of producing a chance crowd
in the street that out of sheer laziness or moral thoughtlessness would
not be able to work up at least one boy in it who would have a sudden
flash of imagination about a penny rolling around a man's leg--if he
picked it up and--did not put it in the box.

The crowd in the Strand, of course, like any other real crowd, was a
stew of development, a huge laboratory of people. All stages of
experience were in it.

Some of the people in the crowd that day had a new refreshing thought,
when they saw those pennies rolling around everybody. They thought they
would try and see what stealing a penny was like. Then they did it.

Others in the crowd thought of stealing a penny too, and then they had
still another thought. They thought of not stealing it. And this second
thought interested them more.

Others did not think of stealing a penny at all because they had thought
of it so often before had got used to it and had got used to dismissing
it.

Others thought of stealing a penny and then they thought how ashamed
they were of having thought of it. Others looked thoughtfully at the
pennies and thought they would wait for guineas.

But whatever it was or may have been that was taking place in that crowd
that day--they all thought.

And after all what is really important to a nation is that the people in
it--any chance crowd in a street in it should think. I confess I care
very little one way or the other about the pennies being saved, or about
the brewer's little touch of moral poetry, his idea that this particular
crowd was solid Sunday-school from one end to the other, all through.
Whether it was a crowd that thought of stealing a penny and did or did
not, if the pennies rolling around among their feet made them think,
made them experiment, played upon the initiative, the individuality or
invention in them, the personal self-control, the social responsibility
in them, it was a crowd to be proud of. And I am glad, for one, that the
box of pennies was dumped in the street.

I would like to see shillings tried next time.

Then guineas might be used.

A box of guineas dumped in the street would do more good than a box of
pennies because there are many people who would think more with the
guineas rolling around out of sight around a man's legs than they would
with a penny's doing it.

In this way a box of guineas would do more good.

* * * * *

Thousands of m