The character of the gathering was foreign. There were few American features among the faces, but those few were immeasurably superior in type––here and there the intellectual, spectacled visage of some educated visionary, lured into the red tide and left there drifting;––here and there some pale girl, carelessly dressed, seated with folded hands, and intense gaze fixed on space.
But the majority of these people, men and women, were foreign in aspect––round, bushy heads with no backs to them were everywhere; muddy skins, unhealthy skins, loose mouths, shifty eyes!––everywhere around her Palla saw the stigma of degeneracy.
She said in a low voice to Jim: “These poor things need to be properly housed and fed before they’re taught. Education doesn’t interest empty stomachs. And when they’re given only poison to stop the pangs––what does civilisation expect?”
He said: “They’re a lot of bums. The only education they require is with a night-stick.”
“That’s cruel, Jim.”
“It’s law.”
“One of your laws which does not appeal to me,” she remarked, turning to Brisson, who was leaning over to speak to her.
“There are half a dozen plain-clothes men in the audience,” he said. “There are Government detectives here, too. I rather expect they’ll stop the proceedings before the programme calls for it.”
Jim turned to look back. A file of policemen entered and carelessly took up posts in the rear of the hall. Hundreds of flat-backed heads turned, too; hundreds of faces darkened; a low muttering arose from the benches.