As Easy as ABC

 MacDonough’s Song

Friendly Brook

 The Land

In the Same Boat

 ‘Helen all Alone’

The Honours of War

 The Children

The Dog Hervey

 The Comforters

The Village that Voted the Earth was Flat

 The Press

In the Presence

 Jobson’s Amen

Regulus

 A Translation

The Edge of the Evening

 Rebirth

The Horse Marines

 The Legend of Mirth

‘My Son’s Wife’

 The Floods

 The Fabulists

The Vortex

 The Song of Seven Cities

‘Swept and Garnished’

Mary Postgate

 The Beginnings

A DIVERSITY OF CREATURES

As Easy as A.B.C.

(1912)

The A.B.C., that semi-elected, semi-nominated body of a few score persons, controls the Planet.  Transportation is Civilisation, our motto runs.  Theoretically we do what we please, so long as we do not interfere with the traffic and all it implies. Practically, the A.B.C. confirms or annuls all international arrangements, and, to judge from its last report, finds our tolerant, humorous, lazy little Planet only too ready to shift the whole burden of public administration on its shoulders.

‘With the Night Mail[1].’

[Footnote 1:  Actions and Reactions.]

Isn’t it almost time that our Planet took some interest in the proceedings of the Aerial Board of Control?  One knows that easy communications nowadays, and lack of privacy in the past, have killed all curiosity among mankind, but as the Board’s Official Reporter I am bound to tell my tale.

At 9.30 A.M., August 26, A.D. 2065, the Board, sitting in London, was informed by De Forest that the District of Northern Illinois had riotously cut itself out of all systems and would remain disconnected till the Board should take over and administer it direct.

Every Northern Illinois freight and passenger tower was, he reported, out of action; all District main, local, and guiding lights had been extinguished; all General Communications were dumb, and through traffic had been diverted.  No reason had been given, but he gathered unofficially from the Mayor of Chicago that the District complained of ‘crowd-making and invasion of privacy.’

As a matter of fact, it is of no importance whether Northern Illinois stay in or out of planetary circuit; as a matter of policy, any complaint of invasion of privacy needs immediate investigation, lest worse follow.