BURGLARS.
SMALL fears are in the air just now. When- great earthquakes take place the dust is perceptible many thousands of miles away. There is so much real terror just now in the world that it would be strange if even those who are unconscious of the facts should he immune from their effects. We are all a little uneasy, even is that placid place Suburbia. Our favourite small fear just now is the fear of burglars. In that outer ring of London where the houses do not all touch one another and gardens offer cover to the thief in the night burglars have ousted ghosts. Nowadays, if one's door were to open stealthily in the night, it would be almost a relief to see an old lady " in a scoured silk gown," or some shadowy stranger out of a remembered picture, or even the tradi- tional white sheet with a skull on top. At least such apparitions go unarmed and take nothing away with them To-day, when people consider the occult—at tea-parties among gardens—they talk of comforting things like cures and consoling messages. They do not tremble any more. Even children's fears take the form of burglars—if chil- dren's fears can be said to have any form at all. Anyhow, they give that name to their fluid emotions when they wake in a fright. Whether burglars are any more common or more virulent than they used to be is a question of criminal statistics, but they certainly play a larger part than they did in thought and conversation. People discuss their systems of bolting and barring with as much interest as they discuss their food. A few bold fatalists may declare that they do not lock up at all, because "if they-are coming, they are coming," but such boasting is looked on a little askance, as when a woman with young children boasts that she does not " worry " about a prevalent catching complaint. Again, a few householders of cool sense may ask, irritably, why everyone expects burglars to come to the front door when any window can be opened with a penknife. Even these light-hearted theorists, however, if it came to practice, would hardly sleep at night if they knew that the ritual of " putting the chain up " had been forgotten. Preferences are, of course, expressed for different sorts of burglars. Hall the world declares for the skilful man who knows his work and is never. seen, and half would regret for life the lost opportunity to " have at him " if he departed in silence and undetected -with the swag. Most women admit that if they heard " anyone about " their instinct would be to lock their doors and pray that the marauder might go. Convention obliges a man to go downstairs and look, but no doubt he sometimes regrets the convention. But whether he goes willingly or un- willingly has probably more to do with his attitude to property than with his courage. Men's attitude towards small property—what we may call portable property—is a ceaseless puzzle. It differs so much between the classes, and again between indi, viduals. Very poor people are, we think, commonly the most careless about their possessions. It is odd, because it is with great difficulty that they can replace them. They are, indeed, in no danger from the thieves who break through and steal, but they take extraordinarily little trouble to guard their treasures from moth and rust. They will destroy their furniture, neglect to care for their clothes, waste their food and mismanage their money in a way to make richer and often worse people turn up their eyes in horror. They may long to be better off even to the point of grudging wealth to others, though this is rare ; but for the actual property that they own they seem to care little. Nothing among the English poor goes from father to son as it does among poor people in other countries. Very rich men, on the other hand, seem often to have a great feeling for their small possessions—for the sort of things which can be stolen or spoiled. They make a very great fuss when they lose anything; when they are cheated in small ways or their small treasures are stolen they seem to feel an indignation and a sense of indignity unknown to humbler people. A man of ordinary means who has been done out of some little sum such as he can easily afford will usually laugh about his misfortune—will sometimes even let it be seen that he thinks himself a good, unsuspicious fellow who will all his life be occasionally " bled unsuspicious by a rogue. He doesn't care. In fact, he thinks his small bit of self-complacency well worth the price. This little defect of vanity is not common among the rich. They blame rather than pride themselves when they are done out of even a few coppers. Sometimes they give such an im- pression of alert carefulness as to suggest that they feel themselves to be living in the midst of a conspiracy to defraud. Their poorer friends are inclined rather to despise them for such caution. Even if their house is rifled why do they mind, considering they can renew to- morrow what they lose to-day 1 Of course, we all acknow- ledge that sentiment comes in. When we lose our pro- perty it is wonderful how little the fact that we are insured modifies our complaints ! It is difficult, however, to imagine that anyone can have a very strong sentiment for so many things or for so tiny a fraction of so large a fortune, just as it is impossible to imagine how a man with three homes can have any real feeling for home at all. He has, we all know that he has, but it is not easy, logically, to understand his position. Perhaps it is these logical puzzles which account for the entire want of sympathy with the rich which distinguishes all classes in the present day, even among those who have no sort of belief in communistic or socialistic ideals. It is unfair, because they have lost, more completely than any of us, what is far more precious to us all than any property—the sense of security. Shakespeare, in rougher and perhaps more idealistic days, set a man's good name against his money and belittled the latter. A philosopher, nowadays, in the search for happiness, would be inclined to set his good name against his sense of security and hesitate between them.
Will the public ever tire, we wonder, of abusing the news- papers. Never, we suppose, till it tires of buying them. It is, after all, simply the public's odd way of crying recati ! Why do I like to read all this unedifying stuff about crime is what the public means when it asks why the papers print it. There is a most amazing interest taken just now in every form of crime, from lock-picking to murder. It does not at first sight look like a very good sign. If one of the Early Victorians came back and read our evening papers he would be very much startled, and lif he happened to read some criminal statistics showing that London is actually more law-abiding than it was in his day, he would not know whatever to make of the matter.
It may be, as we have already suggested, that a sym- pathetic shiver is running through the world, and people, once horrified, take a very long time to turn away from sights and sounds, and even from dreams which have affrighted them. On the other hand, the matter may be susceptible of quite another explanation. • A new devo- tion to law and • order may be coming upon us. In all times of reform our world seems to be obsessed by the thought of the evil it would remedy. The English Puritans got frivolity on to the brain. They saw it everywhere and delighted to think about and condemn it. But they made the world more grave. Teetotallers believe two men in three to be soaked in alcohol, and delight in any evidence which upholds their theory. All the same, wo have to thank them for a more sober age. Apparently there is often something morbid about any great revulsion of feeling, and it is possible that the danger to civilization of the sense of insecurity has now begun to be realized, and we arc exaggerating the evil in our determination to stamp it out.
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