My Discovery of England | Page 7

scrawled with chalk, the lids slammed to, and that was all. Not
one of the officials seemed to care to look at my things or to have the
politeness to pretend to want to. I had arranged my dress suit and my
pyjamas so as to make as effective a display as possible: a New York
customs officer would have been delighted with it. Here they simply
passed it over. "Do open this trunk," I asked one of the officials, "and
see my pyjamas." "I don't think it is necessary, sir," the man answered.
There was a coldness about it that cut me to the quick.
But bad as is the conduct of the English customs men, the immigration
officials are even worse. I could not help being struck by the dreadful
carelessness with which people are admitted into England. There are, it
is true, a group of officials said to be in charge of immigration, but they
know nothing of the discriminating care exercised on the other side of
the Atlantic.
"Do you want to know," I asked one of them, "whether I am a
polygamist?"
"No, sir," he said very quietly.

"Would you like me to tell you whether I am fundamentally opposed to
any and every system of government?"
The man seemed mystified. "No, sir," he said. "I don't know that I
would."
"Don't you care?" I asked.
"Well, not particularly, sir," he answered.
I was determined to arouse him from his lethargy.
"Let me tell you, then," I said, "that I am an anarchistic polygamist, that
I am opposed to all forms of government, that I object to any kind of
revealed religion, that I regard the state and property and marriage as
the mere tyranny of the bourgeoisie, and that I want to see class hatred
carried to the point where it forces every one into brotherly love. Now,
do I get in ?"
The official looked puzzled for a minute. "You are not Irish, are you,
sir?" he said.
"No."
"Then I think you can come in all right." he answered.
The journey from Liverpool to London, like all other English journeys,
is short. This is due to the fact that England is a small country: it
contains only 50,000 square miles, whereas the United States, as every
one knows, contains three and a half billion. I mentioned this fact to an
English fellow passenger on the train, together with a provisional
estimate of the American corn crop for 1922: but he only drew his rug
about his knees, took a sip of brandy from his travelling flask, and sank
into a state resembling death. I contented myself with jotting down an
impression of incivility and paid no further attention to my fellow
traveller other than to read the labels on his lug gage and to peruse the
headings of his newspaper by peeping over his shoulder.
It was my first experience of travelling with a fellow passenger in a
compartment of an English train, and I admit now that I was as yet
ignorant of the proper method of conduct. Later on I became fully
conversant with the rule of travel as understood in England. I should
have known, of course, that I must on no account speak to the man. But
I should have let down the window a little bit in such a way as to make
a strong draught on his ear. Had this failed to break down his reserve I
should have placed a heavy valise in the rack over his head so balanced
that it might fall on him at any moment. Failing this again, I could have

blown rings of smoke at him or stepped on his feet under the pretence
of looking out of the window. Under the English rule as long as he
bears this in silence you are not supposed to know him. In fact, he is
not supposed to be there. You and he each presume the other to be a
mere piece of empty space. But let him once be driven to say, "Oh, I
beg your pardon, I wonder if you would mind my closing the window,"
and he is lost. After that you are entitled to tell him anything about the
corn crop that you care to.
But in the present case I knew nothing of this, and after three hours of
charming silence I found myself in London.

II. I Am Interviewed by the Press
IMMEDIATELY upon my arrival in London I was interviewed by the
Press. I was interviewed in all twenty times. I am not saying this in any
spirit of elation or boastfulness. I am simply stating it as a
fact--interviewed twenty times, sixteen times by men and twice by
women. But as I feel that the