Deprived of the sordid amenities of their towns, the greater part of them are utterly helpless, utterly incapable of organising a decently civilised existence by their own efforts. More natural surroundings appal and intimidate them.

In face of all this, one cannot help seriously speculating as to whether the Western world of, say, 150 years ago was not in better case for real progress-real development than it is at the present time. And this even while knowing the very worst about that world which can be known, and having imagination to visualise worse things still of which there is left no actual record.

True, there was then much -almost despairingly much to be done if Humanity was ever to work out its salvation; but at least there was less to be undone before the doing could be got under way. There were many, many battles to be waged-first and foremost, the one against the selfishness, the callousness, and the arrogance of the governing classes (vices for which their comparatively innocent descendants are now suffering not a little); battles against dirt, disease, intolerance, and wanton cruelty; battles for the creation and development of a social conscience, a recognition of man's duty to his fellow-man. But the working men-that is to say, the great majority of all populations were, if mentally unenlightened, still mentally un

spoilt still hardy, self-reliant, resourceful, industrious, and, many of them, wise with the wisdom of the soil, so slowly acquired, so quickly lost.

Nothing will induce me to believe that such men as John, and those others of John's type-who were all of an earlier generation than he is, and even then "behind the times,"were reared in homes of brutalised stupidity and apathetic misery, such as we sometimes see and hear described as being typical of the homes of the old-time peasantry; and if they were not, what reason have we to suppose that their fathers were, since in those days there was little or no outside influence brought to bear on the peasant, and “Like father like son " was a far truer saying than it is now ! Their world was, of course, a much smaller one than is that of their class nowadays; but it was also a much fuller one-their range of interests more restricted, but those they had infinitely more vital and enduring.

Also, have we not all about us still evidence of the careful, the thorough, the sincere, the thoughtful craftsmanship of the past to contrast with the shoddy, pretentious, debased rubbish of the present

I am quite ready to believe that these peasants and these craftsmen had, between them all, every failing and every vice to which humanity is prone; but I insist on believ ing also that they had many

DURING a ward-room discussion on the various methods of communication open to a ship at sea, the subject of pigeons cropped up.

"I never found carrierpigeons much use to me,' I said. 'I've flown them from drifters and submarines when the wireless has failed, but, except when they were within sight of land, they generally seemed to prefer a naval life to the uncertain chance of becoming shorebirds again. Sometimes, in submarines, the only way to induce them to take to their proper element was to put them on the periscope standard above the the bridge, then close the lid and dive. Then they had to fly, unless they chose to play at being guillemots. Occasionally we came across a star turn which did its job nobly. Several of our Harwich boats had very good results, but, as a general rule, they were too unreliable to make them worth the bother."

My companion, an officer in the R.A.F., seemed to disagree, so, to promote a little healthy argument, I told him about a basket of pigeons which I had taken out on patrol, and what had happened to them.

After four days one had died from an obscure ailment. wag of the boat asked if he

The

might have the bird for his supper.

On my refusal, he made a miniature hammock out of a piece of bunting, and, sewing up the dead bird inside, he tied a half-inch bolt to each end, and when we came to the surface that night, we had an impressive burial at sea.

The two survivors were watched with great anxiety. The crew could not have shown more interest in them had they been dodos. We fed them as laid down in "Admiralty Instructions-Pigeons, homing, feeding of," so many ounces of grain a week to be charged to Vote "B."

The signalman, as the "communications" expert, and a poultry-keeper of some repute amongst his fellows, constituted himself keeper of the aviary, and exercised the birds every morning inside the boat. We had been asked to fly them over water, so, nothing exciting having happened on patrol, I waited till we started to return home and let one of the birds go. After a little coercion he began to circle slowly round, and then, as though struck by a brainwave, he flew off full speed towards Germany, where, no doubt, he was killed and eaten within an hour of his arrival.

The remaining bird was very

a

not lost, so we could not tell if our two messengers ever regained their native lofts. One bird, we knew, was "full many a fathom deep."

"Did your fellows use pigeons much in the R.N.A.S." I asked.

"Oh yes," he replied. "We always used to take them in flying-boats, and in seaplanes as well, if we were off for a long stunt and had room for them.

lethargic, and lived only for his victuals. We waited till we were within forty miles of land, and then let him go too. He flew undecidedly for 500 yards, and then, following the example of his better-known predecessor in Holy Writ, he returned to the ship, where he settled on the truck of the wireless mast. Blank .303 from service-rifle had no effect on him; his nerves were even proof against coloured Véry's lights. He was not the bird to leave a kind home, where he was regularly overfed, and return to a miner's cottage, whence he would be sent twice a week on a long railway journey, jammed tight in a wickerbasket with a score of others, and then have to fly fifty miles home-not he. He knew when he was well off.

"I was at Yarmouth in September 1917, and used to fly a large flying-boat, No. 8666, carrying a crew of four, and fitted with a twin Rolls-Royce engine. We used to do long patrols to the Bight and up the Dutch coast. On three occasions I had seen a Zeppelin right inshore, off Heligoland, and given chase, but when we started to climb I could never get my 'clumbungy' an inch above 12,000 feet, while old man Zep used to pop straight up to 15,000 and laugh at us. The annoying part was that he didn't mind us in the least; he knew we couldn't worry him. He just used to rise 3000 or 4000 feet, and then carry on doing nothing.

On approaching harbour I gave him another round from the Véry's pistol, and he flew sulkily away and settled on the masthead of the Examination Service vessel outside the pier-head. As we rounded the sea-wall we saw the captain of the vessel, an R.N.R. lieutenant, cautiously stalking him with a service revolver. Later we heard intermittent firing. On off days life in the Examination Service was apt to be devoid of thrills, and one cannot blame the man for indulging in a little rough shooting when it came his way.

The owners of the pigeons sent in claims for the loss of their birds; they always did this even when the birds were

H.P. air-cooled engine, and just the thing for a Zep. We couldn't send her by herself, as it was too long a trip, and her means of navigation were very sketchy, so my old bus went with her to show her the way, and to be kind of fond parent in case she got into trouble. We found two Zeps off Vlieland Island: they were L44 and L45, scouting for two divisions of light cruisers and destroyers, covering the operations of a big mine-sweeping flotilla. We started to take them on, but both our machines were hit almost at once-the land machine in the radiator, and the flying-boat in the hull and wing-by fragments of a high-explosive shell from a light cruiser while we were at 10,000 feet! It was wonderful shooting.

"There was nothing for it but to turn and start back. We could see that the land machine was in trouble, and suddenly she started to descend, and the pilot had to make a forced landing in the drink.' We circled down to the water, and then taxied along to pick up the pilot and his observer, who were sitting awash on the top plane of their machine. They had been right under, and were rather badly shaken. Their machine was smashed up, and sank soon afterwards. As we wished to keep the flyingboat's weight down as much as possible, we took nothing out of the wrecked machine except the two men.

"About this time it began to be very clear to us that things were looking black, so we sent off a pigeon with a message. We could not taxi on our original course of west by south owing to the stern wind, so we turned "beam on and steered north-west for Cromer, and taxied away, with the sea coming over green and all hands baling hard, till our petrol supply was finished. We didn't hope to reach the coast, but decided that there was a better chance of being picked up by a ship or spotted by a 'plane if we made ground to the north-westward.