the thing up,
as soon as the girl was remanded for a week the incident is closed.
The English reporter doesn't apparently know enough to follow Miss De
Forrest to her home (called "the De Forrest Residence" and marked with
a cross, +). The American reporter would make certain to supplement what
went above with further information of this fashion. "Miss De Forrest
when seen later at her own home by a representative of The Eagle
said that she regretted very much having been put to the necessity of
poisoning Mr. Bung. She had in the personal sense nothing against Mr.
Bung and apart from poisoning him she had every respect for Mr. Bung.
Miss De Forrest, who talks admirably on a variety of topics, expressed
herself as warmly in favour of the League of Nations and as a devotee of
the short ballot and proportional representation."
Any American reader who studies the English Press comes upon these
wasted opportunities every day. There are indeed certain journals of
a newer type which are doing their best to imitate us. But they don't
really get it yet. They use type up to about one inch and after that
they get afraid.
I hope that in describing the spirit of the English Press I do not seem
to be writing with any personal bitterness. I admit that there might be
a certain reason for such a bias. During my stay in England I was most
anxious to appear as a contributor to some of the leading papers. This
is, with the English, a thing that always adds prestige. To be able to
call oneself a "contributor" to the Times or to Punch or the Morning
Post or the Spectator, is a high honour. I have met these "contributors"
all over the British Empire. Some, I admit, look strange. An ancient
wreck in the back bar of an Ontario tavern (ancient regime) has told
me that he was a contributor to the Times: the janitor of the building
where I lived admits that he is a contributor to Punch: a man arrested
in Bristol for vagrancy while I was in England pleaded that he was a
contributor to the Spectator. In fact, it is an honour that everybody
seems to be able to get but me.
I had often tried before I went to England to contribute to the great
English newspapers. I had never succeeded. But I hoped that while in
England itself the very propinquity of the atmosphere, I mean the very
contiguity of the surroundings, would render the attempt easier. I tried
and I failed. My failure was all the more ignominious in that I had very
direct personal encouragement. "By all means," said the editor of the
London Times, "do some thing for us while you are here. Best of all,
do something in a political way; that's rather our special line." I
had already received almost an identical encouragement from the London
Morning Post, and in a more qualified way from the Manchester Guardian.
In short, success seemed easy.
I decided therefore to take some simple political event of the peculiar
kind that always makes a stir in English politics and write it up for
these English papers. To simplify matters I thought it better to use one
and the same incident and write it up in three different ways and get
paid for it three, times. All of those who write for the Press will
understand the motive at once. I waited therefore and watched the papers
to see if anything interesting might happen to the Ahkoond of Swat or
the Sandjak of Novi Bazar or any other native potentate. Within a couple
of days I got what I wanted in the following item, which I need hardly
say is taken word for word from the Press despatches:
"Perim, via Bombay. News comes by messenger that the Shriek of Kowfat
who has been living under the convention of 1898 has violated the modus
operandi. He is said to have torn off his suspenders, dipped himself in
oil and proclaimed a Jehad. The situation is critical."
Everybody who knows England knows that this is just the kind of news
that the English love. On our side of the Atlantic we should be bothered
by the fact that we did not know where Kowfat is, nor what was the
convention of 1898. They are not. They just take it for granted that
Kowfat is one of the many thousand places that they "own," somewhere
in the outer darkness. They have so many Kowfats that they cannot keep
track of them.
I knew therefore that everybody would be interested in any discussion
of what was at once called "the Kowfat Crisis" and I wrote it up. I
resisted the temptation to begin after the American fashion, "Shriek
sheds suspenders," and suited the writing, as I thought, to the market I
was writing for. I wrote up the incident for the Morning Post after the
following fashion:
"The news from Kowfat affords one more instance of a painful back-down
on the part of the Government. Our policy of spineless supineness is now
reaping its inevitable reward. To us there is only one thing to be done.
If the Shriek has torn off his suspenders he must be made to put them
on again. We have always held that where the imperial prestige of this
country is concerned there is no room for hesitation. In the present
instance our prestige is at stake: the matter involves our reputation in
the eyes of the surrounding natives, the Bantu Hottentots, the Negritos,
the Dwarf Men of East Abyssinia, and the Dog Men of Darfur. What will
they think of us? If we fail in this crisis their notion of us will fall
fifty per cent. In our opinion this country cannot stand a fifty per
cent drop in the estimation of the Dog Men. The time is one that demands
action. An ultimatum should be sent at once to the Shriek of Kowfat. If
he has one already we should send him another. He should be made at once
to put on his suspenders. The oil must be scraped off him, and he must
be told plainly that if a pup like him tries to start a Jehad he will
have to deal with the British Navy. We call the Shriek a pup in no sense
of belittling him as our imperial ally but because we consider that the
present is no time for half words and we do not regard pup as half a
word. Events such as the present, rocking the Empire to its base, make
one long for the spacious days of a Salisbury or a Queen Elizabeth, or
an Alfred the Great or a Julius Caesar. We doubt whether the present
Cabinet is in this class."
Not to lose any time in the coming and going of the mail, always a
serious thought for the contributor to the Press waiting for a cheque, I
sent another editorial on the same topic to the Manchester Guardian. It
ran as follows:
"The action of the Shriek of Kowfat in proclaiming a Jehad against us is
one that amply justifies all that we have said editorially since Jeremy
Bentham died. We have always held that the only way to deal with a
Mohammedan potentate like the Shriek is to treat him like a Christian.
The Khalifate of Kowfat at present buys its whole supply of cotton
piece goods in our market and pays cash. The Shriek, who is a man of
enlightenment, has consistently upheld the principles of Free Trade.
Not only are our exports of cotton piece goods, bibles, rum, and beads
constantly increasing, but they are more than offset by our importation
from Kowfat of ivory, rubber, gold, and oil. In short, we have never
seen the principles of Free Trade better illustrated. The Shriek, it is
now reported, refuses to wear the braces presented to him by our envoy
at the time of his coronation five years ago. He is said to have thrown
them into the mud. But we have no reason to suppose that this is meant
as a blow at our prestige. It may be that after five years of use the
little pulleys of the braces no longer work properly. We have ourselves
in our personal life known instances of this, and can speak of the sense
of irritation occasioned. Even we have thrown on the floor ours. And in
any case, as we have often reminded our readers, what is prestige? If
any one wants to hit us, let him hit us right there. We regard a blow at
our trade as far more deadly than a blow at our prestige.
"The situation as we see it demands immediate reparation on our part.
The principal grievance of the Shriek arises from the existence of our
fort and garrison on the Kowfat river. Our proper policy is to knock
down the fort, and either remove the garrison or give it to the Shriek.
We are convinced that as soon as the Shriek realises that we are
prepared to treat him in the proper Christian spirit, he will at once
respond with true Mohammedan generosity.
"We have further to remember that in what we do we are being observed by
the neighbouring tribes, the Negritos, the Dwarf Men, and the Dog Men of
Darfur. These are not only shrewd observers but substantial customers.
The Dwarf Men at present buy all their cotton on the Manchester market
and the Dog Men depend on us for their soap.
"The present crisis is one in which the nation needs statesmanship and a
broad outlook upon the world. In the existing situation we need not the
duplicity of a Machiavelli, but the commanding prescience of a Gladstone
or an Alfred the Great, or a Julius Caesar. Luckily we have exactly this
type of man at the head of affairs."
After completing the above I set to work without delay on a similar
exercise for the London Times. The special excellence of the Times, as
everybody knows is its fulness of information. For generations past the
Times has commanded a peculiar minuteness of knowledge about all parts
of the Empire. It is the proud boast of this great journal that to
whatever far away, outlandish part of the Empire you may go, you will
always find a correspondent of the Times looking for something to do.
It is said that the present proprietor has laid it down as his maxim,
"I don't want men who think; I want men who know." The arrangements for
thinking are made separately.
Incidentally I may say that I had personal opportunities while I was
in England of realising that the reputation of the Times staff for the
possession of information is well founded. Dining one night with some
members of the staff, I happened to mention Saskatchewan. One of the
editors at the other end of the table looked up at the mention of the
name. "Saskatchewan," he said, "ah, yes; that's not far from Alberta, is
it?" and then turned quietly to his food again. When I remind the reader
that Saskatchewan is only half an inch from Alberta he may judge of the
nicety of the knowledge involved. Having all this in mind, I recast the
editorial and sent it to the London Times as follows:
"The news that the Sultan of Kowfat has thrown away his suspenders
renders it of interest to indicate the exact spot where he has thrown
them. (See map). Kowfat, lying as the reader knows, on the Kowfat River,
occupies the hinterland between the back end of south-west Somaliland
and the east, that is to say, the west, bank of Lake P'schu. It thus
forms an enclave between the Dog Men of Darfur and the Negritos of
T'chk. The inhabitants of Kowfat are a coloured race three quarters
negroid and more than three quarters tabloid.
"As a solution of the present difficulty, the first thing required
in our opinion is to send out a boundary commission to delineate more
exactly still just where Kowfat is. After that an ethnographical survey
might be completed."
It was a matter not only of concern but of surprise to me that not one
of the three contributions recited above was accepted by the English
Press. The Morning Post complained that my editorial was not firm enough
in tone, the Guardian that it was not humane enough, the Times that
I had left out the latitude and longitude always expected by their
readers. I thought it not worth while to bother to revise the articles
as I had meantime conceived the idea that the same material might be
used in the most delightfully amusing way as the basis of a poem far
Punch. Everybody knows the kind of verses that are contributed to Punch
by Sir Owen Seaman and Mr. Charles Graves and men of that sort. And
everybody has been struck, as I have, by the extraordinary easiness of
the performance. All that one needs is to get some odd little incident,
such as the revolt of the Sultan of Kowfat, make up an amusing title,
and then string the verses together in such a way as to make rhymes with
all the odd words that come into the narrative. In fact, the thing is
ease itself.
I therefore saw a glorious chance with the Sultan of Kowfat. Indeed, I
fairly chuckled to myself when I thought what amusing rhymes could be
made with "Negritos," "modus operandi" and "Dog Men of Darfur." I can
scarcely imagine anything more excruciatingly funny than the rhymes
which can be made with them. And as for the title, bringing in the word
Kowfat or some play upon it, the thing is perfectly obvious. The idea
amused me so much that I set to work at the poem at once.
I am sorry to say that I failed to complete it. Not that I couldn't
have done so, given time; I am quite certain that if I had had about two
years I could have done it. The main structure of the poem, however, is
here and I give it for what it is worth. Even as it is it strikes me as
extraordinarily good. Here it is: