LETTER FROM LONDON
THE SILLY SEASON
High Summer, in England, is known as the Silly Season, when
the pages of the Press are filled traditionally with picturesque trivialities.
In
the great world outside, the foundations of our lives may rock, but
we remain true
to
our pre-autumnal passion for frivolity. (It is instruc–
tive, for example, to re-read the London papers of High Summer, 1939:
never would you have guessed the British Empire stood on the verge of
its catastrophe.)
This year, the harvest of futility has been rich; and to our Press,
the Great Train Robbery has been a godsend. I am sorry to report that
the British, usually severe in their judgments of criminals-and especially
of crimes against property, rather than against the person-have reacted
on the whole light-heartedly to this episode.
To begin with, the
sum-£2~
millions-is so enormous. Stealing a
car, or a measurable sum of money, is something popular imagination
can grasp, and so condemn. But a theft so vast carries the whole exploit
into the realm of legendary fantasy. I once asked the late Howard
Samuel, my publisher, who was also a socialist property millionaire,
if he could really tell the difference between one million pounds and
two. He replied with some asperity that he most certainly could-but to
most of us such figures, when so huge, are quite identical.
And then there is the
train:
that Night Mail hurtling through the
darkness with its Ali Baba's cave of loot on board, and not even an
old-age pensioner to guard it! Which of us has not dreamed of tamper–
ing with something so majestic and impregnable as an express train–
and a Royal Mail at that?
Then there is that the money has been pillaged from
banks;
and
nobody, I believe, loves banks very much. They have spent large sums
of late trying to project an endearing image of themselves on the public
mind, yet the popular suspicion lingers that whereas others labor and
take risks, the banks will never be the losers in any deal.
