Regarded thoughtfully, there were many causes that tended to bring about such an outbreak of hysteria in that exceptionally hot and rainless summer, (bringing as it did a dearth of water for domestic use and street cleansing). The state of things was summed up thus by an able German writer: “Imitation--compassion--sympathy--these are imperfect designations for a common bond of union among human beings--for an instinct which connects individuals with the general body, which embraces with equal force reason and folly, good and evil, and diminishes the praise of virtue as well as the criminality of vice.... Far be it from us to attempt to awaken all the various tones of this chord, whose vibrations reveal the profound secrets which lie hid in the inmost recesses of the soul.” But, assuredly, it was to this mysterious instinct of imitation that one must look for explanation of that loss of will power, of which, in that distressing time, so many Londoners were either examples or witnesses. The first morbid condition produced was that of a bird fascinated by a serpent, and the outcome was surrender to the violent excitement of the Dancing Plague. There was another feature of the times, more or less connected with the administration of justice, that began to cause dismay. The police found it practically impossible to enforce the provisions of the Licensing Acts. Riotous scenes occurred when attempts were made to close the public-houses at statutory hours. Customers, amongst whom the disc-holders figured prominently, refused to go. They demanded more drink, and they got it. Isolated examples of this lawlessness could have been put down, but it was so general that enforced obedience became as impossible as the vindication of criminal justice in the law courts. Only when the stage of exhaustion or helpless intoxication had been reached, did the foul-mouthed and turbulent customers of the publicans come forth into the streets. Often they fought and screamed in the grey sadness of the dawning day; some staggered off in search of home or resting-place; others rolled in the gutters, and where they rolled they lay, while frightened faces peered from the upper windows of the neighbouring houses, and startled children in their cots broke into cries of misery and terror. CHAPTER XVII THE GREAT FIRE IN HYDE PARK