CROWDS—AND A BAD SAMARITAN
Practical jokers wishing to collect a crowd—and this has always been one of their choicest efforts—stand still and intent, gazing upwards. Even before the aeroplane was invented no lure was so powerful as this. In a few minutes hundreds of people will assemble, all looking up, while the humorist melts away. Probably were London a city of the blind there would be no concourses at all, for it is to see that brings us together. Crowds are always looking.
I came upon two little compact knots of people the other day, in both of which I was struck by the unanimity with which every eye was, literally, fixed on the same object. Both crowds consisted wholly of men: twenty-five perhaps, watching, in Aldwych, a girl motor-mechanic at work on a broken car; while close by, another knot surrounded a Human Marvel—a red-headed boy who, lacking arms, had trained his feet to inscribe moral sentiments in coloured chalks on a slate; which, for feet, is a marvellous thing.
As I watched all these people with hungry eyes and time to spare, I reflected on the generosity of this great London of ours in the matter of side-shows, so that there is always something for the loiterer to look at. During the War the soldier on leave, with too much time on his hands and no British Museum to beguile him (for it was then closed), having to find his own British Museum in the streets, was rarely disappointed of entertainment. Armless Wonders may be rare, but there was certain to be a road-mender at work in one spot and a horse down in another, so all was well! As for me, I like to become a member of a crowd as much as anybody, but the Armless Wonder's poor toes looked so desperately cold on this particular nipping day that sheer personal discomfort urged me onwards. But for that I might be there still.
The temper of crowds indicates that mankind in the lump is genial stuff. When standing among our fellows, watching whatever "cynosure" has been provided by the Mother of Cities, even the worst of us become innocent: very children for inquisitiveness. Our community of curiosity leads to such an extreme as the exchange of remarks. The mere fact that two strangers are looking at the same thing, though it be only an asphalt-boilers' cauldron, brings them into harmony, and for the moment (or hour and a half) they are not strangers but friends. Then, at last tearing themselves away, they freeze again. Alas, for this tearing away! The saddest thing about every crowd is that it has, some time, some day, to dissolve. Roads are mended, horses get on their legs again, men recover from fits. Hence eyes that arrived expectant sooner or later will be satiated. That is our tragedy.
But crowds, although normally amiable, can be ugly too, and very changeable. A friend of mine, who is of a high adventurous impulsiveness and brimming with humanity, had a taste of the mob's caprice, when from sheer kind-heartedness he assumed one evening, in Piccadilly Circus, the care of a homing Scotch soldier who, in an expressive idiom, had become by reason of too much conviviality "lost to the wide."
Never was a brave warrior more in need of a helper, and my friend threw himself into the task with a zest and thoroughness that should place him high in any decently-constructed Honours List. With infinite difficulty the journey to Euston was performed, by lift and tube, by pullings and pushings, by shakings and holdings-up, by entreaty and threat.
But a point was reached, in the station itself, where the man lay down with a supernatural solidity that no outside effort could affect. Such efforts as had to be made were the signal for the crowd to arrive, and arrive it did. So far, however, from giving my friend any assistance or sympathy, let alone admiration for his quixotry and public spirit, this particular crowd instantly took hold of the situation by the wrong handle and assumed an attitude of hostility and censure. "Hitting him when he's down!" said one. "I call it disgusting," said another, "giving soldiers drink like that." "That's a nice thing, to make the poor fellow drunk!" said a third. "Ought to be ashamed of himself," said a fourth, "giving drink to our brave lads!"—and the chorus grew.
My friend tells me that he was never so astonished in his life; and truly it is a comic situation—to give up one's time and strength in order to act the Good Samaritan to an unfortunate victim, and then be accused of being the victimizer. He was angry then, but he laughs now, and I wish you could hear him tell the story.