thriftless, penniless Dick, Tom, and Harry. Were he called upon to do so, indeed, he would assuredly rise up in his wrath and rend the caller. At the last Labor party election it was a passingrich man who came out at the head of the poll, with a quarter of a million of

votes.

Nor does he hold with autocratic rule; and that also Bolshevism spells. He is a practical man, with a head on his shoulders, wont to think for himself, and go his own way. To him, therefore, Lenin's methods seem rank tyranny. The mere fact that in Russia one cannot even 'go on strike,' as he says, is enough in itself to render the system in force there intolerable in his eyes. Then, whether religious or not, he is far from being antagonistic to religion: he has none of the bitter animosity against the clergy that marks the German worker. Thus he has no sympathy with the ruthless warfare the Bolshevist leaders wage against the churches. It strikes him as stupid, even if it does not shock him; and it shocks him more often than not. It shocks his wife, too, and that counts for much with him. She, indeed, if she be the average wife, is dead against everything that smacks of Bolshevism.

Among the many working-class married women whom I know, there is only one thorough-going Bolshevist; and she is a Welsh woman who has a domestic grievance. Of the rest, those who live in towns are for the most part strongly anti-Bolshevist; while those who live in the country are neither pro nor anti, unless there be an indiscreet lady missioner in the district. 'He's nought but a Bolshie,' the townswomen regard as the direst insult they can hurl at a man.

'We know all about them Bolshies,' they say, with significant nods, if mention is made of Lenin's followers. 'We know what they're after, and we'll 'ave

none of them 'ere. We'll see to that: Why, they want to get rid of their old wives and get new ones, young ones! That's what they're after. That and getting hold of our kiddies. We'll 'ave no Bolshies 'ere. This ain't the place for them.'

Some of them indulge in wild talk from time to time, it is true; for there are many things they wish to have changed, although they certainly do not wish for a revolution. That is a notable fact; for they are all more or less up in arms against the government just now, chiefly, as it seems, because no profiteer has yet been hanged. 'If Lloyd George was worth his salt, he'd have hanged the blooming lot long ago,' they maintain. There is something wrong somewhere, in high quarters, too, they are sure, or never would they have to pay 9d. for a loaf of bread, 14d. for a pound of sugar, and 20s. or more for a pair of shoes. Any Bolshevism there is among them is there, in a very great measure, because of the profiteer.

While Bolshevism does not appeal to the average worker, so far as I can make out, it does appeal, and with great force, to certain of his or her

near relatives, who have less common sense than he has, more book learning, more brain, too, perhaps of a sort. It has undoubtedly an attraction for the half-educated; especially if they have, and many of them have, the gift of the gab; for then they take it for granted that, under soviet rule, they would at once be installed as officials. And soviet officials, as all the world. knows, have a very good time. Could we all be officials, indeed, some of us would, perhaps, not object so strongly as we do to Bolshevism. It has an attraction also for those who cherish grievances, are discontented with their lot, are sure they are having more than their fair share of life's buffeting. For the whole Ishmaelite tribe, indeed, it

has a marked attraction, and above all for the young of that tribe. And that is the sad part of the business, for it is the young who count. The harm the spreaders of Bolshevism do among men and women is as nothing to the harm they do among boys and girls.

At every turn now one comes across boy and girl, young men and women, with their hand against everyone whom they suspect of being better off than they themselves are. As a rule they are both ambitious and pleasureloving, bent on making their way in the world, and having a good time the while. They are convinced that they have the talents wherewith to do great things, and could do them had they the chance. A plain-looking little 'general' once told me she had in her the making of a great actress. All she needed was an introduction to the manager of the Lyceum. A girl who had never gone beyond Standard V at school was sure the post for which she was best fitted was that of secretary to a Member of Parliament. Another, to whom I might have offered a scullery-maid's post, wished to be a lady's companion. Another, again, of much the same sort, thought she would like to be a lecturer. They were all discontented with the work they had to do, sure they would not have to do it were the world managed as it ought to be.

Boys are, as a rule, more modest in their ambitions than girls, although not less sure of their talents. I have met with lads who had never a doubt but that they might be great writers, painters, poets, musicians, or actors, had they but the wherewithal to pay for a little teaching. Still, what the average boy-Ishmaelite's heart is most of all set on is having more leisure, more pleasure, more money, less work. Regular work, drudgery he calls it, is his bête-noire. He resents being called upon to do it, because it is uncongenial work,

work unworthy of him, he maintains. His candid relatives maintain, however, that what he really resents is being called upon to work at all. It is the thought that he must work while there are other folk at play that rankles in his mind.

These young Ishmaelites are for the most part war products, of course. During the war, boys and girls were in great demand; they earned more money than their fathers had ever earned, and spent it as they chose, going their own way the while, many of them, with no one in authority over them, no one to say them nay. The result was they felt themselves personages of importance, and had never a doubt but that personages of importance they would remain. The old state of things, with its class distinctions, its traditions, its deference for age and experience, was gone forever, they were sure, clean swept away. When the war was over a new state of things would arise, one in which they, with their youth and vigor and talents, would have the ball at their feet. Their heads were aglow with dreams of the great rôle they would then play in the world, the glorious time they would have.

Now they are waking up to the fact that their dreams were but dreams. For although the war is over, so far as they are concerned, the state of things is much the same as it was before it began. They must still work, drudge, if they would eat, while there are others who eat without working; they still must do what they are told to do, instead of telling others what to do. This they regard as an injury, a great wrong to them personally; and they resent it bitterly, so bitterly that, in their ignorance and inexperience, they are ready to welcome any scheme, no matter how wild-cattish, that promises to bring about a general upheaval.

Now, these boy and girl Ishmaelites are of the very stuff of which Bolusheviki are made they take to Bolshevism as ducks to water. Thus, among them, any spreader, no matter how maladroit, can easily work havoc. Great havoc has already been worked among them, indeed, for many of them are Bolsheviki at heart; and from day to day the number is increasing. Already there are districts where Lenin and Trotzky are hailed as heroes, leaders, righters of wrongs. The hailers are but youngsters, many of them, it is true; but they will be citizens one day, and will speak and act for England. For England's sake, therefore, a stop ought to be put to this spreading of Bolshevism among them. For their own sakes, too; for it is by no means entirely their own fault that they are as they are. Had the war never come, the younger among them might to-day be Boy Scouts or Girl Guides, bent on serving their country and giving a helping hand to their fellows, leading wholesome happy lives the while. And much might be done for them even now, were crusaders of the right sort to go among them, men and women with boundless patience and sound common sense, with wide sympathies, too, and a keen sense of humor.

Such men and women would not forget that most young folk have a craving for change, that many young folk dearly love the sensational, and not a few, the horrible. Nor would they forget that to no folk, here in England, neither to the young nor the old, does rigid discipline combined with tyranny and injustice, appeal. On the contrary, they would bear that fact well in mind; and would therefore make the burden of their preaching such significant features of the Bolshevist régime as the Conscription of Labor. Then there would be some hope of their scoring a great success by their anti

Bolshevist crusade. The hope indeed would be a certainty, could all amateur spreaders of Bolshevism but be persuaded, cajoled, or bullied into changing their ways the while.

'There would n't be a single Bolshevist here if our fellows all knew what Bolshevism means,' a workingman informed me the other day. "Why can't somebody make them understand that such as us must work like slaves all day; must go half-starved, and dare n't say their souls are their own?'

[The New Witness] THE GLAMOUR OF PROSPECTING

BY R. B. TOWNSHEND

WHAT makes the glamour? There is the wonder of it. South Africa must be about the ghastliest country in the world to prospect in. Drought and starvation, poisonous plants, insects, and snakes, and above all, thirst, these things try a man to the utmost. Yet which of us who has ever adventured would not go at it again in a minute, if only he could, in spite of all? Take thirst: in South Africa a man often has to go for weeks without water, depending only on 'tsamma'; this is a small wild melon about the size of an apple, and although the juice of the melon keeps life alive in you, yet you stay thirsty all the time. Myself, I did a bit of ruby and gold prospecting about half a century ago in the deserts around the upper part of the Great Rio Colorado in the Far West of America, but, as we used to say out West, South Africa can see these Colorado deserts and go them one better as I should prefer to put it several worse.

or,

indeed,

go them

And yet, and yet the glamour of it! That is what Lieutenant Cornell brings out, the way in which a man is

fascinated by prospecting. The eternal hope of striking it rich, the way a man learns to laugh at trouble, the belief in the luck at last, there is the lure; fascination is not a bit too strong a word for it: you fight not against man, or at least only occasionally; you contend with great Nature herself for her hidden treasures. It is a game, the greatest game you can play on this earth; read Cornell and see if you can enter with him into the spirit of it. Take this, for instance. He and a partner, Ransson, were out after a copper 'mountain' they had heard of somewhere near the Tatas River which runs into the Orange:

For I was at the edge of a sheer precipice of six hundred or seven hundred feet in depth, its face of horrible, smooth, slippery-looking granite, with scarce a crack or crevice in it to offer foothold for a cat, and with but a few huge rounded boulders clinging to its face as by a miracle.

It was almost dark, but in the depths below I I could see the sand-river we were bound for, and could have almost dropped a stone into it -but to attempt to get down to it even without the horses, looked sheer madness!

Ransson and the two guides came up, and the latter shook their heads and clucked and said we must go back and go round which would mean two days to reach the spot below us! I said, 'Look here, Ransson, I'm going back.' He said, 'I'm going down.'

I said, 'Right! I'll bury you when I get there in three days' time.'

'Rot!' he said, 'you'll never make a mountaineer. Why, look what Whymper says.'

'Damn Whymper!' I said. 'We don't want Whymper, we want Paulham and Santos Dumont, and aeroplanes and a balloon or two, and a thousand yards of rope. I'm going back!'

He said, 'You're not. I'm going to take you down and the horses.' . . . And he did.

We tried in either direction for about an hour; but my way it only got worse, and I could only

hold on, and look over and feel giddy. At times Ransson whooped at me from some awful perch and I bleated back; then he remembered Whymper again and tried to 'yodel.' Luckily, about then, little Samuel shouted to me, and getting back to the horses I found that he had discovered a place where a descent for a man might be prac ticable, though for horses it looked madness.

They did get half-way down by the light of the moon, the 'nacht zon,' or night sun, as the Hottentot, Samuel, called it, and there they stuck and offsaddled till dawn, making the discovery that the water bags on the pack mule were bone dry. The 'boys' had been helping themselves and that night they thirsted. They found their copper 'mountain,' however, but alas! it turned out to be only a nugget, though the largest ever found in South Africa, for it was four or five feet long by eight round and must have weighed five or six tons, too much for a South African pack mule, aye, too much for a Cape

cart.

Or take an adventure which Ransson had all by himself near Quagga in the same district:

He had descended a deep and narrow defile leading down from an old watercourse in the mountains. As he got deeper the gorge narrowed until it became a veritable canon, gloomy, dark, and profound. The walls were in places barely six feet apart, and towered up on either hand perpendicularly for many hundreds of feet, and the whole of this deep rent or crack in the earth for it was little more was worn ice-smooth by the action of water. It was toward evening, and only little light filtered into the place. Here and there came a straight drop of eight or ten feet, and it was after negotiating several of these that Ransson, peering down, caught sight of the tops of some rushes in a wider space below, and knew he was near water. He swung himself down another abrupt narrow place, and suddenly became aware of a strong bestial smell. He cocked his rifle, and peered into the gloom, and his eyes. gradually becoming accustomed to it, showed him that he was in the midst of a big troop of huge baboons.

They were absolutely motionless, watching him; they were on every hand, on every projec tion of rock, above him, below him, before him. and behind him, for he had passed some of them

vithout seeing them, and so near were several hat he could have touched them with his rifle. And there they sat, as still as statues, and glared t him; and Ransson said that it was one of his nost uncanny experiences to see all those pairs of eyes glowering on him in the gloom. To shoot vould probably have meant being torn limb rom limb; to turn his back on them and climb he slippery rock would have left him at their nercy; to go on was impossible, as there was a heer drop of twenty feet into the water. In this Hilemna he did quite mechanically what he could not have bettered by hours of thinking, for he pulled out his matches and lit his pipe. And as the little flame flickered up one of the big baDoons they are huge fellows in these mountains-gave a hoarse, grunting call, and away the whole troop fled, actually brushing against Ransson as they did so, clambering up the almost vertical rocks, and disappearing almost immediately.

An even more trying adventure fell to Cornell's own lot in the Bak River gorge. He had shot off all his cartridges and bagged three 'pheasants' with which he was returning to camp, when night caught him in thick bush which was full of pitfalls and potholes. He was searching in the dark for an #eagle he had shot earlier in the day:

I had just decided that I was quite near it when, just in front of me, rose a chorus of yelps and snarls, and it was evident that jackals were quarreling over the eagle's carcass. I was feeling around for a stone to shy at the small scavengers when I heard a sound as of a soft but heavy body landing among gravel and twigs, another stifled yelp and then the snarling, coughing growl of a leopard, or rather of two leopards, who appeared to be carrying on a similar quarrel to the one they had so summarily put a stop to.

I realized several things instantly. No cartridges, no trees except unclimbable thorn trees, and no matches. A fire would have scared them immediately. No way home except past them

well, I'd have to go back! I did not like the idea of a night by the river, but even that pis aller had to go by the board, for as I turned to sneak back I heard the cough of another leopard in that direction. Clearly this was no place for me, but what on earth was I to do? The pheasants had bled a good deal, and I was smothered in the blood, which probably accounted for the gentleman on my trail.

Well, something had to be done, and having heard that the human voice was feared by all animals, I let off a yell that scared me so that I dropped the gun. It echoed up among the rocks like the screech of a steam syren; it woke the baboons on the peaks and they barked back in faint imitation: far up the ravine a big owl took up the refrain and passed it on farther. The snarling of the leopards stopped instantly, and the shuffle of a displaced stone among the rocks showed they had bounded away. So, picking up the useless gun, I took my courage in both hands and 'lit out' for camp. Every few yards I repeated the first yell, but when after a bit I stopped for sheer want of breath and hoarseness I heard those blamed leopards making remarks to each other across the ravine; they were accompanying me on either side. Long before I reached camp I was as hoarse as a crow and my yell lacked vim. I fell over rocks and into crevasses, and once glissaded down a slope of slippery

granite into about three feet of extremely wet,

cold water. But at long length I turned a corner of the defile and came in sight of the welcome fire, and heard the leopards no more.

There seemed to me to be a lack of anxiety about all of the home party. Paul was asleep and snoring within a few inches of the fire, and Borcherds and De Wet were smoking and swapping lies on the other side of it.

'Hallo!' said Borcherds. 'Bit pleased with yourself, ain't you?'

'What d'ye mean?' I asked, none too sweetly. 'Oh, we heard you singing for the last hour or more,' he said. "Thought you might have struck someone with some whisky.' SINGING!

Yes, the glamour is there all right, for there are plenty more stories as good as these.