An Evangel of Unrest: The Life Story of Bonar Thompson by Bonar Thompson ( (Marble Arch, W.l. 1926)

From the commencement of the conflict until my arrest in 1916, I spoke against it, in various parts of London, particularly in Finsbury Park—the scene of many a deed and vow.

The "Daily Herald" League, from whose platform I hurled the challenge to every warmonger in London, was a magnificent band of rebels who carried the war against war into the enemy’s camp with unrelenting vigour and audacity, contesting the ground inch by inch without qualification or reservation.

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The campaign of “rounding up,” "roping in” and "combing out” was prosecuted by the enemy with the utmost determination. Every art and artifice, every dodge and device, by which to lure the young men into the war-trap, was employed by an unscrupulous and unprincipled governing class.

Touts and informers were lurking at every street corner on the look out for any poor devil who might not care to offer his carcase as a bullet stopper. Such as these were dubbed ”shirkers" and ”slackers,” and no effort was spared to land them in the net. I had many an encounter with the harpies and hirelings who lay in wait for the likely recruit, the following dialogue invariably taking place :—

Question: ”Why aren’t you in khaki?”

Answer: "Because there's a war on."

Question : ”What would you do if the Germans came here ?”

Answer: "Volunteer for foreign service.”

With the Recruiting Officer a similar interchange occurred :—

R. O. : " Well, lad, have you thought about it?” 

B. T. : ” Yes.”

R. O. : ” Going to join up?”

B. T.: “No!”

R. O. : ” How’s that?”

B. T. : ”I’ve thought about it.”

The Fleet Street Scribblers were working overtime in their lie-foundries manufacturing elaborate fabrications for the delectation of a gullible population. German spies, plots, atrocity stories, children’s hands cut off, corpse factories, and a hundred likely and unlikely stories festering in the fevered fancy of the rabble rousers of the reptile Press.

The ordinary Englishman had an impression in his head at the beginning of the war that the German people were neither better nor worse than anybody else.

This illusion had to be destroyed. All such errors must be swept from his mind. The Germans were not ordinary human beings. They were fiends in human form, vermin who must be destroyed like rats.

As one eminent Churchman, Father Bernard Vaughan, so veil put it: "There are two classes in the world to-day— human beings and Germans. The duty of every Christian is to kill Germans, and go on killing Germans."

These noble words rang out like a clarion call to the nation, rousing the laggards from their lethargy, opening men’s eyes to a realisation of the situation.

Very soon the whole population—with the exception of a negligible number of morbid and dangerous fanatics—was in the grip of the gospel of Hun-hating, waves of patriotic enthusiasm sweeping them along on their holy mission.

Some brave fellows, itching to do their bit in the sacred cause of ”right against might,” could not wait until they got to France to show their patriotism, and commenced operations on the Home Front by raiding shops kept by poor German shopkeepers in the East End, many a deathless deed of devotion and heroism being recorded in the great onslaught on those poor German pork butchers' establishments.

No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon (Collins Crime Club 1926)

 

Figures in the Fog

Fog had London by the throat. It blinded its eyes and muffled its ears. Such traffic as was not at a standstill groped its way with scarcely a sound through the jaundiced streets, and to cross a road was no longer a casual matter, but an adventure into the unknown. For this reason, the timid stayed indoors, while the more daring, and those who had no choice, groped gingerly along the pavements. The pickpockets were busy.

But it is not in the heart of London that our story commences. The fog had stretched its fingers far and wide, and a man who was approaching along one of the arteries that led Londonwards from the north-east paused for a few moments to rub his eyes, and then his stubby chin.

‘Gawd ’elp us!’ he muttered, staring into the great, gloomy smudge ahead of him. ‘If that ain’t the Yeller Peril, wot is?’

He had trudged out of a land of sunshine into a land of white mist, and now the white mist was becoming opaque orange. The prospect was so thoroughly unappetising that he even considered the idea of turning back. Had he known what awaited him in that gloomy smudge he would have acted very promptly on the idea, but the future itself is as impenetrable as a fog, and he decided to go on.

‘Arter all,’ he argued to himself, ‘one plice is as good as another, when you ain’t got nowhere helse!’

So he lit his best cigarette—barely more than half of it had been smoked by its previous owner—and resumed his way.

The Cotton-Pickers by B. Traven (Allison & Busby 1926)

The thought that from now on I would be working with a murderer day and night, eating from the same pot, perhaps sleeping in the same room, this thought didn’t occur to me at once. Either I’d sunk so low morally that I’d lost all feeling for such niceties of civilization, or I’d moved so far ahead of my time and so far above the moral standards of the day that I understood every human action, and neither took upon myself the right to condemn nor indulged in the cheap sentimentality of pity. For pity is also a condemnation, even if not so recognized, even if it is unconscious. Should I have felt a horror of Antonio, a revulsion against shaking his hand? There are so many thieves and murderers on the loose with diamonds on their fingers and big pearls in their neckties or gold stars on their epaulettes, and decent people think nothing of shaking hands with them, but even regard it an honor to do so. Every class has its thieves and murderers. Those of my class are hanged; others are invited to the president’s ball and complain about the crimes and immorality of workmen like me.

When you have to struggle hard to get a crust of bread, you find yourself down in the mire, floundering among the scum of humanity.