If the sweltering heat that hung over London added in one way to the
terror of the hour, it was not without a beneficent effect in another
direction. Under such a sky, and with a barometer somewhere in the
nineties, it was impossible for rioting to last long at a stretch.
The early hours of dawn saw London comparatively quiet again. Perhaps
it was no more than the sleep of exhaustion and sullen despair, perhaps
the flame might break out again with the coming of the day. Down in the
East End a constant struggle was maintained, a struggle between the
industrious and prudent and those who depended upon luck or the power
of the strong arm.
The day came again with the promise of another round of blazing hours.
At first there were no signs of lawlessness, nothing more than an eager
jostling stream of people pushing impatiently towards the districts
where water could be obtained. These were the folks who preferred to
get their own instead of waiting for the carts or tanks to visit them.
Naturally, the Press was full of good advice. Thousands of
correspondents had rushed into print with many a grotesque suggestion
for getting rid of the difficulty. Amongst these ingenious inventions
was one that immediately arrested popular attention. The writer pointed
out that there were other things to quench thirst besides water. There
were hundred of tons of fruit in London, it came up from the provinces
by the trainload every day, foreign vessels brought consignments to the
Thames and the Mersey. Let the Government pour all this into London and
distribute it free in a systematic way.
This letter appeared in three popular papers. The thing was talked
about from one end of London to the other. It was discussed in
Whitechapel and eagerly debated in the West End clubs.
Instantly the whole metropolis had a wild longing for fruit. Some of
the shops were cleared out directly at extraordinary prices. Grapes
usually sold at a shilling or two the pound now fetched twenty times
their value. A costermonger in the Strand with a barrow of oranges
suddenly found himself a comparatively rich man. Towards midday crowds
began to gather before the big fruit stores, and in the neighbourhood
of Covent Garden traffic was impossible.
Prices went leaping up as if fruit had become as extinct as the dodo.
Still the stuff came pouring in in response to urgent telegrams. It
looked as if the dealers were bent upon making a fortune out of the
public mood. Like lightning the news of what was happening flashed over
London, and gradually the approaches to Covent Garden were packed with
people.
[Illustration: Another man, amidst the yells of the crowd, sprang to
the top of the load and whirled a basket of apples far and wide.]
Presently curiosity was followed by a sullen resentment. Who were these
men that they should be allowed to fatten on public misfortune? These
things ought to have been given away if only on the ground of mere
public policy. Through the crush came a waggon-load of baskets and
boxes. A determined-looking mechanic stopped the horses whilst another
man, amidst the yells of the crowd, sprang to the top of the load and
whirled a basket of apples far and wide.
"You've got too heavy a load, matey," he said grimly to the driver.
The man grinned meaningly. He was benefiting nothing by the new order
of things. He took an apple and began to eat it himself. In a few
minutes every speck of fruit had disappeared.
The thing was done spontaneously and in perfect order. One moment the
market had been absolutely crammed with fruit of all kinds, an hour
afterwards it was empty.
It was a fairly good-humoured crowd, if a little grim, as yet. But the
authorities had serious faces, whilst quite half the police in streets
looked shy and out of place as well they might be seeing that several
thousand of them had been drafted into London from all parts of the
country. Towards midday a sport was added to the amusement of the great
mobs that packed the main streets. There was not the slightest reason
why all London should not be at work as usual, but, by mutual consent,
the daily toil had come to a standstill. It was grilling hot with a sun
that made the pavement gleam and tremble in the shimmering haze and
there was little to quench the thirst of the multitude. But then did
not London teem from end to end with places of public entertainment
where thirsts were specially catered for?
Already sections of the crowd had begun to enter them and call loudly
for sundry liquids. Why should the hotel proprietors get off scot free?
Mysteriously as the sign that called up the Indian Mutiny, the signal
went round to raid the public houses. There was no call to repeat it
twice.
Everybody suffered alike. The bars were choked and packed with
perspiring humanity yelling for liquid refreshment, the men who were
wise bowed to the inevitable and served out their stock till it was
exhausted and said so with cheerful faces. In the Strand the cellars of
certain famous restaurants were looted and one proprietor proclaimed
that Whitechapel and Shoreditch had taken from him wines to the value
of £30,000. Men were standing in the Strand with strange dusty bottles
in their hands, the necks of which they knocked off without ceremony
to reach the precious liquid within. For the most part they were
disappointed. There were murmurs of disgust and wry faces at the stored
juice of the grape that a connoisseur would have raved over.
Fortunately there was little or no drunkenness. The crowd was too vast
and the supply too limited for that. And practically there was no
rioting where the unfortunate license holders were discreet enough to
bow to the inevitable. One or two places were gutted under the eyes
of the police who could do no more than keep a decent show of order
and bustle about certain suspicious characters who were present for
something more than curiosity.
About one o'clock in the afternoon the early edition of the evening
papers began to appear. They were eagerly bought up with a view to
the latest news. Presently the name of the _Mirror_ seemed to rise
spontaneously to every lip. Nobody knew whence it came or why, but
there it was. With one accord everybody was calling for the _Mirror_.
There was pregnant news within. Yet none of the papers could be seen in
the streets. There was a rush to the office of the paper.
A large flag floated on the top of the building. Across the front was a
white sheet with words upon it that thrilled the heart of the spectator.
"The panic is at an end. London to use its full water supply again. Dr.
Darbyshire saves the situation. The mains turned on everywhere. See the
_Mirror_."
What could it mean? In the sudden silence the roar of the _Mirror_
printing presses could be heard. Presently the big doors in the
basement burst open and hundreds of copies of the paper were pitched
into the street. No payment was asked and none was expected. A white
sea of rustling sheets fluttered over men's heads as far as the Strand.
Up there the turncocks were busy flushing the gutters with standpipes,
a row of fire engines was proceeding to wash the streets down from the
mains. The whole thing was so sudden and unexpected that it seemed like
a dream.
Who was this same Dr. Darbyshire who had brought this miracle about?
But it was all in the _Mirror_ for everyone to see who could read.
"Very late last night Dr. Longdale the well-known hygienic specialist
was called to Charing Cross Hospital to see Dr. Darbyshire who the
night before had been taken to that institution with concussion of the
brain. It may not be generally known that Dr. Darbyshire discovered
the bubonic plague bacillus in the Thames which led to the wholesale
cutting off of the London Water Supply.
"Unfortunately the only man who might have been able to grapple
with the difficulty was placed _hors de combat_. We know now that if
nothing had happened to him there would have been no scare at all.
Unfortunately the bacillus story found its way to the office of a
contemporary, who did not hesitate to make capital out of the dreadful
discovery. The dire result that followed on the publication of the
_Telephone_ we already know to our cost.
"To obviate that calamity Dr. Darbyshire was on his way to the
_Telephone_ office when he met with his accident. Late last night the
learned gentleman had so far recovered as to ask full particulars of
what had happened and also to see Dr. Longdale without delay.
"Judge of the surprise and delight of the latter to know that
matters had been already remedied. It appears that for years past
Dr. Darbyshire has been experimenting upon contaminated water with
a view to making the same innocuous to human life. Quite recently
the discovery has been perfectly and successfully tried with water
impregnated with the germs of every known disease. So long as so many
great towns draw their water supply from open streams liable to all
kinds of contamination, Dr. Darbyshire felt sure there would be no
public safety till the remedy was found.
"The remedy had been found and would have been made public directly,
when there came the now historic case of the Santa Anna and the
alarming outbreak of bubonic fever at Ashchurch.
"On reaching the village in question and on verifying his suspicions,
Dr. Darbyshire found that the waters of the Thames were strongly
impregnated with the germs of that fell disease. As a matter of fact,
the sterilising process was applied at once, and an examination of the
water of the Thames a few miles lower down gave the result of absolute
purity.
"This part of the story Dr. Darbyshire had no time to tell his
colleague Dr. Longdale. He was only too anxious to get away and
prevent the issue of a scare leader by the _Telephone_.
"Accident prevented this design, and when Dr. Longdale was questioned
he was bound to admit that he had seen the Thames water strongly
impregnated with the bubonic bacillus. After that there was no
alternative but to cut off the supply from the Thames. Let us hope the
severe lesson has not been in vain.
"Once these facts came to Dr. Longdale's notice, he lost no time.
A special train was dispatched to Ashchurch, and returned quickly,
bringing specimens of water from the Thames.
"These, after investigation, a small body of leading specialists drank
without the slightest hesitation. The new process of sterilisation
discovered by Dr. Darbyshire has saved the situation. Otherwise it
would have been impossible to magnify the disaster."
Did ever a quiet and dignified newspaper paragraph produce such a
sensational outbreak in the history of journalism? Nobody needed to
be convinced of the truth of the statement--truth was on the face of
it. Men shook one another by the hand, hats were cast into the air
and forgotten heedless of the blazing sun; up in the Strand where
fire-engines were sluicing the streets with water people stood under
the beating drip of the precious fluid until they were soaked to the
skin; well-dressed men laved themselves in the clear running gutters
with an eagerness that the pursuit of gold never surpassed. London was
saved from disaster, and Dr. Darbyshire was the hero of the hour.
The great man was sitting up in bed and modestly listening to the story
that Longdale had to tell. Darbyshire was blaming himself severely.
"I ought to have told you," he said. "When I asked you to come round to
me the other night I had a dramatic surprise for you. I told you all
about the fever and the state of the Thames. From the condition of the
germs I knew that the trouble had not gone far. Here was a chance to
test my sterilisation on a big scale. I tried it with perfect success.
I'll show you the whole process the first time I get back home."
"Yes, do," said Longdale grimly. "It's all right as it is, but if you
meet with another accident and another such scourge comes along and we
don't know----"
"I quite understand. When I had worked upon your feelings, I was going
to show you the whole thing. Then I found out what that fellow Chase
had got hold of, and I had to fly off post haste and see his editor. I
didn't mind the paper having its 'scare' so long as I came in at the
finish with the assurance that there was no need for alarm.
"Hence my hurry, and hence my accident. All the same, it was a mean
thing, Longdale. Some day perhaps the country will realise what a debt
it owes to its men of science."
Longdale looked at the yelling joyous mob outside heedless of the
sunshine and reckless in the hysteria of the moment.
"And perhaps the country will foster them a little more," he said.
"Nothing but science could have prevented a calamity that would have
multiplied ten-fold the horrors of the Great Plague, and destroyed, not
thousands, but tens of thousands."
Darbyshire nodded thoughtfully.
"One of the things that might have been," he said.
"Might have been! We have had a lesson, but I doubt if we shall profit
by it. England never seems to profit by anything. It is one of the
things that may be. And there is more difference than meets the eye."