FOG POSSIBILITIES.
SUPPOSING the Fog,—such a fog as that of Lord Mayor's Day in London, or worse, we have seen worse,—were to last a year, and that, in the almost equally blinding shape of mist, it were to extend to the whole of the West of Europe. We dare say the meteorological conditions of our planet are such as not to admit of this,—we sincerely hope so,—and it seems not at all un- likely that the supply of moisture which the earth yields, and which is, we suppose, an essential condition of mist, could not possibly hold out anything like that time. But grant even half a year of continuous fog, of blinding mist and fog, and only conceive the helplessness of the human race under it. It is almost as bad as snow. The Germans, and for that matter Paris and London, would be in a bad way with a three or four days' heavy snowstorm, which it would take a good ten days to clear away so as to restore communications. But snow presents a real mechanical difficulty. It is a genuine physical obstacle to locomotion, though a provokingly and almost ironically fine one. Fog simply blinds without fettering. You may go where you please through it, only you don't know where the place is that you please to go to. All coasting service is absolutely stopped by it, and all river navigation. No corn could come in from America to depleted France. All the life of great cities would be pdtalyzed till men had acquired the blind man's habit of groping their way,—and even blind men would find groping their way in a city of the blind much more difficult than it is where they are the exceptions to the rule. How far even a country at peace like England, having had no notice of the calamity, could get on for six months without foreign supplies we are very doubtful. It would be very odd receiving telegrams, as we might still receive them, both from the world in the fog and the world out of it,—though letters and more extensive communications would be at end in consequence of the interruption of the Channel navigation, unless, indeed, balloon posts could be organized to rise above the fog, and that would be very dangerous, because when out of it they would not know what sort of country or sea lay in the black enve- lope beneath them, and would be afraid to come down. Rouen might telegraph to Tours, " All still dark here ; are the Germans gone ? " and Tours might telegraph back, "All dark here ; but an honourable traveller who came in through the fog has met with many German corpses on his way. Of course, neither army dare advance." The lasting of an ordinary night would be far less obstructive, to cities and lighted roads at least, where artificial light would do as well for purposes of business as day itself. But in a lasting fog, the German armies would be almost as helpless as under a con- tinuous snowfall. Foraging in a hostile country with band- aged eyes would be a hopeless task. The army could not in all probability grope its way back home in time to save itself from starvation. Indeed, if no notice of a long con- tinuance of the fog had been received, it would seem so much more rational to wait for the expected lifting of the fog, even after a week's patience, than to tempt the dangers of a march back through a hostile country without the use of the eyes, that most likely the German Armies would really starve where they were on the field. It is very curious that an unfavourable con- dition like this which operates equally on both sides should have the effect, as it certainly would, of putting a stop to fighting altogether. It seems to be wholly impossible to do anything of this fighting kind without knowing the exact extent of the damage you have inflicted and have suffered. We venture to say that
Mr. Tennyson's fine account of King Arthur's last battle suffi- ciently shows that King Arthur was a dreamland King. No real armies would have fought in a mist so blinding that they could not distinguish friend from foe, or see each other's whereabouts :—
"A death-white mist slept over sand and sea; Whereof the chill to him who breathed it, drew Down with his blood, till all his heart was cold With formless fear ; and e'en on Arthur fell Confusion, since he saw not whom he tonight, For friend and foe were shadows in the mist, And friend slew friend, not knowing whom he slew."
The battle which closed King Arthur's reign was, no doubt, fought in such a mist, but no mere earthly battle ever was or will be.
Human beings cannot fight against the unknown. Groping and fighting are inconsistent states of mind. Men will fight against vastly superior numbers, under conditions they see and under- stand; but not against even vastly inferior ones, if they do not know where, and when, and how they may come to close quarters with them. Night attacks are no exception to this. In the first place, even a dark night is not nearly so bewildering as a mist. Troops marked for the purpose easily recognize each other, and no night without mist is so dark as to prevent them from seeing sufficient to keep together in a body. But what is more to the purpose, in a night attack soldiers know exactly where they ex- pect to find the enemy, and count on getting an advantage over them by the surprise. In a thick mist neither of the combatants knows where the other may be found, from what side he may come, or in what force ; both sides are fighting against enemies far worse than the foe, the horrors of surprise and doubt.
But besides this paralysis of commercial and warlike operations, should the atmosphere ever continue to hold in it these blinding vapours for a few months instead of a few hours, so as to limit every man's eyesight to the range of a foot or so on every side of him, the whole machinery of social life would be all but stopped for that period, and a great deal of the industry of the world brought so nearly to a standstill as to cause, simultaneously, the most terrible privations and something like the impossi- bility of relieving them. If the coasting trade became ha. possible, all the fisheries would be stopped, and the collieries could only work so far as the railways could distribute the coal. But the railways themselves would be full of danger in a mist so thick that you could not see the signals from the engine. The goods' trains would go almost at a foot-pace, and the passenger trains would hardly go at all. Driving and riding would become nearly impossible, or at least would require almost as much courage and faith as a succession of deaths, for they would be a series of hurryings into the unknown. Even the cartage of provisions into the great cities and their distribution when there would become a matter of great difficulty. The graziers and country dairymen, whose cows were not all in stalls, would hardly find them or the sheep on their pastures in such a mist. No cattle, nor corn, nor cotton, nor rice, nor tea, nor sugar, nor any other raw material could reach our ports. If the country had exhausted its own supply of these things before the fog disappeared, we should have to starve, and even before that, the artizans employed in working up these foreign products would lose their work.
In the meantime, public opinion would be nowhere, for not enough people would meet to form anything like an opinion that could be called public. Even the telegraph wires would only report the situation and opinions of a small knot of individuals, for neither in London nor in any other capital would there be any possibility of sufficient association to admit of gauging the general feeling. A strange sense of solitude would fall upon the face of the lands. A friend emerging out of the mist would seem to come from a distant country, though it might be from only half a mile off. Nothing gives a supremer sense of loneliness than a veil suddenly dropped round you which cuts you off from all command of the doings of the outer world, and the outer workl from all command of your doings. If Parliament by an effort could meet in spite of the difficulties of locomotion, and dis- cuss what a nation thus isolated from the rest of the world by the sudden blindness fallen upon a portion of it, wished, it would soon be apparent, we fancy, that for most purposes constituencies had ceased to exist, i.e., to have any common life. No member would know -what his constituents wished beyond the cessation of the fog. What would be the use of talking of School Boards, when the con- stituency could neither get to the polls, nor if they did, could the children get to the schools? What interest would be taken in the Irish University when no Irish member could reach Eng- land, and no University life of any account could exist at all ? As for the Army reorganization, who would talk of it while a whole corporal's squad could hardly be seen at once, and men were doubtful if a review could ever come off again ? As for the questions of our ironclads, who would think of them while the question was whether the maintop could ever be seen again from deck, or any ship could enter or get out of harbour again ? The Budget would necessarily be thrown into confusion. Customs' duties would be six months in arrear, and even the income-tax could hardly be raised while it took a vogage of discovery to find every. house, and when the assembly of a public force to execute the law was as difficult an operation as a rendezvous of the blind. Who would talk of recognizing the French Republic, when it had become a question whether you could ever again recognize the French coast? Alsace and Lorraine would lose their interest for both France and Germany, and France and Germany would lose their interest for Alsace and Lorraine. Grant a continuous fog, and even if corn ripened (which of course it wouldn't) or, in, default of bread, you could live on root crops like potatoes, carrots, and turnips, which probably might still ripen, any true national feel- ing would undoubtedly die out very fast with the opportunities for travelling, meeting, and seeing the country through which men passed. The question as to the temporal power of the Pope could hardly interest men who were speculating whether his spiritual power could pierce a fog,—whether infallibility itself could thread with light a Cimmerian world.
Nothing seems to us more wonderful or less generally realized than the inevitable certainty that what seems a very minute change indeed in the metereological conditions of the world, admitting of a little vapour hanging in the atmosphere daring some infinitesimal fraction of the time during which our world has been building for us,—a year, or even half a year would be enough to make the shock felt in full force,—would turn society almost upside down, if it did not do a good deal towards depopulating the earth. War is bad enough, and destructive enough ; but if a fog could hang for a few weeks above the surface of the sun so as to shut in the greater part of its light and heat, or even if such a veil as fell over London for about half an hour on Wednesday last could fall over Western Europe from equinox to equinox, we should soon be aware that a handful of vapour might become a more threatening cloud of judgment than the worst exhalations of human passion.
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