The Toys of Peace
by Saki
[pen name of Hector Hugh Munro, who was killed by a sniper during
World War One;
published posthumously in 1923, the 19 March 1914 London
newspaper extract is authentic]
“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 very well-meaning
one,” said Harvey; “whether it would succeed well in
practice —”
“We must try,” interrupted his sister; “you are
coming down to us at Easter, and you always bring the boys some
toys, so that will be an excellent opportunity for you to
inaugurate the new experiment. Go about in the shops and buy any
little toys and models that have special bearing on civilian life
in its more peaceful aspects. Of course you must explain the toys
to the children and interest them in the new idea. I regret to
say that the ‘Siege of Adrianople’ toy, that their
Aunt Susan sent them, didn’t need any explanation; they
knew all the uniforms and flags, and even the names of the
respective commanders, and when I heard them one day using what
seemed to be the most objectionable language they said it was
Bulgarian words of command; of course it MAY have been, but at
any rate I took the toy away from them. Now I shall expect your
Easter gifts to give quite a new impulse and direction to the
children’s minds; Eric is not eleven yet, and Bertie is
only nine-and-a-half, so they are really at a most impressionable
age.”
“There is primitive instinct to be taken into
consideration, you know,” said Henry doubtfully, “and
hereditary tendencies as well. One of their great-uncles fought
in the most intolerant fashion at Inkerman — he was
specially mentioned in dispatches, I believe — and their
great-grandfather smashed all his Whig neighbours’ hot
houses when the great Reform Bill was passed. Still, as you say,
they are at an impressionable age. I will do my best.”
On Easter Saturday Harvey Bope unpacked a large,
promising-looking red cardboard box under the expectant eyes of
his nephews. “Your uncle has brought you the newest thing
in toys,” Eleanor had said impressively, and youthful
anticipation had been anxiously divided between Albanian soldiery
and a Somali camel-corps. Eric was hotly in favour of the latter
contingency. “There would be Arabs on horseback,” he
whispered; “the Albanians have got jolly uniforms, and they
fight all day long, and all night, too, when there’s a
moon, but the country’s rocky, so they’ve got no
cavalry.”
A quantity of crinkly paper shavings was the first thing that met
the view when the lid was removed; the most exiting toys always
began like that. Harvey pushed back the top layer and drew forth
a square, rather featureless building.
“It’s a fort!” exclaimed Bertie.
“It isn’t, it’s the palace of the Mpret of
Albania,” said Eric, immensely proud of his knowledge of
the exotic title; “it’s got no windows, you see, so
that passers-by can’t fire in at the Royal Family.”
“It’s a municipal dust-bin,” said Harvey
hurriedly; “you see all the refuse and litter of a town is
collected there, instead of lying about and injuring the health
of the citizens.”
In an awful silence he disinterred a little lead figure of a man
in black clothes.
“That,” he said, “is a distinguished civilian,
John Stuart Mill. He was an authority on political
economy.”
“Why?” asked Bertie.
“Well, he wanted to be; he thought it was a useful thing to
be.”
Bertie gave an expressive grunt, which conveyed his opinion that
there was no accounting for tastes.
Another square building came out, this time with windows and
chimneys.
“A model of the Manchester branch of the Young
Women’s Christian Association,” said Harvey.
“Are there any lions?” asked Eric hopefully. He had
been reading Roman history and thought that where you found
Christians you might reasonably expect to find a few lions.
“There are no lions,” said Harvey. “Here is
another civilian, Robert Raikes, the founder of Sunday schools,
and here is a model of a municipal wash-house. These little round
things are loaves backed in a sanitary bakehouse. That lead
figure is a sanitary inspector, this one is a district
councillor, and this one is an official of the Local Government
Board.”
“What does he do?” asked Eric wearily.
“He sees to things connected with his Department,”
said Harvey. “This box with a slit in it is a ballot-box.
Votes are put into it at election times.”
“What is put into it at other times?” asked Bertie.
“Nothing. And here are some tools of industry, a
wheelbarrow and a hoe, and I think these are meant for hop-poles.
This is a model beehive, and that is a ventilator, for
ventilating sewers. This seems to be another municipal dust-bin
— no, it is a model of a school of art and public library.
This little lead figure is Mrs. Hemans, a poetess, and this is
Rowland Hill, who introduced the system of penny postage. This is
Sir John Herschel, the eminent astrologer.”
“Are we to play with these civilian figures?” asked
Eric.
“Of course,” said Harvey, “these are toys; they
are meant to be played with.”
“But how?”
It was rather a poser. “You might make two of them contest
a seat in Parliament,” said Harvey, “an have an
election —”
“With rotten eggs, and free fights, and ever so many broken
heads!” exclaimed Eric.
“And noses all bleeding and everybody drunk as can
be,” echoed Bertie, who had carefully studied one of
Hogarth’s pictures.
“Nothing of the kind,” said Harvey, “nothing in
the least like that. Votes will be put in the ballot-box, and the
Mayor will count them — and he will say which has received
the most votes, and then the two candidates will thank him for
presiding, and each will say that the contest has been conducted
throughout in the pleasantest and most straightforward fashion,
and they part with expressions of mutual esteem. There’s a
jolly game for you boys to play. I never had such toys when I was
young.”
“I don’t think we’ll play with them just
now,” said Eric, with an entire absence of the enthusiasm
that his uncle had shown; “I think perhaps we ought to do a
little of our holiday task. It’s history this time;
we’ve got to learn up something about the Bourbon period in
France.”
“The Bourbon period,” said Harvey, with some
disapproval in his voice.
“We’ve got to know something about Louis the
Fourteenth,” continued Eric; “I’ve learnt the
names of all the principal battles already.”
This would never do. “There were, of course, some battles
fought during his reign,” said Harvey, “but I fancy
the accounts of them were much exaggerated; news was very
unreliable in those days, and there were practically no war
correspondents, so generals and commanders could magnify every
little skirmish they engaged in till they reached the proportions
of decisive battles. Louis was really famous, now, as a landscape
gardener; the way he laid out Versailles was so much admired that
it was copied all over Europe.”
“Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?” asked
Eric; “didn’t she have her head chopped off?”
“She was another great lover of gardening,” said
Harvey, evasively; “in fact, I believe the well known rose
Du Barry was named after her, and now I think you had better play
for a little and leave your lessons till later.”
Harvey retreated to the library and spent some thirty or forty
minutes in wondering whether it would be possible to compile a
history, for use in elementary schools, in which there should be
no prominent mention of battles, massacres, murderous intrigues,
and violent deaths. The York and Lancaster period and the
Napoleonic era would, he admitted to himself, present
considerable difficulties, and the Thirty Years’ War would
entail something of a gap if you left it out altogether. Still,
it would be something gained if, at a highly impressionable age,
children could be got to fix their attention on the invention of
calico printing instead of the Spanish Armada or the Battle of
Waterloo.
It was time, he thought, to go back to the boys’ room, and
see how they were getting on with their peace toys. As he stood
outside the door he could hear Eric’s voice raised in
command; Bertie chimed in now and again with a helpful
suggestion.
“That is Louis the Fourteenth,” Eric was saying,
“that one in knee-breeches, that Uncle said invented Sunday
schools. It isn’t a bit like him, but it’ll have to
do.”
“We’ll give him a purple coat from my paintbox by and
by,” said Bertie.
“Yes, an’ red heels. That is Madame de Maintenon,
that one he called Mrs. Hemans. She begs Louis not to go on this
expedition, but he turns a deaf ear. He takes Marshal Saxe with
him, and we must pretend that they have thousands of men with
them. The watchword is Qui vive? and the answer is
L’etat c’est moi — that was one of his
favourite remarks, you know. They land at Manchester in the dead
of the night, and a Jacobite conspirator gives them the keys of
the fortress.”
Peeping in through the doorway Harvey observed that the municipal
dustbin had been pierced with holes to accommodate the muzzles of
imaginary cannon, and now represented the principal fortified
position in Manchester; John Stuart Mill had been dipped in red
ink, and apparently stood for Marshal Saxe.
“Louis orders his troops to surround the Young
Women’s Christian Association and seize the lot of them.
‘Once back at the Louvre and the girls are mine,’ he
exclaims. We must use Mrs. Hemans again for one of the girls; she
says ‘Never,’ and stabs Marshal Saxe to the
heart.”
“He bleeds dreadfully,” exclaimed Bertie, splashing
red ink liberally over the facade of the Association building.
“The soldiers rush in and avenge his death with the utmost
savagery. A hundred girls are killed” — here Bertie
emptied the remainder of the red ink over the devoted building
— “and the surviving five hundred are dragged off to
the French ships. ‘I have lost a Marshal,’ says
Louis, ‘but I do not go back empty-handed.’”
Harvey stole away from the room, and sought out his sister.
“Eleanor,” he said, “the experiment
—”
“Yes?”
“Has failed. We have begun too late.”
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