could not be as thick as usual. In my weak, morbid state, I longed to force my way in, and see what was on the other side. No one was in sight, or I should not have dared to try. For we of the road do not admit in conversation that there is another side at all.

I yielded to the temptation, saying to myself that I would come back in a minute. The thorns scratched my face, and I had to use my arms as a shield, depending on my feet alone to push me forward. Halfway through I would have gone back, for in the passage all the things I was carrying were scraped off me, and my clothes were torn. But I was so wedged that return was impossible; and I had to wriggle blindly forward, expecting every moment that my strength would fail me, and that I should perish in the undergrowth.

Suddenly cold water closed round my head, and I seemed sinking down for ever. I had fallen out of the hedge into a deep pool. I rose to the surface at last, crying for help, and I heard someone on the opposite bank laugh and say: "Another!" And then I was twitched out and laid panting on the dry ground.

Even when the water was out of my eyes, I was still dazed; for I had never been in so large a space, nor seen such grass and sunshine. The blue sky was no longer a strip; and beneath it the earth had risen grandly into hills-clean, bare buttresses, with beech trees in their folds, and meadows and clear pools at their feet. But the hills were not high; and there was in the landscape a sense of human occupation-so that one might have called it a park, or garden, if the words did not imply a certain triviality and constraint.

As soon as I got my breath, I turned to my rescuer and said:

"Where does this place lead to?"

"Nowhere, thank the Lord!" said he, and laughed. He was a man of fifty or sixty-just the kind of age we mistrust on the road-but there was no anxiety in his manner, and his voice was that of a boy of eighteen.

"But it must lead somewhere!" I cried, too much surprised at his answer to thank him for saving my life.

"He wants to know where it leads!" he shouted to some men on the hill side, and they laughed back, and waved their caps.

I noticed then that the pool into which I had fallen was really a moat which bent round to the left and to the right, and that the hedge followed it continually. The hedge was green on this side-its roots showed through the clear water, and fish swam about in them-and it was wreathed over with dog-roses and Traveller's Joy. But it was a barrier, and in a moment I lost all pleasure in the grass, the sky, the trees, the happy men and women, and realized that the place was but a prison, for all its beauty and extent.

We moved away from the boundary, and then followed a path almost parallel to it, across the meadows. I found it difficult walking, for I was always trying to out-distance my companion, and there was no advantage in doing this if the place led nowhere. I had never kept step with anyone since I left my brother.

I amused him by stopping suddenly and saying disconsolately, "This is perfectly terrible. One cannot advance: one cannot progress. Now we of the road-"

"Yes. I know."

"I was going to say, we advance continually."

"I know."

"We are always learning, expanding, developing. Why, even in my short life I have seen a great deal of advancethe Transvaal War, the Fiscal Ques

"The laws of science are universal in their application. It must be the water in the moat that has injured the machinery. In normal conditions everything works. Science and the spirit of emulation-those are the forces that have made us what we are."

I had to break off and acknowledge the pleasant greetings of people whom we passed. Some of them were singing, some talking, some engaged in gardening, hay-making, or other rudimentary industries. They all seemed happy; and I might have been happy too, if I could have forgotten that the place led nowhere.

I was startled by a young man who came sprinting across our path, took a little fence in fine style, and went tearing over a ploughed field till he plunged into a lake, across which he began to swim. Here was true energy, and I exclaimed: "A cross-country race! Where are the others?"

"There are no others," my companion replied; and, later on, when we passed some long grass from which came the voice of a girl singing exquisitely to herself, he said again: "There are no others." I was bewildered at the waste in production, and murmured to myself, "What does it all mean?"

He said: "It means nothing but itself" and he repeated the words slowly, as if I was a child.

"I understand," I said quietly, "but I do not agree. Every achievement is

worthless unless it is a link in the chain of development. And I must not trespass on your kindness any longer. I must get back somehow to the road, and have my pedometer mended."

"First, you must see the gates," he replied, "for we have gates, though we never use them."

I yielded politely, and before long we reached the moat again, at a point where it was spanned by a bridge. Over the bridge was a big gate, as white as ivory, which was fitted into a gap in the boundary hedge. The gate opened outwards, and I exclaimed in amazement, for from it ran a road --just such a road as I had left-dusty under foot, with brown crackling hedges on either side as far as the eye could reach.

"That's my road!" I cried.

He shut the gate and said: "But not your part of the road. It is through this gate that humanity went out some thousand years ago, when it was first seized with the desire to walk."

I denied this, observing that the part of the road I myself had left was not more than two miles off. But with the obstinacy of his years he repeated: "It is the same road. This is the beginning, and though it seems to run straight away from us, it doubles so often, that it is never far from our boundary and sometimes touches it." He stooped down by the moat, and traced on its moist margin an absurd figure like a maze. As we walked back through the meadows, I tried to convince him of his mistake.

"The road sometimes doubles, to be sure, but that is part of our discipline. Who can doubt that its general tendency is onward. To what goal we know not-it may be to some mountain where we shall touch the sky, it may be over precipices into the sea. But that it goes forward-who can doubt that? It is the thought of that that

makes us strive to excel, each in his own way, and gives us an impetus which is lacking with you. Now that man who passed us-it's true that he ran well, and jumped well, and swam well; but we have men who can run better, and men who can jump better, and who can swim better. Specialization has produced results which would surprise you. Similarly, that girl”

have

Here I interrupted myself to exclaim: "Good gracious me! I could sworn it was Miss Dimbleby over there, with her feet in the fountain!" He believed that it was. "Impossible! I left her on the road; and she is due to lecture this evening at Tunbridge Wells. Why, her train leaves Cannon Street in-of course my watch has stopped like everything else. She is the last person to be here."

"People always are astonished at meeting each other. All kinds come through the hedge, and come at all times-when they are drawing ahead in the race, when they are lagging behind, when they are left for dead. I often stand near the boundary listening to the sounds of the road-you know what they are-and wonder if anyone will turn aside. It is my great happiness to help someone out of the moat, as I helped you. For our country fills up slowly, though it was meant for all mankind."

"Mankind have other aims," I said gently, for I thought him well-meaning; "and I must join them." I bade him good evening, for the sun was declining, and I wished to be on the road by nightfall. To my alarm, he caught hold of me, crying: "You are not to go yet!" I tried to shake him off; for we had no interests in common, and his civility was becoming irksome to me. But for all my struggles the tiresome old man would not let go; and, as wrestling is not my speciality, I was obliged to follow him.

It was true that I could have never found alone the place where I came in; and I hoped that, when I had seen the other sights about which he was worrying, he would take me back to it. But I was determined not to sleep in the country; for I mistrusted it, and the people too, for all their friendliness. Hungry though I was, I would not join them in their evening meals of milk and fruit; and, when they gave me flowers, I flung them away as soon as I could do so unobserved. Already they were lying down for the night like cattle-some out on the bare hillside, others in groups under the beeches. In the light of an orange sunset I hurried on with my unwelcome guide, dead tired, faint for want of food, but murmuring indomitably: "Give me life, with its struggles and victories, with its failures and hatreds, with its deep moral meaning and its unknown goal!"

At last we came to a place where the encircling moat was spanned by another bridge, and where another gate interrupted the line of the boundary hedge. It was different from the first gate; for it was half transparent like horn, and opened inwards. But through it, in the waning light, I saw again just such a road as I had leftmonotonous, dusty, with brown crackling hedges on either side, as far as the eye could reach.

I was strangely disquieted at the sight, which seemed to deprive me of all self-control. A man was passing us, returning for the night to the hills, with a scythe over his shoulder and a can of some liquid in his hand. I forgot the destiny of our race. I forgot the road that lay before my eyes, and I sprang at him, wrenched the can out of his hand, and began to drink.

It was nothing stronger than beer; but in my exhausted state it overcame me in a moment. As in a dream, I saw the old man shut the gate, and

heard him say: "This is where your road ends, and through this gate humanity-all that is left of it-will come in to us."

Though my senses were sinking into oblivion, they seemed to expand ere they reached it. They perceived the The Independent Review.

magic song of nightingales, and the odor of invisible hay, and stars piercing the fading sky. The man whose beer I had stolen lowered me down gently to sleep off its effects, and, as he did so, I saw that he was my brother.

E. M. Forster.

Under the above heading an article appears in McClure's Magazine for December which, if the facts cited cannot be shown to be incorrect, is of vital importance to the American people. The article, though signed by Mr. S. S. McClure, is in reality little but a series of extracts from reputable American newspapers giving facts as to the increase of lawlessness in America, and of statistics of crime for the past twenty-three years collected by the Chicago Tribune. Before we analyze this terrible indictment of American civilization by Americans, we desire to point out that we do so in no unfriendly spirit. Probably the wellknown sympathy felt by the Spectator for America and its people would preserve us from such a charge among most thoughtful and patriotic Americans. Still, it may be worth while to put on record that we only draw attention to this dark spot on American life because we are as anxious as any American could be that the greater half of the Anglo-Saxon race shall free itself from evils so terrible. We firmly believe that the progress of the world towards liberty, justice, and good government is bound up with the fate of the Anglo-Saxon race. But if the larger half of that race, who are trustees for Anglo-Saxon social and political ideals, were to enter on the

downgrade, our best hopes for human progress would be blasted. When America realizes the duty before her she will, we are convinced, put her house in order. Till she does so, however, the lawlessness of American life must be a matter of deep concern, not only to her own people, but to her friends in this country,-that is, to the people of the United Kingdom as a whole.

Let us look at the facts as set forth in Mr. McClure's article. The first point he makes is the appallingly rapid increase of lawlessness during the last twenty-two years. At present there are four and a half times as many murders and homicides for each million of people in the United States as there were in 1881. In 1881 there were 1,266 murders and homicides committed in the United States. In 1902, if the murders and homicides had merely increased in the same ratio as the population, there should have been 1,952. As a matter of fact, there were in 1902 8,834 murders and homicides. Yet 1902 is not the worst year on record during the last twenty-two years. In 1895 there were 10,500 murders and homicides, and in 1896 10,652. It is always difficult to realize the full significance of naked statistics. To bring home their meaning to men's minds we may quote the words of an

American Judge's charge to a jury. The Judge pointed out that the number of murders and homicides in the United States for three years "was one-third larger than the total losses of the British Army in the war in South Africa." The men killed in action in the Boer War numbered 22,000. In the three years taken by the Judge the number of murders and homicides in the United States was 31,395. These figures, it must also be remembered, cannot be excused on the ground that lawlessness is incidental to newly settled countries and rough communities on the edges of civilization. The case of New York is nearly as bad as that of Chicago, though that great and opulent city of the Middle West, with thirty years of riches and splendor behind it, cannot be regarded as in any true sense a raw community. Again, the statistics of man-slaying in Canada, and we might also add in Australia and New Zealand, indicate that young countries may be as crimeless as, or even more crimeless than, old-established States. Mr. McClure also shows that it is impossible for the American people to comfort themselves with the thought that the burden of crime under which they now rest is the fault of the European-born population in their midst. Of the 10,356,000 foreignborn men and women, only the 424,000 who hail from Russia come from a country where crime is as prevalent as in America. The other 10,000,000 come from countries no one of which has half as many murders and homicides per million of population as America. And of these nearly 3,000,000 come from the United Kingdom, "where murders and homicides are less than one-tenth as common" as they are in America. So, adds Mr. McClure, "the increase of murders and homicides in the various countries seems to show that foreigners in the United States acquire most of their dis

respect for the law when they come among us."

We cannot attempt to give in detail the mass of evidence from American newspapers collected by Mr. McClure. The following quotation, however, may be made from his summary of the causes which he believes have produced the present condition of lawless

ness:

Is it possible for officials to prevent ordinary crimes who are selected and elected generally for reasons other than special fitness for their tasks, and frequently for the definite purpose of robbing the people who elect them? Can a body of policemen engaged in blackmail, persecution, and in shielding law-breakers make a community law-abiding? Can a body of policemen engaged in criminal practices prevent others from committing crimes? Can a board of aldermen who for private gain combine to loot a city govern a city well? We have described time and again the oligarchy which consists of these three classes: 1st. Saloon-keepers, gamblers, and others who engage in businesses that degrade. 2nd. Contractors, capitalists, bankers, and others who can make money by getting franchises and other property of the community cheaper by bribery than by paying the community. 3rd. Politicians who are willing to seek and accept office with the aid and endorsement of the classes already mentioned. These three classes combine and get control of the party machine. They nominate and elect men who will agree to help them rob the city or state for the benefit of themselves and who will agree also not to enforce the laws in regard to the various businesses that degrade a community. We find under various modifications this criminal oligarchy in control of many communities in the United States. We find representatives of this combination in the United States Senate, among governors of states, state legislators, mayors, aldermen, police officials. We find them among men in business life-captains of industry, bankers, street-railway magnates. In short, wherever fran