I wouldnt want to give the impression bestial madness of one kind or another overtook everyone. There were plenty of normal people like myself who were able to maintain their selfcontrol and canalize those energies promoting crimes and beastly exhibitions in the unrestrained into looking forward to the day when the Grass would be gone and sanity return. Nor would I like anyone to think law and order had completely abdicated its function. As offenses multiplied, laws grew more severe, misdemeanors became felonies, felonies capital offenses. When death by hanging became the prescribed sentence for any type of theft it was necessary to make the punishment for murder more drastic. Drawing and quartering were reinstituted; this not proving an efficient deterrent, many jurists advocated a return to the Roman practice of spreadeagling a man to death; but the churches vigorously objected to this suggestion as blasphemous, believing the ordinary sight of crucified murderers would tend to debase the central symbol of Christianity. A less common Roman usage was adopted in its stead, that of being torn by hungry dogs, and to this the Christians did not object. But the utmost severity of local and national officials, even when backed by the might of World Government, could not cope with the waves of migrants from the East nor the heedlessness of law they brought with them. As the Grass pushed the Indians and Chinese westward, they in turn sent the Mongols, the Afghans and the Persians ahead of them. These naturally warlike peoples were displaced, not by force of arms, but by sheer weight of numbers; and so, doubly overcome by being dispossessed of their homes--and by pacifists at that--they vented their pique upon those to the west. As the starving and destitute trickled into Europe and North Africa, giving a hint of the flood to follow, I congratulated myself on the foresight which led to our retrenchment, for I know these ravening hordes would have devoured the property of Consolidated Pemmican with as little respect as they did the scant store of Ah Que, Ram Singh or Mohammed Ali. My chief concern was now to keep my industrial and organizational machinery intact against the day when a stable market could again be established. To this end I kept our vast staff of researchworkers--exempt from the draft of the World Government which had been quite reasonable in the matter--constantly busy, for every day's delay in the arresting of the Grass meant a dead loss of profits.