La séduction du désastre

Une vague de chaleur inhabituelle frappe en plein hiver la ville de Bruxelles alors qu'un astéroïde se rapproche de la Terre. Les habitants, épouvantés, descendent dans la rue dont l'asphalte fond, scrutent la météorite qui grandit à vue d'oeil. C'est alors qu'un étrange vieillard, le professeur Philippulus, vêtu d'un drap blanc et muni d'une longue barbe, harangue la foule en frappant sur un gong et s'écrie : "C'est le châtiment, faites pénitence, la fin des Temps est venue."

Nous sourions à la vue de ce personnage de pacotille d'autant que la scène se passe dans une bande dessinée, L'Etoile mystérieuse, d'Hergé (Casterman, 1947). Il semble pourtant que Philippulus, caricature du maréchal Pétain qui appelait à la repentance, ait pris le pouvoir aujourd'hui, qu'il siège peu ou prou dans tous les médias, les gouvernements, les instances officielles. Ce qu'il diffuse en continu, c'est l'effroi : du progrès, de la science, de la démographie, du climat, de la technique, de la nourriture, que sais-je ?

Dans cinq ans, dans dix ans, la Terre sera devenue inhabitable, les températures auront monté, séismes, inondations, sécheresses se multiplieront, les guerres opposeront les peuples, toutes les centrales nucléaires auront explosé. L'homme a péché par orgueil, il a détruit son habitat, ravagé la planète, il doit expier. "La fête industrielle est finie", avertissait déjà en 1979 le philosophe allemand Hans Jonas qui plaidait pour un usage éclairé de la peur et une nouvelle responsabilité envers la nature. Le pathos dominant dans notre vieille Europe est celui de la fin des temps. L'Apocalypse est inéluctable. La peur est comme une enzyme, elle s'empare de tous les sujets, s'en nourrit, les abandonne pour de nouveaux qui seront bientôt délaissés.

Voyez Fukushima : le drame n'a fait que confirmer une inquiétude qui la précédait et cherchait un aliment pour se justifier. Dans six mois, un nouveau thème, pandémie, grippe aviaire, craintes alimentaires, fonte de la banquise, ondes maléfiques, antennes paraboliques, nous mobilisera. Double étonnement à cet égard : le catastrophisme règne surtout dans les pays occidentaux, comme s'il était la résidence secondaire des peuples privilégiés, le soupir de gros chats ronronnant dans le confort.

Chez nous, l'aversion au risque a pris une telle ampleur que nous vivons l'entrelacement de nos drames privés et de l'épopée mondiale comme une menace permanente. Le drame qui frappe les lointains a ceci de singulier qu'il transforme la platitude en aventure à haut risque : cela pourrait nous arriver. Etrange paradoxe : en dépit de la crise, nous vivons mieux en Europe que partout ailleurs, au point que les migrants du monde entier veulent y prendre pied ; jamais pourtant nous n'avons autant vilipendé nos sociétés.

Les discours alarmistes, qu'ils portent sur l'atome, le climat, l'avenir de la planète, souffrent d'une contradiction. Si la situation est aussi grave qu'ils le prétendent, à quoi bon s'insurger. Pourquoi ne pas se prélasser en attendant le déluge ? Quant aux solutions suggérées, elles semblent inférieures à la gravité du mal. On sait ce que proposent la plupart des courants de cette mouvance : abandonner la voiture, les voyages en avion, consommer local, délaisser la viande, recycler ses déchets, planter des arbres, modérer ses désirs, s'appauvrir volontairement.

Tout ça pour ça ! Enormité du diagnostic, dérision des remèdes. En gentils boy-scouts, on nous prodigue des conseils d'économie ménagère dignes de nos grands-mères. Puisque nous sommes dépossédés de tout pouvoir face à la planète, nous allons monnayer cette impuissance en petits gestes propitiatoires, monter les escaliers à pied, devenir végétariens, faire du vélo, qui nous donneront l'illusion d'agir pour la Terre.

Quant aux Chinois, aux Indiens, aux Brésiliens, ils doivent retourner à leur misère, illico, pas question qu'ils se développent sous peine de nous faire sombrer. L'humour involontaire du discours apocalyptique, c'est de mettre tout au neutre ; en voulant nous persuader du chaos planétaire, il intègre notre disparition éventuelle à la tiédeur quotidienne. Il voudrait nous réveiller, il nous engourdit. Les énergies sales, la pollution, les multinationales qui conspirent à nous empoisonner enfièvrent notre calme existence d'un frisson inédit. L'ennemi est parmi nous et en nous, il guette nos moindres défaillances, d'autant plus insidieux qu'il est invisible.

Si les rites anciens avaient pour fonction d'évacuer la violence d'une communauté sur une victime expiatoire, les rites contemporains ont pour fonction de dramatiser le statu quo et de nous faire vivre dans l'exaltante proximité du cataclysme.

Pour échapper à l'incertitude de l'histoire, on décrète donc la certitude du désastre : cela permet de se reposer, peinards, dans les douceurs de l'abomination. Qu'importe la date de l'effondrement, il nous frappera quoi qu'il arrive. Le discours de la crainte ne dit pas peut-être, il dit : l'horreur est sûre. Imperméable au doute, il sait de toute éternité et se contente d'enregistrer les étapes de la dégradation. Le prophète est un réducteur de hasard, il offre la même réponse à toutes les interrogations. Le soupçon nous vient alors que les Cassandre innombrables qui vaticinent sous nos climats veulent moins nous mettre en garde que nous fustiger.

Quand l'intellectuel européen endosse le costume de la Pythie et d'une Pythie bardée de science et de statistiques, il cumule les fonctions du rebelle qui s'insurge et du voyant qui s'élève. Dans le judaïsme classique, le prophète cherchait à revivifier la cause de Dieu contre les rois et les puissants. Dans le christianisme, les mouvements millénaristes portaient en eux une espérance de justice contre l'Eglise et ses prélats qui vivaient dans le luxe, trahissaient le message des Evangiles. Dans une société laïque, le prophète n'a d'autre viatique que son indignation. Il arrive alors qu'enivré par sa propre parole, il s'arroge une légitimité indue et appelle de ses voeux la destruction qu'il prétend récuser. Tel est le renversement : l'Apocalypse devient pour ses partisans notre seule chance de salut.

Comme ces réactionnaires qui, dans les années 1960-1970, souhaitaient aux jeunesses européennes une bonne guerre pour les calmer, nos atrabilaires espèrent que nous allons toucher le fond pour nous éveiller enfin. Vous méritez une bonne leçon, vous n'avez pas assez souffert, vous devez en baver ! C'est un véritable voeu de mort qu'ils adressent alors aux populations. Ce ne sont pas de grandes âmes qui nous mettent en garde, mais de tout petits esprits qui nous souhaitent beaucoup de malheurs si nous avons l'outrecuidance de ne pas les écouter. La catastrophe n'est pas leur hantise, mais leur jouissance la plus profonde. Fukushima fut pour eux comme l'affaire Dreyfus pour l'extrême droite française, non un épouvantable drame mais une divine surprise. Enfin, ils tenaient leur tragédie ! La distance est courte entre la lucidité et l'aigreur, la prédiction et l'anathème.

En inoculant le poison de la terreur dans les esprits, ce prosélytisme sombre provoque la pétrification. Le tremblement qu'il provoque retombe comme un mauvais soufflé. C'est à l'inquiétude que revient la dernière réplique ou plutôt à la volonté de conjurer l'aléa par tous les moyens. Nous expliquer que nous marchons au bord du précipice et que nous allons y tomber ressemble à la philosophie de Gribouille : comme si l'on refusait de venir au monde au motif que l'on va mourir un jour. On voulait nous alarmer, on nous désarme. C'est peut-être l'objectif de ce bruyant tambour de la panique qu'on joue à nos oreilles depuis si longtemps : nous infantiliser, nous rendre plus dociles.

Au lieu d'encourager la résistance - les sociétés humaines survivent aux pires calamités et développent une intelligence des périls -, il propage découragement et désespoir. Le catastrophisme ? Le meilleur instrument de résignation politique et philosophique. Nulle question de nier la gravité des problèmes qui se posent à nous. S'il est au moins une leçon à tirer du Japon, c'est de ne jamais construire de centrales nucléaires dans une zone sismique. Mais l'affolement, la paranoïa ont toujours été les outils favoris des dictatures avides de déposséder les citoyens de tout moyen d'action. Une démocratie ne peut en user durablement sans se saborder.

L'Apocalypse chrétienne se voulait une révélation, le passage dans un autre ordre du temps, une espérance eschatologique tendue vers l'avènement du royaume de Dieu. Celle d'aujourd'hui est sans dévoilement, elle énonce juste la sentence finale. Elle ne propose rien, elle tétanise : apocalypse sèche. Nulle promesse de rachat, le seul idéal est celui des survivants, l'agrégation de centaines de millions d'hommes qui se repentent de leurs erreurs et veulent échapper au chaos, comme dans La Route, le beau roman de Cormac McCarthy.

Comment s'étonner, quand tant d'esprits brillants délirent, que fleurissent les prévisions les plus aberrantes, telle celle du calendrier maya, prévoyant la fin de la planète en 2012. Toute la surface de la Terre devrait disparaître sauf un petit village de l'Aude, en France, Bugarach, pris d'assaut par tous les illuminés du globe au grand dam de ses habitants, effrayés par cette publicité. L'Armageddon est imminent. On se rêve en Job ou en Jérémie, on finit en Paco Rabanne !


Pascal Bruckner, LE MONDE | 30.04.2011

We Met The Space People

We Met The Space People

Helen's Story
It all began when my sister, Betty, and I were in a downtown St. Louis coffee shop. We had been shopping and had stopped off to get a coke and refresh ourselves. While in the coffee shop we were approached in a very mannerly way by two gentlemen dressed in grey suits, who managed to interrupt into our private conversation. As they spoke to us we found that they were from a huge mother-craft orbiting the planet Earth, and that their names were Elen and Zelas. They told us that we had been very closely watched by the Space People for the last eight years, and that our progress had been noted off and on from the time of our birth.

Betty and I were both inclined to think that someone was playing a silly joke on us and we laughed when they told us this, but they were not laughing and were serious and stern. We were strangely shocked, however, when they told us of a few incidents in our childhood that no one could have possibly known except the family. They told us that we had been selected as contacts by the people of space to serve as channels through which they could give certain information to Earth, and that we had been carefully watched, as I stated before.

They told us of the reasons why the space people were coming to Earth and that they were here to guide Earth along the lines of Brotherhood and Science.

We were very much amazed at their words, and we noted particularly the kindness and warmth that shone in their eyes. With a single glance from them we seemed to sense the vast wisdom and brotherhood which they must have lived among. After talking with us for a little over two hours they left and told us they would contact us again, but it was not until a week later that we were impelled to again return to the same coffee shop.

When we entered the door we again saw one of the Space Brothers, and he gave us instructions at that time for building a device whereby we could contact the Space People. His instructions were explicit and precise, for he warned us that unless we placed every piece of the device in the proper place we would not be able to contact them with it. We were not allowed to take the drawn diagram of the device with us, But we had to remember it as it was explained to us. When we obtained the proper pieces for the device we constructed it when we returned home, and were happy to find the results were satisfactory. We were amazed when we tuned in on the mother craft and spoke with the same person we had earlier seen. We were also allowed to
speak with the commander of the craft, who at that time was known as Alna. In the following six months we spoke many times with the space people through the device, and received much information about their homes, sciences and craft.

In November of '57 I was alone in downtown St. Louis on business when I was again contacted by the space people and at their request went with them by automobile into Illinois where we drove to a heavily wooded area. There, I was told, was where they landed when they had business or contacts to make in St. Louis.

Settled back behind an old barn was a circular craft that I judged to be approximately nine feet in height, and about 38 feet in diameter. It had a domed top, but no portholes. The sliding door was open and there was a uniformed operator sitting at the controls.

I was nervous although I knew no harm would come for me, and I was visibly shaking, but Zelas only smiled as though to reassure me. The flight to the mother craft took approximately 15 minutes, and I was told the magnetism of the small craft would not affect my watch since it would be balanced by the magnetism of my own body. However, while in the mother craft the magnetism of it caused my watch for stop, and it was
de-magnetized in a small machine before I left.

Inside the mother craft we entered the huge receiving room for the smaller craft. There were many huge machines in this room, and there were also many other uniformed men standing around obviously working upon the machines or moving them about. They glanced at us when we entered, but then returned to their work as before. The hall that we entered was softly lit and was curved both at the ceiling and comers. We
entered the first room to the right which appeared to be a room for relaxing. There were divans and contoured chairs with white upholstering that had a thread or design of a golden hue woven in it. The room was meticulous and vast, and as I stood observing the beauty of it three uniformed men approached us. Their uniforms were of a blue-gray color with a slight metallic look, and I learned the jodphur type boots they wore were actually attached to the uniforms, and were not a separate piece of apparel. The uniforms were soft to the touch and the texture of velvet. I was then introduced to three men and learned that one was Alna, the commander of all craft operation upon Earth. Alna spoke with a very heavy accent, and was much darker than
any of the others. His skin had a high bronze tint to it, as compared with the lighter complexions of the others.

From this room I was shown the control section where I was told our calls were received when we operated our device. Here they placed a call through to our telephone in St. Louis by adjusting a series of dials, and I was allowed to speak with Betty and tell her that I was with the Brothers. I was also shown a scope similar to a television screen, the only difference being this was at a slight elevation on the control counter, instead of standing up at eye level or in a box type cabinet which our television sets consist of. This scope could obviously reflect any particular building or house that the space people desired to observe, and when I looked at the scope when Alna requested me to do so, I could see the inside areas of my home and could see my sister, mother and the children moving about. It was as though the entire roof had been removed and only the walls remained of the house. When I asked them how this was done, they explained that the first set of vibrations that left the roof were erased and the vibrations of the furniture and people inside were received on the scope, and therefore it appeared as though the instruments in the control section were actually looking through the building.

From this section we entered another much larger control section and I watched other uniformed men going about their work with much deftness and swiftness. I was told then that we were going to dine, and when we entered the dining area it appeared as a vast empty room. However, tables and chairs rose from the floor section, and I dined with them after humbly and respectfully listening to a prayer Alna said in the Universal Tongue.

The food consisted of three different types, and a drink similar to apricot nectar was enjoyed. There was little conversation during the meal, and when all had almost finished Alna told me I could witness a dance performed by two of the Space Brothers. This dance was most unusual and fast, during which the two men passed a small object from one to the other, sometimes throwing it in the air and catching if before it fell upon the floor. I expressed my thanks to Alna for allowing me to see this, and when we left the dining area we moved down the hall to what obviously was an entertainment room where the Brothers spent many relaxing hours. Many men were in the room, some sitting at tables and others playing a game similar to our Shuffleboard. I was asked if I would like to try the game, and after watching Alna I understood simply how it was done.

A round colored disc about four inches in diameter was placed on the floor in a particular square, and by mind power alone the disc was to move across the floor to another particular square. This section of the floor was electrically charged and receptive to the thought waves leaving a person's mind. Alna took a blue disc that was handed to him and placed it on the floor causing it to move a considerable distance. Then I was handed a red disc and asked to try. I was doubtful if it would work for me, and the only thing I could think of was to silently command the disc to "Go." I was amazed when the disc moved slowly up the floor, but quite some
distance from that of Alna's. When I glanced at my watch and noticed it had stopped, it brought Alna's attention and he said for this time he felt I should not be held up longer from my other activities, and that a second trip would be longer. It was then that he took my watch and placed it in a small machine in the first control section and then set it for me, obtaining the proper time from a scope that contained many symbols and crossed lines on it.



The Story of the Mitchell Sisters
By Helen & Betty Mitchell
Clarksburg, West Virginia
Saucerian Books, 1959

The Frogs From Genesistrine

"The living things that have come down to this earth:

Attempts to preserve the system:

That small frogs and toads, for instance, never have fallen from the sky, but were—"on the ground, in the first place"; or that there have been such falls—"up from one place in a whirlwind, and down in another."

Were there some especially froggy place near Europe, as there is an especially sandy place, the scientific explanation would of course be that all small frogs falling from the sky in Europe come from that center of frogeity.

To start with, I'd like to emphasize something that I am permitted to see because I am still primitive or intelligent or in a state of maladjustment:

That there is not one report findable of a fall of tadpoles from the sky.

As to "there in the first place":

See Leisure Hours, 3-779, for accounts of small frogs, or toads, said to have been seen to fall from the sky. The writer says that all observers were mistaken: that the frogs or toads must have fallen from trees or other places overhead.

Tremendous number of little toads, one or two months old, that were seen to fall from a great thick cloud that appeared suddenly in a sky that had been cloudless, August, 1804, near Toulouse, France, according to a letter from Prof. Pontus to M. Arago. (Comptes Rendus, 3-54.)

Many instances of frogs that were seen to fall from the sky. (Notes and Queries, 8-6-104); accounts of such falls, signed by witnesses. (Notes and Queries, 8-6-190.)

Scientific American, July 12, 1873:

"A shower of frogs which darkened the air and covered the ground for a long distance is the reported result of a recent rainstorm at Kansas City, Mo."

As to having been there "in the first place":

Little frogs found in London, after a heavy storm, July 30, 1838. (Notes and Queries, 8-7-437);

Little toads found in a desert, after a rainfall (Notes and Queries, 8-8-493).

To start with I do not deny—positively—the conventional explanation of "up and down." I think that there may have been such occurrences. I omit many notes that I have upon indistinguishables. In the London Times, July 4, 1883, there is an account of a shower of twigs and leaves and tiny toads in a storm upon the slopes of the Apennines. These may have been the ejectamenta of a whirlwind. I add, however, that I have notes upon two other falls of tiny toads, in 1883, one in France and one in Tahiti; also of fish in Scotland. But in the phenomenon of the Apennines, the mixture seems to me to be typical of the products of a whirlwind. The other instances seem to me to be typical of—something like migration? Their great numbers and their homogeneity. Over and over in these annals of the damned occurs the datum of segregation. But a whirlwind is thought of as a condition of chaos—quasi-chaos: not final negativeness, of course—

Monthly Weather Review, July, 1881:

"A small pond in the track of the cloud was sucked dry, the water being carried over the adjoining fields together with a large quantity of soft mud, which was scattered over the ground for half a mile around."

It is so easy to say that small frogs that have fallen from the sky had been scooped up by a whirlwind; but here are the circumstances of a scoop; in the exclusionist-imagination there is no regard for mud, débris from the bottom of a pond, floating vegetation, loose things from the shores—but a precise picking out of frogs only. Of all instances I have that attribute the fall of small frogs or toads to whirlwinds, only one definitely identifies or places the whirlwind. Also, as has been said before, a pond going up would be quite as interesting as frogs coming down. Whirlwinds we read of over and over—but where and what whirlwind? It seems to me that anybody who had lost a pond would be heard from. In Symons' Meteorological Magazine, 32-106, a fall of small frogs, near Birmingham, England, June 30, 1892, is attributed to a specific whirlwind—but not a word as to any special pond that had contributed. And something that strikes my attention here is that these frogs are described as almost white.

I'm afraid there is no escape for us: we shall have to give to civilization upon this earth—some new worlds.

Places with white frogs in them.

Upon several occasions we have had data of unknown things that have fallen from—somewhere. But something not to be overlooked is that if living things have landed alive upon this earth—in spite of all we think we know of the accelerative velocity of falling bodies—and have propagated—why the exotic becomes the indigenous, or from the strangest of places we'd expect the familiar. Or if hosts of living frogs have come here—from somewhere else—every living thing upon this earth may, ancestrally, have come from—somewhere else.

(...)

They came from Genesistrine.

There's no escape from it. We'll be persecuted for it. Take it or leave it—

Genesistrine.

The notion is that there is somewhere aloft a place of origin of life relatively to this earth. Whether it's the planet Genesistrine, or the moon, or a vast amorphous region super-jacent to this earth, or an island in the Super-Sargasso Sea, should perhaps be left to the researches of other super—or extra—geographers. That the first unicellular organisms may have come here from Genesistrine—or that men or anthropomorphic beings may have come here before amoebae: that, upon Genesistrine, there may have been an evolution expressible in conventional biologic terms, but that evolution upon this earth has been—like evolution in modern Japan—induced by external influences; that evolution, as a whole, upon this earth, has been a process of population by immigration or by bombardment. Some notes I have upon remains of men and animals encysted, or covered with clay or stone, as if fired here as projectiles, I omit now, because it seems best to regard the whole phenomenon as a tropism—as a geotropism—probably atavistic, or vestigial, as it were, or something still continuing long after expiration of necessity; that, once upon a time, all kinds of things came here from Genesistrine, but that now only a few kinds of bugs and things, at long intervals, feel the inspiration.

Not one instance have we of tadpoles that have fallen to this earth. It seems reasonable that a whirlwind could scoop up a pond, frogs and all, and cast down the frogs somewhere else: but, then, more reasonable that a whirlwind could scoop up a pond, tadpoles and all—because tadpoles are more numerous in their season than are the frogs in theirs: but the tadpole-season is earlier in the spring, or in a time that is more tempestuous. Thinking in terms of causation—as if there were real causes—our notion is that, if X is likely to cause Y, but is more likely to cause Z, but does not cause Z, X is not the cause of Y. Upon this quasi-sorites, we base our acceptance that the little frogs that have fallen to this earth are not products of whirlwinds: that they came from externality, or from Genesistrine.

I think of Genesistrine in terms of biologic mechanics: not that somewhere there are persons who collect bugs in or about the last of January and frogs in July and August, and bombard this earth, any more than do persons go through northern regions, catching and collecting birds, every autumn, then casting them southward.

But atavistic, or vestigial, geotropism in Genesistrine—or a million larvae start crawling, and a million little frogs start hopping—knowing no more what it's all about than we do when we crawl to work in the morning and hop away at night.

I should say, myself, that Genesistrine is a region in the Super-Sargasso Sea, and that parts of the Super-Sargasso Sea have rhythms of susceptibility to this earth's attraction.


Charles Fort
The Book of the Damned

The Doom of London

VI.--HOW THE SMOKE HELD DOWN THE FOG.

It was on a Friday that the fog came down upon us. The weather was very fine up to the middle of November that autumn. The fog did not seem to have anything unusual about it. I have seen many worse fogs than that appeared to be. As day followed day, however, the atmosphere became denser and darker, caused, I suppose, by the increasing volume of coal- smoke poured out upon it. The peculiarity about those seven days was the intense stillness of the air. We were, although we did not know it, under an air-proof canopy, and were slowly but surely exhausting the life-giving oxygen around us, and replacing it by poisonous carbonic acid gas. Scientific men have since showed that a simple mathematical calculation might have told us exactly when the last atom of oxygen would have been consumed; but it is easy to be wise after the event. The body of the greatest mathematician in England was found in the Strand. He came that morning from Cambridge. During the fog there was always a marked increase in the death rate, and on this occasion the increase was no greater than usual until the sixth day. The newspapers on the morning of the seventh were full of startling statistics, but at the time of going to press the full significance of the alarming figures was not realized. The editorials of the morning papers on the seventh day contained no warning of the calamity that was so speedily to follow their appearance. I lived then at Ealing, a Western suburb of London, and came every morning to Cannon Street by a certain train. I had up to the sixth day experienced no inconvenience from the fog, and this was largely due, I am convinced, to the unnoticed operations of the American machine.

On the fifth and sixth days Sir John did not come to the City, but he was in his office on the seventh. The door between his room and mine was closed. Shortly after ten o'clock I heard a cry in his room, followed by a heavy fall. I opened the door, and saw Sir John lying face downwards on the floor. Hastening towards him, I felt for the first time the deadly effect of the deoxygenized atmosphere, and before I reached him I fell first on one knee and then headlong. I realized that my senses were leaving me, and instinctively crawled back to my own room, where the oppression was at once lifted, and I stood again upon my feet, gasping. I closed the door of Sir John's room, thinking it filled with poisonous fumes, as, indeed, it was. I called loudly for help, but there was no answer. On opening the door to the main office I met again what I thought was the noxious vapor. Speedily as I closed the door, I was impressed by the intense silence of the usually busy office, and saw that some of the clerks were motionless on the floor, and others sat with their heads on their desks as if asleep. Even at this awful moment I did not realize that what I saw was common to all London, and not, as I imagined, a local disaster, caused by the breaking of some carboys in our cellar. (It was filled with chemicals of every kind, of whose properties I was ignorant, dealing as I did with the accountant, and not the scientific side of our business.) I opened the only window in my room, and again shouted for help. The street was silent and dark in the ominously still fog, and what now froze me with horror was meeting the same deadly, stifling atmosphere that was in the rooms. In falling I brought down the window, and shut out the poisonous air. Again I revived, and slowly the true state of things began to dawn upon me.

I was in an oasis of oxygen. I at once surmised that the machine on my shelf was responsible for the existence of this oasis in a vast desert of deadly gas. I took down the American's machine, fearful in moving it that I might stop its working. Taking the mouthpiece between my lips I again entered Sir John's room, this time without feeling any ill effects. My poor master was long beyond human help. There was evidently no one alive in the building except myself. Out in the street all was silent and dark. The gas was extinguished, but here and there in shops the incandescent lights were still weirdly burning, depending, as they did, on accumulators, and not on direct engine power. I turned automatically towards Cannon Street Station, knowing my way to it even if blindfolded, stumbling over bodies prone on the pavement, and in crossing the street I ran against a motionless 'bus, spectral in the fog, with dead horses lying in front, and their reins dangling from the nerveless hand of a dead driver. The ghostlike passengers, equally silent, sat bolt upright, or hung over the edge boards in attitudes horribly grotesque.

VII.--THE TRAIN WITH ITS TRAIL OF THE DEAD.

If a man's reasoning faculties were alert at such a time (I confess mine were dormant), he would have known there could be no trains at Cannon Street Station, for if there was not enough oxygen in the air to keep a man alive, or a gas-jet alight, there would certainly not be enough to enable an engine fire to burn, even if the engineer retained sufficient energy to attend to his task. At times instinct is better than reason, and it proved so in this case. The railway from Ealing in those days came under the City in a deep tunnel. It would appear that in this underground passage the carbonic acid gas would first find a resting-place on account of its weight; but such was not the fact. I imagine that a current through the tunnel brought from the outlying districts a supply of comparatively pure air that, for some minutes after the general disaster, maintained human life. Be this as it may, the long platforms of Cannon Street Underground Station presented a fearful spectacle. A train stood at the down platform. The electric lights burned fitfully. This platform was crowded with men, who fought each other like demons, apparently for no reason, because the train was already packed as full as it could hold. Hundreds were dead under foot, and every now and then a blast of foul air came along the tunnel, whereupon hundreds more would relax their grips, and succumb. Over their bodies the survivors fought, with continually thinning ranks. It seemed to me that most of those in the standing train were dead. Sometimes a desperate body of fighters climbed over those lying in heaps and, throwing open a carriage door, hauled out passengers already in, and took their places, gasping. Those in the train offered no resistance, and lay motionless where they were flung, or rolled helplessly under the wheels of the train. I made my way along the wall as well as I could to the engine, wondering why the train did not go. The engineer lay on the floor of his cab, and the fires were out.

Custom is a curious thing. The struggling mob, fighting wildly for places in the carriages, were so accustomed to trains arriving and departing that it apparently occurred to none of them that the engineer was human and subject to the same atmospheric conditions as themselves. I placed the mouthpiece between his purple lips, and, holding my own breath like a submerged man, succeeded in reviving him. He said that if I gave him the machine he would take out the train as far as the steam already in the boiler would carry it. I refused to do this, but stepped on the engine with him, saying it would keep life in both of us until we got out into better air. In a surly manner he agreed to this and started the train, but he did not play fair. Each time he refused to give up the machine until I was in a fainting condition with holding in my breath, and, finally, he felled me to the floor of the cab. I imagine that the machine rolled off the train as I fell and that he jumped after it. The remarkable thing is that neither of us needed the machine, for I remember that just after we started I noticed through the open iron door that the engine fire suddenly became aglow again, although at the time I was in too great a state of bewilderment and horror to understand what it meant. A western gale had sprung up--an hour too late. Even before we left Cannon Street those who still survived were comparatively safe, for one hundred and sixty-seven persons were rescued from that fearful heap of dead on the platforms, although many died within a day or two after, and others never recovered their reason. When I regained my senses after the blow dealt by the engineer, I found myself alone, and the train speeding across the Thames near Kew. I tried to stop the engine, but did not succeed. However, in experimenting, I managed to turn on the air brake, which in some degree checked the train, and lessened the impact when the crash came at Richmond terminus. I sprang off on the platform before the engine reached the terminal buffers, and saw passing me like a nightmare the ghastly trainload of the dead. Most of the doors were swinging open, and every compartment was jammed full, although, as I afterwards learned, at each curve of the permanent way, or extra lurch of the train, bodies had fallen out all along the line. The smash at Richmond made no difference to the passengers. Besides myself, only two persons were taken alive from the train, and one of these, his clothes torn from his back in the struggle was sent to an asylum, where he was never able to tell who he was; neither, as far as I know, did anyone ever claim him.


Robert Barr
The Face and the Mask

Golf In The Year 2000

On entering the hall we moved across it into another not quite so large, in which there were a great many men hanging about.

“We must see if we can get you the loan of a set of clubs and a coat,” said Adams, crossing the hall. He soon returned.

“It’s all right,” he said “young Lawson is laid up just now, so you can have his clubs and his coat as well; it will just fit you; you’re both much about the same make. Come along and we’ll try it on.”

We went into a long-shaped room with mirrors running down the centre of it, and boxes all round the sides. Mr. Adams went up to one of the boxes, and, opening it, produced a coat which he helped me on with.

It fitted perfectly, and felt nice and easy to golf in. We went back into the hall and forward to a large window, at which most of the men were congregated. The reason was that the teeing ground was just in front, and on a large board facing the window was the name of the man whose turn it was to play. As soon as each name was put up on the board a voice just above the window called it out in loud, clear tones. This, I afterwards discovered, was not a human voice, but was produced by the phonograph
and worked in conjunction with the board outside. At every change of name a little bell sounded.

I was struck with the amount of order and the quietness with which everything was carried out. No one was on the teeing ground except the player and his opponent. Not even a caddie. On my remarking upon this to my friend, he replied:
“Oh, yes, they have their caddies; there they go.”

Two players had just driven off and were leaving the teeing ground, and sure enough behind each followed what I supposed was the caddies Mr. Adams spoke of; a perpendicular rod about four feet long, supported on three wheels, the whole rather resembling a small tricycle with a small mast stepped where the saddle should have been. This rod was weighted at the foot and hung on the wheels, so that it was always perpendicular, however steep the gradient it was going up or down. On this contrivance the clubs were carried, and the players seemed to drag the whole affair after them. It seemed to me a poor substitute for the good old-fashioned caddie, about whom so many stories are told, and who were always ready with advice, and good advice too. My nineteenthcentury memory recalled a lad who, one morning, on each successive putting-green, showed me the line to the hole by saying it lay “owre that yelley fleur.” I may mention that there was not a “yelley fleur” on the whole links; and that my friend was not a teetotaler.

As we watched this couple and their queer mechanical caddies the voice shouted "Walter Adams,” and simultaneously his name appeared on the board outside. “Come on,” he said, “it’s our turn.”

We went down a broad flight of steps on to the green. At the foot of the steps we were met by two caddies—for I suppose I must give the things the old name. They had come from immediately below the room we had been in; but they didn’t require to be drawn or indeed worked in any way. They simply followed wherever we went, at a distance of twelve feet or so, and regulated themselves to our pace, stopped when
we stopped, and so on. Their wheels shot out spikes when necessary, so that they might not slip going up steep bits, or through bunkers and places of that kind. My friend explained that we had a sort of magnet behind our jackets which attracted them, but at the same time did not allow them to come nearer than the twelve feet before mentioned. Of course you could go up to them when they had stopped; but when you moved on they remained stationary until you were the twelve feet away, and not till then did they follow.

Each carried its clubs in an oblong box, where they lay with the heads exposed, as in my own time. I took out what I supposed was a driver. It was a very powerful weapon with a remarkably thin shaft, which, on closer inspection, turned out to be made of steel—indeed the head, too, was made of that metal. The shaft terminated in a little white disc, under glass, with figures on it and a hand like the face of a very small watch.

There was another small disc on the sole of the club. This one was, however, quite plain. My friend, seeing my look of astonishment, said:
“Ah! I thought we would show you something new in the way of clubs. What do you think of that, eh?”

“It seems a wonderful weapon,” I replied; “but what are all those dials for?”

‘That one,” he said, pointing to the one at the top of the shaft, “registers every stroke you take with the club. It is on every club, and as the strokes you have taken with each club are registered, the total of the set is your score for the round. At the end of the round your clubs are handed in to the secretary, who with his clerks counts the scores and awards the prize-money accordingly. You must understand that every day there is, so to speak, a competition. Every player pays five shillings before starting the round. This money is divided into two parts: one half goes to keep up the green, pay salaries, of which there are a good many,
taxes, & c.; the other half goes in prize-money. There is one scratch prize and about six handicap. We have got handicapping as near perfection as possible, for you see we have a record of every round a man plays, and by taking his average from day to day, and from week to week, we soon arrive at his right figure. Every man keeps an account with the secretary, and at the end of the week draws his winnings, that is to say, if he has any. Some men make quite a good thing of it.”

“You are very far advanced in golf, I see, as well as everything else. But what is this for?” I said, pointing to the dial on the sole of the club.

“Oh, that,” he answered, “registers the length of your drive—at least, of your carry. The head is a wonderful little piece of mechanism, with about as much work in it as in a watch. You see the face is slightly detached from the rest of the head; it is fixed to it by an immense number of small springs, which indeed almost fill the head, so that the propelling power of the club is greater than could be got from the shaft alone. But we must start. I think that couple in front are far enough ahead. Is the grip all right?” he added, looking at me.

“It’s rather thick,” I replied, “but it will do, I think.”

“Oh, we’ll soon put that all right,” he said. He took my club, and, screwing something at the top, reduced the grip. The balls, which didn’t seem, judging from appearances, to have undergone any marked change, having been teed, my companion motioned me to drive.

I addressed myself to the ball, and in the middle of my swing a voice which seemed to come from close behind me called out “Fore,” in a way that quite put me off, and made me top my ball.

“Sir,” I said, turning quickly round to my companion, for he was the only other person on the ground, “it was not customary in my day to speak when a player was addressing himself to his ball, much less to shout ‘Fore’ in the middle of his swing.”

Mr Adams said nothing. He only smiled, and, taking a club, prepared to drive off. In the middle of his swing he again called out “Fore,” much to my astonishment.

“Is this a new rule?” I asked him. “Must you always call ‘Fore’ in the middle of your swing?”

“I didn’t call ‘Fore,’ he answered, with a twinkle in his eye. I felt very much inclined to call him a liar, but restrained myself. We moved on, followed by our peculiar caddies. We were not long in coming to my ball which I had topped. I looked at it and then at my clubs. To tell the truth I was not very sure which one to take, some were of such curious shapes.

“That’s your club,” said Mr. Adams, taking from my set a club with a funny-looking oblong sort of head. It seemed to have been put on the wrong way, and you hit with its nose. A small bit also projected behind, making it something like a polo-stick on a small scale. I took this weapon, and again, in the middle of my swing, there came a shout of “Fore,” which of course gave me such a start that I missed my shot once more. I fairly lost my temper this time.

“What do you mean by trying to put me off in this manner?” I shouted. “If that’s the way you win your golf matches nowadays, the less I know of golf in the year 2000 the better.”

“Take it easy,” Adams replied, with another laugh, “and I'll explain.”

“Explain!” I said “I don’t see what there is to explain.”

“That long sleep of yours has evidently not destroyed your temper,” he said, with a quiet smile; “but as I said before, I did not call ‘Fore’ in fact, I believe it’s years since I called ‘Fore’ while golfing. You take a swing without hitting the ball; watch me instead, and see if I speak.”

I did so and sure enough the voice again shouted “Fore;” but it evidently wasn’t my companion’s doing, as his lips had remained tightly closed.

Somehow the sound seemed to come actually from myself. I was more puzzled than ever. Adams burst out laughing at my look of amazement.

“My dear fellow,” he said, still laughing, “it’s your jacket. Another new invention for you. The sound comes from under your arms when you swing. It acts like a concertina: draws the air in when you take the club back, and when you bring the club down out comes the voice.”

“Well,” I said, “you have certainly brought golf to a nice pass. The clubs keep their own score; your jacket shouts ‘Fore,’ your caddie keeps his mouth shut—everything seems to be turned topsy-turvy. You ought to have an invention for swinging the club, and all you would have to do operations.”

“Oh, it’s not quite so bad as that yet,” he answered ; “but there’s no saying what it will come to.”

The course at St. Andrews was not what it was in my day. All the whins had disappeared, and we played, going out, along by the sea, and came in on the old course, though it had been entirely re-planned. I need not go over the round: suffice it to say I ‘got my licks’—I won’t tell you by how many. There were still eighteen holes in the round, though much longer ones than I had been accustomed to, and I wasn’t sorry to get to the last. But like every golfer, I must have excuses for my bad play. To begin with, that beastly jacket was one—and a very good one—it was always putting me off. My companion soothingly explained that it might be some little time ere I got used to it; and that when I once did so I would never notice the sound. He said that, for his own part, sometimes he never even heard it. I thought to myself it wouldn’t be a bad plan at first to stuff one’s ears with cotton wool or something of that sort to deaden the sound.

And the clubs—a queerer collection I never saw. As I said before, they were all made in one piece, and were of steel. The faces all protruded about half an inch beyond the place where the shaft and head met. The heads were very small, which gave the clubs the appearance of hammers, and some looked as if you could reverse them and play lefthanded. Of course, though the clubs were entirely of steel, they were painted so that they did not look so very unlike the old tools. There were no irons in the set—at least, what nineteenth-century people understand as irons. Golfers seemed to have gone back to the old baffy in a sort of way.

The heads of the clubs they played approaches with were larger, the faces very much laid back, and slanting diagonally across the head. To look at these you would imagine you would slice everything. My companion showed me how to use them in order to put a cut on the ball and stop it. He himself did it wonderfully, laying a ball quite dead if he chose. But the niblick was the funniest of the lot. It had a double head, and when you swung it, it revolved like the paddle-wheel of a steamboat,
only very much faster. You addressed the ball with the one head, while the other came up behind the shaft, it being of course quite stationary.

As soon as you swung the club the two heads began to revolve—the opposite way from a paddle-wheel, of course—and threw the ball out of the bunker, with no end of sand. You had to look out for your eyes if there was any wind.

I must not forget the balls—they are quite worthy of description. To all appearance, as I have said, they were the same as we used in ’92; but though innocent enough to look at, they had more work in them than even the heads of the clubs. In the centre of the ball was a small chamber of compressed air; outside that was a rim of some hard substance like gutta-percha, about a quarter of an inch thick; then came the shell of the ball, which was made up of oblong little blocks, of the same hard, white
substance before mentioned. These blocks were each separate, and fixed to the inside layer by strong springs—four springs to every single square—crossing each other. When they were all fixed on the ball quite resembled one of the old-fashioned gutties. Even handling them you did not detect the difference, and the flying power was extraordinary.

So you see that with all those new inventions taken into account, it was hardly to be expected I could play much of a game to start with. Adams had taught me a thing or two after all, but I determined to get into form, accustom myself to the new clubs, and see if I couldn’t turn the tables on him. “It’s not the clubs that make the golfer, after all,” I said to myself, consolingly.

J. McCullough
Golf in the Year 2000
(1892)

The Cogitator

However, I cannot pass over a very strange and extraordinary piece of Art which this Old Gentleman inform'd me of, and that was an Engine to screw a Man into himself: Perhaps our Country-men may be at some Difficulty to comprehend these things by my dull Description; and to such I cannot but recommend, a Journey in my Engine to the Moon.

This Machine that I am speaking of, contains a multitude of strange Springs and Screws, and a Man that puts himself into it, is very insensibly carried into vast Speculations, Reflexions, and regular Debates with himself: They have a very hard Name for it in those Parts; but if I were to give it an English Name, it should be call'd, The Cogitator, or the Chair of Reflection.

And First, The Person that is seated here feels some pain in passing some Negative Springs, that are wound up, effectually to shut out all Injecting, Disturbing Thoughts; and the better to prepare him for the Operation that is to follow, and this is without doubt a very rational way; for when a Man can absolutely shut out all manner of thinking, but what he is upon, he shall think the more Intensly upon the one object before him.

This Operation past, here are certain Screws that draw direct Lines from every Angle of the Engine to the Brain of the Man, and at the same time, other direct Lines to his Eyes; at the other end of which Lines, there are Glasses which convey or reflect the Objects the Person is desirous to think upon.

Then the main Wheels are turn'd, which wind up according to their several Offices; this the Memory, that the Understanding; a third the Will, a fourth the thinking Faculty; and these being put all into regular Motions, pointed by direct Lines to their proper Objects, and perfectly uninterrupted by the Intervention of Whimsy, Chimera, and a Thousand fluttering Dæmons that Gender in the Fancy, but are effectually Lockt out as before, assist one another to receive right Notions, and form just Ideas of the things they are directed to, and from thence the Man is impower'd to make right Conclusions, to think and act like himself, suitable to the sublime Qualities his Soul was originally blest with.

There never was a Man went into one of these thinking Engines, but he came wiser out than he was before; and I am persuaded, it would be a more effectual Cure to our Deism, Atheism, Scepticism, and all other Scisms, than ever the Italian's Engine, for Curing the Gout by cutting off the Toe.

This is a most wonderful Engine, and performs admirably, and my Author gave me extraordinary Accounts of the good Effects of it; and I cannot but tell my Reader, That our Sublunar World suffers Millions of Inconveniencies, for want of this thinking Engine: I have had a great many Projects in my Head, how to bring our People to regular thinking, but 'tis in vain without this Engin; and how to get the Model of it I know not; how to screw up the Will, the Understanding, and the rest of the Powers; how to bring the Eye, the Thought, the Fancy, and the Memory, into Mathematical Order, and obedient to Mechanick Operation; help Boyl, Norris, Newton, Manton, Hammond, Tillotson, and all the Learned Race, help Phylosophy, Divinity, Physicks, Oeconomicks, all's in vain, a Mechanick Chair of Reflection is the only Remedy that ever I found in my Life for this Work.

As to the Effects of Mathematical thinking, what Volumes might be writ of it will more easily appear, if we consider the wondrous Usefulness of this Engine in all humane Affairs; as of War, Peace, Justice, Injuries, Passion, Love, Marriage, Trade, Policy, and Religion.

When a Man has been screw'd into himself, and brought by this Art to a Regularity of Thought, he never commits any Absurdity after it; his Actions are squared by the same Lines, for Action is but the Consequence of Thinking; and he that acts before he thinks, sets humane Nature with the bottom upward.

M. would never have made his Speech, nor the famous B----ly wrote a Book, if ever they had been in this thinking Engine: One would have never told us of Nations he never saw, nor the other told us, he had seen a great many, and was never the Wiser.

H. had never ruin'd his Family to Marry Whore, Thief and Beggar-Woman, in one Salliant Lady, after having been told so honestly, and so often of it by the very Woman her self.

Our late unhappy Monarch had never trusted the English Clergy, when they preacht up that Non-Resistance, which he must needs see they could never Practice; had his Majesty been screw'd up into this Cogitator, he had presently reflected, that it was against Nature to expect they should stand still, and let him tread upon them: That they should, whatever they had preacht or pretended to, hold open their Throats to have them be cut, and tye their own Hands from resisting the Lord's Anointed.

Had some of our Clergy been screw'd in this Engine, they had never turned Martyrs for their Allegiance to the Late King, only for the Lechery of having Dr. S------- in their Company.

Had our Merchants been manag'd in this Engine, they had never trusted their Turkey Fleet with a famous Squadron, that took a great deal of care to Convoy them safe into the Enemies Hands.

Had some People been in this Engine, when they had made a certain League in the World, in order to make amends for a better made before, they would certainly have consider'd farther, before they had embarkt with a Nation, that are neither fit to go abroad nor stay at Home.

As for the Thinking practis'd in Noble Speeches, Occasional Bills, Addressings about Prerogative, Convocation Disputes, Turnings in and Turnings out at Ours, and all the Courts of Christendom, I have nothing to say to it.

(...)

Our Cogitator would be a very necessary thing to show some People, That Poverty and Weakness is not a sufficient Ground to oppress a Nation, and their having but little Trade, cannot be a sufficient Ground to equip Fleets to take away what they have.

I cannot deny, that I have often thought they have had something of this Engine in our Neighbouring Antient Kingdom, since no Man, however we pretend to be angry, but will own they are in the right of it, as to themselves, to Vote and procure Bills for their own Security, and not to do as others demand without Conditions fit to be accepted: But of that by it self.

There are abundance of People in Our World, of all sorts and Conditions, that stand in need of our thinking Engines, and to be screw'd into themselves a little, that they might think as directly as they speak absurdly: But of these also in a Class by it self.

This Engine has a great deal of Philosophy in it; and particularly, 'tis a wonderful Remedy against Poreing; and as it was said of Mons. Jurieu at Amsterdam, that he us'd to lose himself in himself; by the Assistance of this piece of Regularity, a Man is most effectually secur'd against bewildring Thoughts, and by direct thinking, he prevents all manner of dangerous wandring, since nothing can come to more speedy Conclusions, than that which in right Lines, points to the proper Subject of Debate.

All sorts of Confusion of Thoughts are perfectly avoided and prevented in this case, and a Man is never troubled with Spleen, Hyppo, or Mute Madness, when once he has been thus under the Operation of the Screw: It prevents abundance of Capital Disasters in Men, in private Affairs; it prevents hasty Marriages, rash Vows, Duels, Quarrels, Suits at Law, and most sorts of Repentance. In the State, it saves a Government from many Inconveniences; it checks immoderate Ambition, stops Wars, Navies and Expeditions; especially it prevents Members making long Speeches when they have nothing to say; it keeps back Rebellions, Insurrections, Clashings of Houses, Occasional Bills, Tacking, &c.

It has a wonderful Property in our Affairs at Sea, and has prevented many a Bloody Fight, in which a great many honest Men might have lost their Lives that are now useful Fellows, and help to Man and manage Her Majesty's Navy.

What if some People are apt to charge Cowardice upon some People in those Cases? 'Tis plain that cannot be it, for he that dare incur the Resentment of the English Mob, shows more Courage than would be able to carry him through Forty Sea-fights.

'Tis therefore for want of being in this Engine, that we censure People, because they don't be knocking one another on the Head, like the People at the Bear-Garden; where, if they do not see the Blood run about, they always cry out, A Cheat; and the poor Fellows are fain to cut one another, that they may not be pull'd a pieces; where the Case is plain, they are bold for fear, and pull up Courage enough to Fight, because they are afraid of the People.

This Engine prevents all sorts of Lunacies, Love-Frenzies, and Melancholy-Madness, for preserving the Thought in right Lines to direct Objects, it is impossible any Deliriums, Whimsies, or fluttering Air of Ideas, can interrupt the Man, he can never be Mad; for which reason I cannot but recommend it to my Lord S---, my Lord N---, and my Lord H-----, as absolutely necesssary to defend them from the State-Madness, which for some Ages has possest their Families, and which runs too much in the Blood.

It is also an excellent Introduction to Thought, and therefore very well adapted to those People whose peculiar Talent and Praise is, That they never think at all. Of these, if his Grace of B---d would please to accept Advice from the Man in the Moon, it should be to put himself into this Engine, as a Soveraign Cure to the known Disease call'd the Thoughtless Evil.

But above all, it is an excellent Remedy, and very useful to a sort of People, who are always Travelling in Thought, but never Deliver'd into Action; who are so exceeding busy at Thinking, they have no leisure for Action. These Gentlemen would make excellent use of this Engine, for it would teach 'em to dispatch one thing before they begin another; and therefore is of singular use to honest S----, whose peculiar it was, to be always beginning Projects, but never finish any.

The Variety of this Engine, its Uses, and Improvements, are Innumerable, and the Reader must not expect I can give any thing like a perfect Description of it.



Daniel DEFOE
The Consolidator

Rats Take Over The Subway

Something moving caught his eye. A dark shape was moving along between the tracks. He walked to the edge of the platform and peered down the track into the gloom.

Nothing. Then he noticed the shape had stopped. Realising it must be a rat, he threw the empty milk carton to see if he could make it scamper back into the darkness of the tunnel, but it merely shrank beneath the electric rail. The boy looked up sharply as he heard noises coming from the dense black cave of the tunnel. It sounded like the rash of air, but not the sound caused by an approaching train. He glanced nervously back at the form lurking in beneath the track and up again as the noise grew louder. As he did, hundreds, it seemed, of small black bodies came pouring from the tunnel, some between the tracks, others up the ramp and along the platform.

He turned and ran even before he realised they were rats, much larger than normal, and much faster. He reached the stairs, a long, black river of vermin almost at his heels, and flew up them, three at a time. He slipped once, but quickly regained his balance, grasping at the hand-rail by the side, pulling at it to gain momentum. But a rat had raced ahead of him, and his next step was on its back, causing Dave to stumble once more. As his hand went to steady himself, sharp teeth snapped at his fingers. He shouted in fear, kicking out wildly, sending two of the bristling bodies back down over the backs of their companions. He lurched onwards, now weighed down by rats that had attached themselves to his clothes and his flesh.

He fell again, hitting the bridge of his nose on the sharp comer of a step, causing blood to spill down his face and on to his white long-collared shirt.

He kicked and screamed but they pulled him back down the stairs, roiling to the bottom with him, ripping his body, shaking him as though he were a toy doll. His screams echoed through the old station. He half rose and before his senses blacked out completely he cried for his mother.

Errol Johnson pulled the door marked ‘private’ open and rushed out. He’d heard the screams and assumed someone had fallen down the long Stairway to the platform. He knew it would happen some day - those stairs were too badly lit.

If he ever became station-master, if coloureds ever became station-masters he’d clean it up and make it a respectable station. Just because it wasn’t used by many people didn’t mean it should be badly kept.

He stopped dead at the spectacle before him, his mouth hanging wide.

Millions of rats swarming all over the station. And bigones, like those he’d seen in his own country, but even bigger.

His mind didn’t even stop to evaluate, He ran, without looking back. There was only one place for him to go, the stairs being cut off by a struggling mass of vermin. Without hesitation, he ran down the ramp and into the dark womb of the tunnel. His fear drove him straight into the approaching train, mercifully killing before he was aware of death’s presence.

The driver, who was braking anyway, slammed them on even harder, pitching his~ few passengers forward in their seats. As he emerged from the tunnel, the train’s wheels screeching in high-pitched protest, the scene before him caused him to react instinctively, thereby saving the lives of his passengers and himself. He released the brakes and drove on.

The rats became still and glared at the huge intruding monster. Those beneath the tracks crouched low as it rumbled over them, the squealing from its wheels freezing them.

The passengers stared down through the window, horror struck, wondering if the train had found its way down to the corridors of hell. One fell back as a dark furry body hurtled itself at him only to bounce off the window and back on to the platform. As the train began to gather speed, more of the creatures leapt at the windows, some falling between the train and the platform to be sliced by the grinding wheels.

A rat broke through the window of one carriage and immediately attacked its solitary passenger. The man was strong and managed to pull the frenzied creature from his throat. It tore at his hands with teeth and claws, causing him to shout out in pain, but he still held its neck and body.

His terror gave him added strength and speed; he threw it to the floor and brought his heavy boot swiftly down on its head, crushing its skull. He picked up the limp body, amazed at its size, and threw it through the broken window into the black tunnel that the train was now in. He sank into his seat, shock spreading through his body, not knowing that within twenty-four hours he would be dead.

The station-master choked on his tea ashe beard screams coming from the stairs. He spluttered as he tried to regain his breath. Not another fight. Why was it that his station always attracted hooligans on weekends? Especially Saturday nights. Underground stations always attracted trouble on Saturday nights from the yobbos and drunks, but Sundays usually weren’t too bad. He hoped that daft ape Errol wasn’t involved. Always interfering. Making suggestions about how to run the place. Helping drunks instead of booting them out. Where did he think it was - Chafing Cross?
Shadwell suited the station-master. It was quiet compared to most stations and that suited him fine. Of course it was dirty, but what could you do with an old dump like this? Anyway, it helped keep the people away.

When he’d recovered his composure, he slipped his jacket on and stepped out from the ticket office. Without rushing he ambled towards the top of the stairs to Platform One.

‘What’s going on down there?’ he bellowed, squinting as he tried to see through the dim lights. He heard one cry of what sounded like, ‘Mum’ and saw one black, thrashing shape. He moved cautiously down a few steps and stopped again. ‘Come on, who is it?’

The black slope seemed to break op into little shapes that began mounting the stairs towards him. He heard a train grinding to a halt downstairs, and then suddenly, for some unknown reason, the whine of it picking up speed again and carrying on through the station without stopping. Then he heard the squeaks hat sounded like hundreds of mice. He realised that the creatures were coming up the stairs towards him.

Not mice - but rats. Horrible big rats. Black, ugly.

He moved surprisingly fast for a man of his bulk. He cleared the few stairs he’d descended in two bounds and headed for the ticket office, slamming the door behind him. He leaned back against it for a couple of seconds, fighting for breath and giving his heartbeats a chance to slow down.

He made for the phone and with trembling fingers dialled emergency.

‘Police. Hurry! Police? This is Shadwell Underground, Stationmaster Green speak...’

He looked up as he heard a scuttling noise. Staring across at him from the ticket-office pay window was a huge, black, evil-looking rat.

He dropped the phone and ran to the back of the office.

The windows were barred, preventing any escape. He looked around in desperation, his gross figure shaking with fear. He saw the cupboard set back in the wall, where brooms and buckets were kept for the cleaners, pulled it open and pushed himself inside, closing the-door behind. He crouched, half sitting, whimpering, wetness spreading between his thighs, in the darkness, scarcely daring to breathe.That
scream ! It must have been Errol or someone, waking for a tram. They’d got him and now they were coming for him!

The driver of the train hadn’t stopped. He’d seen them and driven on. And there’s no one else on the station. Mother-of-God, what’s that? Gnawing. Scraping. They’re in the office. They’re trying to eat their way through the cupboard door!


(...) The train suddenly gave a lurch and screeched to a halt, throwing the surprised solicitor’s clerk on to the laps of Violet Melray and Jenny Cooper.

‘Oh, excuse me,’ he stuttered, his face red alerting as he pulled himself up again. Other passengers were in the same predicament and were now picking themselves up, some laughing, others tutting angrily.

‘Here we go,’ a voice was heard to say. ‘Another twenty- minute delay.’ He was wrong. They sat or stood for forty minutes in a state of agitation, trying to hear the shouted conversation between the driver and the guard over their intercom. Henry Sutton, Violet Melray and Jenny Cooper were in the first carriage so they could hear the driver’s replies to the guard’s questions quite plainly. He’d seen something on the line, not quite sure what, but it had been quite large, so he’d jammed on his brakes and cut his power.

Having decided that whatever it was man or animal, it must have been killed by the train and there wasn’t much he could do about it now, so the obvious thing to do was to go on and send a crew back from the next station. The only trouble now was that he couldn’t get any juice. No power. It could be that whatever he’d run over had done some damage to the train although he doubted that, A faulty cable maybe?

He’d actually heard of rats chewing through cables.

The driver, or ‘motor-man’ as he was officially called, had been on to central control and they’d advised him to sit tight for a while until they located and repaired the fault. But it was the smell of smoke that decided him upon his course of action. The passengers became aware of the smoke at the same time and began to stir apprehensively.

The next station, Stepney Green, wasn’t very far, so he would get them off the train and up the tunnel. With so many passengers it would be dangerous, but it would be better than have them panic in the confined spaces of the carriages. Already he could hear excited voices coming from the carriage next door. He told the guard of his intentions then opened the connecting door, to be confronted by anxious-looking faces.

(...) By now, the carriage was becoming less crowded as the people used the side-doors to escape the choking smoke.

‘Ah, now I think I can stand.’ Henry got to his feet and reached down to pull the woman and the girl to theirs. ‘I think we should stick together, ladies. When we get into the tunnel we’ll hold hands and feel our way along the wall. I’ll lead, come along.’

He led the two white-faced passengers towards the front of the carriage. Suddenly the screaming reached a new pitch. In the gloom of the tunnel, lit by the lights of the train, they could see struggling figures. There were so manyfaces out there that they couldn’t comprehend exactly what was happening.

Henry caught a glimpse of one man, still wearing a bowler-hat, disappearing from view beneath the window with something black against his face. As they neared the open door of the driver’s compartment, they saw that people were struggling to get back on the train but were being blocked by those still trying to get off.

Henry and his two female companions reached the small darkened driver’s compartment.
‘Now let me see,’ he said, half to himself, ‘there should be a torch or a lantern somewhere here - ah, just the job.’ He reached down for a long rubber-covered torch tucked away in one corner. A sudden scraping noise made him turn towards the driver’s’ open door. Something black was crouched there. He switched on the torch and shone a beam of light towards it. Jenny screamed as it reflected on two
shining, evil-looking eyes. Instantly, without realising his actions, Henry lashed out with his foot, catching the rat’s head and knocking it back into the tunnel.
‘It’s one of those black rats that the papers were on about!’ Violet cried in horror. Jenny burst into tears, burying her head into the older woman’s shoulder. Henry shone the torch down into the darkness and was dumb-struck at the scene before him. In the confined space of the tunnel, men and women were running, fighting, cowering as hundreds of black rats rampaged amongst them, leaping and tearing, their
bloodlust stirring them into a frenzy. He quickly closed the door and then looked back into the carriage.

He saw that the rats had entered the train and were now attacking the passengers who hadn’t managed to get off or had scrambled back on. He slammed the compartment door shut and switched off his torch.

He was trembling slightly but managed to control the tremor in his voice. ‘I think,our best bet is to sit fight for a while, ladies.’

They all jumped as something fell against the door. Jenny began to moan loudly, her whole body shaking fitfully.

Violet did her best to comfort her. ‘It’s all right, dear. They can’t get in here,’ she soothed.

‘But you must keep quiet,’ Henry said, placing a hand kindly on her shoulder. ‘They mustn’t hear us. I think I broke that devil’s neck, so he won’t try to get in. I suggest we all crouch down on the floor and keep as still as possible.’

He helped lower the sobbing girl to a sitting position and took one more glance out of the window. He wished he hadn’t. His mind registered a mental picture he knew he would never forget for as long as - he quickly pushed the thought of life and death from his mind. Below him was part of a nightmare. A scene from hell. He saw bloody covered limbs; torn faces; ripped bodies. A man stood almost opposite him,
against the wall, stiff and straight, his eyes lifelesslystaring, it seemed, into his own, while three or four rats gorged themselves on his bare legs. A fat woman, completely naked cried pitifully as she beat at two rats clinging to her ample breasts. A young boy of about eighteen was trying to climb to the top of the train by
pushing his feet against the wall and slowly levering himself up. A huge rat ran up the side of the wall and landed on his lap, causing the boy to fall back on to the ground. Screams pervaded the air. Cries for help beat into his brain. All in the half-gloom, against the blackness of the tunnel, as though the whole event
was taking place in black limbo. And everywhere scurrying, furry black creatures, running up the walls, launching themselves into the air, only stopping when the victims’ struggles ceased, and then eating and drinking...


James Herbert
The Rats

In Praise of Future Rats

"Even the pestilent, friendless rat was the substance theme of discourse at one of these popular assemblages. The humane investigator had made a particular study of the animal, and surprised his audience with the number and character of his facts and observations — original and from authentic sources. The nature and qualities of the creature were presented in a manner to excite astonishment and sympathy. At the risk of being considered tedious, some of his facts and anecdotes are repeated.

He related an incident communicated by a clergyman, to prove that the detested rodent shows a consideration and care for its elders on the march which was worthy of human philanthropy. Walking out in some meadows one evening, he observed a great number of rats migrating from one place to another. He stood perfectly still, and
the whole assemblage passed close to him.

His astonishment, however, was great when he saw amongst the number an old blind rat, which held a piece of stick at one end in its mouth, while another had hold of
the other end of it and thus conducted its blind companion. A kindred circumstance was witnessed by a surgeon's mate. Lying awake one evening in his berth, he saw
a rat enter, look cautiously round, and retire. He soon returned, leading a second rat, who seemed to be blind, by the ear. A third rat joined them shortly afterwards,
and assisted the original conductor in picking up some fragments of biscuit and placing them before their infirm parent, as the blind old patriarch was supposed to be.

Incredible as the story might appear of their removing hens' eggs by one fellow lying on his back and grasping tightly his ovoid burden with his fore paws, whilst his comrades drag him away by the tail, he had no reason to disbelieve it, knowing as he did that they would carry eggs from the ingenious bottom to the top of a house, lifting them from stair to stair, the first rat pushing them up on its hind and the second lifting them with its fore legs. They would extract the contents from a flask of oil, dipping in their long tails, and repeating the manoeuvre until they had consumed every drop. He had found lumps of sugar in deep drawers, at a distance of thirty feet from the place where the petty larceny was committed ; and a friend of his saw a rat mount a table on which a drum of figs was placed and straightway tip it over, scattering its contents on the floor beneath, where a score of his expectant brethren sat watching for the windfall.


The propensity of the rat to gnaw, he said, should not be attributed altogether to a reckless determination to overcome impediments. The never-ceasing action of his teeth was not a pastime, but a necessity of his existence.

It was explained : the rat had formidable weapons in the shape of four small, long, and very sharp teeth, two of which were in the upper and two in the lower jaw. These were formed in the shape of a wedge, and had always a fine, sharp, cutting edge. On examining them carefully, it was found that the inner part was of soft, ivory-like composition, which might be easily worn away, whereas the outside was composed of a glass-like enamel, which was excessively hard. The upper teeth worked exactly into the under, so that the centres of the opposed teeth met exactly in the act of gnawing ; the soft part was thus being perpetually worn away, while the hard part kept a sharp, chisel-like edge ; at the same time the teeth grew from the bottom, so that as they wore away a fresh supply was ready. In consequence of this peculiar arrangement, if one of the teeth be removed, either by accident or on purpose, the opposed tooth would continue to grow, and, as there would be nothing to grind it away, it would project from the mouth and turn upon itself ; or, if it were an under tooth, it would even run into the skull above.

There was a preparation in one of the museums which perfectly illustrated the fact. It was an incisor tooth of a rat, which, from the cause mentioned, had increased its growth to such a degree, that it had formed a complete circle and a segment of another ; the diameter was about large enough to admit a good-sized thumb. He once saw a newly killed rat to whom this misfortune had occurred.

(...) A lady living in the country had her attention drawn one day to some rats in an outer room, surrounding a pail which had been prepared for the pigs. Observing them carefully, she soon discovered that a young rat had fallen into the pail, and that his friends, to the number of five or six, were in consultation as to the best means of rescuing him. The lady called others of her family to witness their manoeuvres, while they continued busily at work, regardless of the presence of the spectators. By twining their feet together — the hind feet of the foremost rat being entwined with the fore feet of the next, and so on — they formed a chain extending over the side of the pail.

The foremost rat, supposed to be the mother, then reached down, grasped the young one in her paws, and both were drawn out on the floor. Unfortunately, their deliberations had occupied so much time that the young rat was drowned before he was extricated, and apparently the intelligence of his friends did not extend so far as to attempt resuscitation. Three persons were looking over a garden at sunset, when a rat appeared near a stone wall ; then another and another, until five had assembled, the fifth and last dragging a dead rat. A council then seemed to be held. Then four of them took the foot of their dead companion and drew the body to a place where the earth was soft. The fifth dug a grave with his head and feet, the depth being sufficient to allow the earth to cover the body. The four afterward assisted in covering it up, leaving the tail of the deceased out of the ground.

Pear Russell Sub-Coelum

Le téléchromophotophonotétroscope

Les habitants d'Industria se trouvent si bien chez eux qu'ils n'en sortent guère, quoiqu'ils puissent y rester tout en en sortant. L'absence, ce mal des âmes tendres, a été supprimée. On est ubiquiste, en même temps chez soi et ailleurs : résultat obtenu en perfectionnant un moyen proposé jadis pour transmettre les télégrammes sans fil,. sans autre conducteur que le milieu ambiant; moyen abandonné, parce que les premiers télégrammes livrés à leur instinct s’égaraient, que l'électricité volage acceptait trop de conducteurs et se livrait à tous les électrodes; puis réétudié et amené à bien par les ingénieurs d'Industria qui sont parvenus à domestiquer le fluide, à lui créer des affinités, pour ne pas dire des affections, qui le rendent fidèle à un conducteur, à un pôle. Électricité animalisée et apprivoisée qu'il suffit de mettre une fois en contact avec son maître, de le lui faire sentir et toucher, pour que ce véritable chien courant magnétique s'attache à ses pas on retrouve sa piste.

Le téléchromophotophonotétroscope, inventé dans le même temps, par les mêmes physiciens, supprimait l'absence d'une manière plus radicale encore. La téléchromophotophonotétroscopie est, comme on le sait, une succession presque synoptique d'épreuves photographiques instantanées, qui reproduisent électriquement la figure, la parole, le geste d'une personne absente avec une vérité qui équivaut à la présence, et qui constitue moins une image qu'une apparition, un dédoublement de la personne de l'absent.

Cet appareil, très simple, se compose d'un chromophotographe qui donne l'épreuve en couleur, d'un mégagraphe qui l'agrandit, d'un sténophonographe qui recueille et inscrit les paroles du sujet, aidé par un microphone qui les amplifie, et emmanché dans un téléphone qui se concerte avec un tétroscope pour propager l'image et le son. Les différentes portions de l'instrument totalisent leurs efforts et en versent le produit dans un récipient commun appelé Phénakistiscope, lorgnette acoustique au moyen de laquelle on voit et on entend. Il va de soi qu'en modifiant convenablement la marche du système, on peut à volonté faire comparaître l'absent ou lui apparaître soi-même.

La création des diverses parties de cet appareil remonte à plusieurs années, mais l'honneur revient aux savants d'Industria d'on avoir fait la synthèse et la soudure. On comprend tous les bienfaits d'un pareil instrument et toute l'activité qu'il imprimait aux relations. Plus d'isolement ni de solitude : de gré ou de force, on recevait à toute heure la visite spectrale d'un ami absent, de parents de province ou de voisins oisifs, venant familièrement passer une heure ou quelques jours chez vous. Aussi, quelle union de tous les habitants de ce pays, liés en une seule famille par des fils si serrés qu'on n'en pourrait couper un membre sans faire crier tout le corps, ni tirer un cheveu sans arracher la touffe !

L'invention qu'on vient de décrire s'appliquait aussi aux spectacles, où l'on n'allait pas, puisqu'on pouvait s'en procurer les charmes chez soi. Aussi les théâtres n'étaient-ils, en dépit de leur magnificence, que des boîtes à musique, des fabriques de drames dont la téléchromophoto-phonotétroscopie portait les produits à domicile; et dont le trop-plein, s'échappant par la coupole diaphonique, dont chaque salle est pourvue, s'épandait dans l'atmosphère et l'imprégnait d'harmonie.

La musique était encore mise à la portée de tous par un procédé qui n’est pas sans analogie avec celui de MM. Cailletet et Pictet, pour la solidification des gaz, et qui consiste à comprimer les vibrations sonores sans les éteindre, comme on presse un ressort sans le briser; et à les concentrer à ce point qu'une opérette peut tenir dans un litre, et une chanson à boire, dans un verre.

L'un des meilleurs plaisirs de la table était de déboucher à dessert, un brindisi, une polka, une valse, dont les notes, pétillantes comme du vin de Champagne, détonnaient à plein goulot. Quelquefois, de jeunes Atmophytes s'amusaient à faire boire les restes mêlés de ces bouteilles harmoniques à des phonographes et à des microphones qui s'en allaient, en état d'ivresse, baver par les rues ce concert discordant. (...)

de Chousy

C'était le dieu de cette apothéose. une sorte d'éléphant armé d'une massue emmanchée dans sa trompe, quelque chose comme une enclume vivante, brandissant elle-même son marteau. C'était un marteau-pilon du poids de 200,000 kilogrammes, qu'avec une force et une adresse prodigieuses, les insurgés avaient tiré de la crypte et qu'ils dressaient en batterie devant la porte.

Dans le même temps, s'étant rendus maîtres de tout le réseau des fils et des tubes, qui se centralise à l'Hôtel de ville, ils avaient emmêlé ces tubes dans ces fils au point de rendre les transmissions inintelligibles et dangereuses ; ils envoyaient par ces conducteurs des décharges électriques, éclairs énormes, imprégnant les parois de l'édifice qu’on ne pouvait plus toucher sans ressentir un choc. L'atmosphère de la salle en était saturée; une poignée de main amenait un échange d'étincelles entre ces corps électrisés, seconde comme des grenouilles sous l'arc voltaïque; moins semblables à des hommes qu'à des trembleurs électriques, à des automates, à des Atmophytes sans autorité sur leurs membres, inhabiles à garder la dignité d'attitude nécessaire en un pareil moment.

Tous les appareils de transmission, ainsi transformés en agents malfaisants et en outils de révolte, vomissaient, suivant leurs aptitudes, des grêles de projectiles ou des torrents d'injures que les microphones prenaient le soin de grossir, que les phonographes enregistraient et répétaient avec un entêtement de machine, mêlant leurs voix criardes aux coups de tonnerre du marteau-pilon. Téléphones devenus cacophones et phonographes cacographes; confusion des langues embrouillées en écheveaux de fils de fer; tubes atmosphériques transformés en pièces de canon dans lesquelles ces barbares, chargeant des citoyens paisibles, les lançaient avec une telle violence que, partis boulets, ils arrivaient mitraille, mitraille de lambeaux humains.

C'est ainsi que nous eûmes l'incomparable douleur de voir revenir les restes défigurés de M. l'ingénieur William Hatchitt qui, avec son obligeance et son dévouement habituels, et se fiant à sa grande habitudes des voyages sous terre, avait poussé une reconnaissance dans un tube, afin de se rendre mieux compte de la révolte et d'essayer, en la prenant en queue, de la tenir en respect.

La dernière heure d'Industria avait sonné. Les portes du temple cédaient sous les coups redoublée du marteau.

de Chousy

Ballard's Requiem