The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Toys of Peace, by Saki

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Title: The Toys of Peace

Author: Saki

Release Date: April 19, 2005 [eBook #1477]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TOYS OF PEACE***

Transcribed from the 1919 John Lane edition by Jane Duff and David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk.

THE TOYS OF PEACE

Contents:

The Toys of Peace
Louise
Tea
The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh
The Wolves of Cernogratz
Louis
The Guests
The Penance
The Phantom Luncheon
A Bread and Butter Miss
Bertie's Christmas Eve
Forewarned
The Interlopers
Quail Seed
Canossa
The Threat
Excepting Mrs. Pentherby
Mark
The Hedgehog
The Mappined Life
Fate
The Bull
Morlvera
Shock Tactics
The Seven Cream Jugs
The Occasional Garden
The Sheep
The Oversight
Hyacinth
The Image of the Lost Soul
The Purple of the Balkan Kings
The Cupboard of the Yesterdays
For the Duration of the War

THE TOYS OF PEACE

"Harvey," said Eleanor Bope, handing her brother a cutting from a London
morning paper of the 19th of March, "just read this about children's
toys, please; it exactly carries out some of our ideas about influence
and upbringing."

"In the view of the National Peace Council," ran the extract, "there are
grave objections to presenting our boys with regiments of fighting men,
batteries of guns, and squadrons of 'Dreadnoughts.' Boys, the Council
admits, naturally love fighting and all the panoply of war . . . but that
is no reason for encouraging, and perhaps giving permanent form to, their
primitive instincts. At the Children's Welfare Exhibition, which opens
at Olympia in three weeks' time, the Peace Council will make an
alternative suggestion to parents in the shape of an exhibition of 'peace
toys.' In front of a specially-painted representation of the Peace
Palace at The Hague will be grouped, not miniature soldiers but miniature
civilians, not guns but ploughs and the tools of industry . . . It is
hoped that manufacturers may take a hint from the exhibit, which will
bear fruit in the toy shops."

"The idea is certainly an interesting and ve