Black And White

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Title:     Black And White
Author: Henry W. Nevinson [More Titles by Nevinson]

One night Mr. Clarkson, of the Education Office, was rather late in leaving the Savile Club. He always makes a point of selecting the best articles in the _Nineteenth Century_, the _Fortnightly_, and the _Contemporary_ on the first Monday of every month, and, owing to a suspension of political activity in the House of Commons, he had lately spent more time than usual over the daily papers as well, since they could now afford greater space for subjects of interest. He noticed with some regret that it was half-past eleven as he came up Piccadilly and admired, as he never failed to admire, that urbane aspect of nature's charm presented by the Green Park.

It was late, but the evening was cool and dry. He wished to follow up a train of thought suggested by the question: "Should Aristotle be left out?" but, to preserve his mind from exclusiveness, he now and then considered it advantageous to plunge into what he called the full tide of humanity at Charing Cross. So that night, instead of making his way by the shortest route to his rooms in Westminster, he strolled, with a pleasurable sense of sympathetic abandonment, through the usual crowds that were hurrying home from theatres or supper-room.

But he soon perceived that all the crowds were not usual. Some were not hurrying; they were stationary. They were nearly all men, unrelieved by that subdued feminine radiance which Mr. Clarkson so much valued in the colour scheme of London. They were mainly silent. They appeared to be waiting for something.

"Is the King returning from the Opera?" he asked a policeman near King Charles's statue. But the policeman regarded him with a silent pity so profound that he suddenly remembered a King's recent death and the mourning in which the country was still partially immersed. No, it could not be royalty, and, feeling for the first time like a stranger in the centre of existence, Mr. Clarkson hurriedly crossed the road.

Between the top of Northumberland Avenue and Charing Cross Station he observed another crowd of the same character, but in thicker numbers still. Unwilling to eschew any emotion that thus stirred his fellow citizens, he approached the outskirts and waited, in hopes of gathering information without further inquiry. But the crowd was doggedly silent. Nearly all were reading the evening papers, and the few snatches of conversation that Mr. Clarkson caught appeared to be meaningless. At last he ventured to accost a harmless-looking, pale-faced youth in a straw hat, who was reading the latest _Star_, and asked him what he was waiting for.

The youth looked him up and down from head to foot, and then slowly uttered the words: "I don't think!"

"I'm so very sorry for that," said Mr. Clarkson, a little irritated, but, as he turned hastily away he reflected with a smile that, after all, one should be grateful to find imbecility so frankly acknowledged.

Next time he was more diplomatic. Standing quietly for a while beside a good-tempered-looking man, who was evidently an out-of-work cab-driver, he yawned two or three times, and said at last: "How long shall we have to wait, do you think?"

"Depends on cable," said the cab-driver. "Got a bit on?"

"Well, no; I haven't exactly got anything on," said Mr. Clarkson, uneasily; "but may I ask what cable you mean?"

"Don't be silly," said the cabman, and spat between his feet.

"Cheer up, long-face!" said another man, who had been listening. "He only means the cable from the States. Perhaps you've never heard of the White Man's Hope?"

Light at last broke upon Mr. Clarkson. "Of course," he said, "it's Independence Day! I've seen the American flag flying from several buildings. It has always appeared a most remarkable thing to me that we English people should thus ungrudgingly accept the celebration of our most disastrous national defeat. Such entire disappearance of racial animosity is, indeed, full of future promise. I suppose, if you liked, you might without exaggeration call it the White Man's Hope?"

"Stow it," said the cabman.

"No doubt the day is being marked in the United States by some special event," Mr. Clarkson continued, "and you are waiting for the account?"

No one answered. An American was reading aloud from a newspaper: "If the Imperturbable Colossus gets knocked out, a general assault upon all negroes throughout the States may be expected to ensue. The wail that goes up from Reno will be re-echoed from every land where the black problem sits like a nightmare on the chest. It is not too much to say that a new chapter in the world's history will open before our astonished eyes, so adequately is the gigantic struggle between the black and white races prefigured in the persons of their chosen champions."

All listened with attention.

"That's what I call thickened truth," said the American, looking solemnly round. "If that coloured gentleman with a yellow streak worries our battle-hardened veteran and undefeated hero of all time, the negro will grow scarce."

"They've been praying for Jeffries in all the American churches," said one, in the solemn pause that followed this announcement.

"So they have for Johnson in the negro churches," said another, "but he counts most on his mother's prayers. She lives in Chicago."

"It is peculiar in modern and Christianised countries," said Mr. Clarkson, anxious to show that he now fully understood the point at issue; "it is peculiar that the opposing parties in a war or other contest implore with equal confidence the assistance of the same deity."

"Millionaires is sleeping three in a bed at Reno. There's a thing!" said the man who was most anxious to impart information.

"The gate comes to L50,000, let alone the pictures," said another. "Each of them's going to get L500 a minute for the time they fight."

"Beats taxis," said the cabman.

"It's hardly fair to criticise the amount," Mr. Clarkson expostulated pleasantly; "the L500 represents prolonged training and practice in the art. As Whistler said, the payment is not for a day's work, but for a lifetime."

"Who are you calling the Whistler?" asked the cabman; "Jim Corbett, or John Sullivan?"

"Jeffries ate five lamb chops to his breakfast this morning," said the man of information, "and Johnson ate a chicken."

"Wish I'd eat both," said the cabman.

"What do you think of the upper-cut?" said the other, turning to Mr. Clarkson to escape the cabman's frivolity.

"Well, I suppose it's a matter of taste--upper-cut or under-cut," Mr. Clarkson answered, smiling at his seriousness. "Most people, I think, prefer under-cut."

"Johnson's right upper-cut is described as the piston of an ocean greyhound making twenty-seven knots," said the man, taking no notice of the answer, and speaking in awestruck tones. "Do you know, one paper describes Johnson as the best piece of fighting machinery the world has ever seen!"

"I thought that was the last _Dreadnought_?" said Mr. Clarkson.

"Perhaps you don't study the literature of the Ring," the other answered, with cold superiority.

"Oh, indeed I do!" cried Mr. Clarkson eagerly. "It is rather remarkable what a fascination the art of boxing has frequently exercised upon the masters of literature. Even the Greeks, in spite of their artistic reverence for the human body, practised boxing with extreme severity, and on their statues, you know, we sometimes find a recognised distortion which they called 'the boxer's ear.' It seems to show that they hit round rather than straight from the shoulder. The ancient boxing-gloves were intended, not to diminish, but to increase the severity of the blow, being made of seven or eight strands of cow-hide, heavily weighted with iron and lead. There is that fine description of a prize-fight in Virgil, where the veteran--'the imperturbable colossus' of his time, I suppose we may call him--almost knocks the life out of the younger man, and sends him from the contest swinging his head to and fro, and spitting out teeth mingled with blood--rather a horrible picture!"

"Ten to six on the boiler-maker," said the cabman; "I'll take ten to six."

"And then, of course," Mr. Clarkson continued, "in recent times there are splendid accounts of the fights in _Lavengro_ and Meredith's _Amazing Marriage_, and Browning once refers to the Tipton Slasher, and we all know Conan Doyle."

"No, we don't," said the cabman.

"It seems rather hard to explain the attraction of prize-fighting," Mr. Clarkson went on, meditatively; "perhaps it comes simply from the dramatic element of battle. It is a war in brief, a concentrated militancy. Or perhaps it is the more barbaric delight in vicarious pain and endurance; and I think sometimes we ought to include the pleasure of our race in fair play and the just and equal rigour of the game."

What other reasons Mr. Clarkson might have found were lost in the yelling of newsboys tearing down the Strand. Too excited to speak, the crowd engulfed them. The papers were torn from their hands. Short cries, short sentences followed. Here and there Mr. Clarkson caught an intelligible word: "Revolvers taken at gate"; "Expected Johnson would be shot if victorious"; "Opening spar almost academic in its calmness"; "Old wound on Jeffries's right eye opened"; "Both cheeks gashed to the bone"; "Jack handed out some wicked lefts"; "Terrible gruelling"; "Both shutters out of working order"; "Defeat certain after eighth round"; "Johnson hooked his left"; "The Circassian remained on his knees"; "Counting went on"; "Fatal ten was reached."

The crowd gasped. Then it shouted, it swore, it broke up swearing.

"Negroes had best crawl underground to-night," said the American; "it ain't good for negroes when their heads grow through their hair."

"Another proof," sighed Mr. Clarkson, "another proof that, on Roosevelt's principle, the United States are unfit for self-government."

When he reached his rooms it was nearly one, but a door opened softly on the top floor, and the landlady's little boy looked over the banisters and asked: "Please, sir, did Jim win, sir?"

"Let me see," said Mr. Clarkson, "which was Jim?"

[The end]
Henry W. Nevinson's essay: Black And White

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