Nor was it murder alone that was stalking the earth, for robberies of the utmost brutality were even more numerous. Overshadowed as they were by the greater horror, they were as astonishing in nature. For all, like the slayings, seemed the result of sudden brutal instincts or desires uncontrolled by reason. Small shopkeepers in American and English towns were struck down for trifles. In the stores of great cities there were those who snatched childishly at desired objects and attempted a hopeless escape to the street. That was the keynote of all these robberies, of all these crimes--the unreasoning childishness of them. For the great part of them were attempted under circumstances which should have shown to even the most dull-witted that there was no chance of success. It was a wave of strange and terrible crime, indeed, that was sweeping over all the earth. The newspapers concerned themselves with it to the exclusion of all else soon. They sought for explanations. What had caused this sudden release of the most brutal passions of numberless people? Many were the answers. An eminent scientist declared that the nerve-racking strain of modern civilization had reached such a pitch that the human mind could no longer stand it, was giving way beneath it. Many wrote serious letters to the press denouncing the motion pictures as schools of crime. Others defended them. And while the cause was thus argued, the great wave of crime and utter lawlessness that had rolled across earth seemed increasing in volume. The number of deaths by violence that were each day recorded had grown now to an appalling figure. Murderous attacks were common in every one of earth's great cities. Men hurled themselves at each other's throats, apparently for a word, a gesture. Nor was this all. A strange erratic insanity seemed seizing more and more of earth's millions. Numberless were those reported to the authorities as missing, those who had wandered causelessly away from home and family. The world's roads held an unprecedented number of vagrant wanderers. But in a few days more even this astounding wave of appalling crime was dwarfed in importance by more astounding and more terrible happenings. Accidents, a great number of them fatal to many, were occurring in every part of earth in an amount that was all but incredible.