No. 17 by Joseph Jefferson Farjeon (Collins Crime Club 1926)

 

Figures in the Fog

Fog had London by the throat. It blinded its eyes and muffled its ears. Such traffic as was not at a standstill groped its way with scarcely a sound through the jaundiced streets, and to cross a road was no longer a casual matter, but an adventure into the unknown. For this reason, the timid stayed indoors, while the more daring, and those who had no choice, groped gingerly along the pavements. The pickpockets were busy.

But it is not in the heart of London that our story commences. The fog had stretched its fingers far and wide, and a man who was approaching along one of the arteries that led Londonwards from the north-east paused for a few moments to rub his eyes, and then his stubby chin.

‘Gawd ’elp us!’ he muttered, staring into the great, gloomy smudge ahead of him. ‘If that ain’t the Yeller Peril, wot is?’

He had trudged out of a land of sunshine into a land of white mist, and now the white mist was becoming opaque orange. The prospect was so thoroughly unappetising that he even considered the idea of turning back. Had he known what awaited him in that gloomy smudge he would have acted very promptly on the idea, but the future itself is as impenetrable as a fog, and he decided to go on.

‘Arter all,’ he argued to himself, ‘one plice is as good as another, when you ain’t got nowhere helse!’

So he lit his best cigarette—barely more than half of it had been smoked by its previous owner—and resumed his way.

The Cotton-Pickers by B. Traven (Allison & Busby 1926)

The thought that from now on I would be working with a murderer day and night, eating from the same pot, perhaps sleeping in the same room, this thought didn’t occur to me at once. Either I’d sunk so low morally that I’d lost all feeling for such niceties of civilization, or I’d moved so far ahead of my time and so far above the moral standards of the day that I understood every human action, and neither took upon myself the right to condemn nor indulged in the cheap sentimentality of pity. For pity is also a condemnation, even if not so recognized, even if it is unconscious. Should I have felt a horror of Antonio, a revulsion against shaking his hand? There are so many thieves and murderers on the loose with diamonds on their fingers and big pearls in their neckties or gold stars on their epaulettes, and decent people think nothing of shaking hands with them, but even regard it an honor to do so. Every class has its thieves and murderers. Those of my class are hanged; others are invited to the president’s ball and complain about the crimes and immorality of workmen like me.

When you have to struggle hard to get a crust of bread, you find yourself down in the mire, floundering among the scum of humanity.