Men were outrivalling each other in mad action. Those in high places as in low were gripped by the insanity that had apparently seized earth, and from the Cabinets and Congresses of a score of nations came declarations of war against other nations, for the slightest of reasons or for none at all. England, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Turkey, Japan and China--these and a dozen others issued frenzied and incoherent calls to arms. But they were unheeded! Even war now could not penetrate the unreasoning minds of men. Armies had broken up, all discipline and organization vanishing. A few who tried to keep their soldiers in line found that the men could no longer handle the great guns and instruments of war, found that most of them were incapable of the operation of rifles! Civilization was crashing with a prolonged roar of falling laws and institutions and customs echoing across the world. The ordinary methods of transportation and production having completely broken down days before, the stream of food into the great cities had abruptly ceased. The brutal throngs that filled those cities subsisted by looting the existing food supplies for a time, but soon these were exhausted and then terrible battles took place between the rioters for food which they had found. Battles they were of hordes of ragged brutes, of savages, who fought with knives or with their bare hands in the streets. Only occasionally was a shot heard, for almost none there was now with sufficient dull glimmer of intelligence to manipulate a gun. In the shadow of the tall towers of New York, and in the brick and stone acres of London and the boulevards of Paris, thousands and hundreds of thousands of these savages swarmed, the ways choked with corpses of the slain. At night they crouched fearfully in hallways and offices and corridors, the vast cities lying dark and silent beneath the stars. Shapes of prowling animals were being seen in some of them by night. No wheel turned in all the world now, for none seemed left with intelligence enough to operate the simplest machine. And these swarms that had been human were changing in appearance too. The men were unshaven and hairier, it seemed. Much clothing had been discarded, crude belts that held knives or the like weapons being retained. They crouched now as they walked, their step a watchful, animal-like one. From under shaggy brows they stared at each other. Small, crude family-groups held together, the man battling other men for the possession of food. Some managed to kill animals, and wore the skins.