THE WICKEDEST CITY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 49, 26 August 1922, Page 12

THE WICKEDEST CITY

AND THE WORST PERIOD

"SIN, SAND, [AND SORROW/:

SEARCHING FOR A MYTH.

The wickedest city in the •world is like the "better 'ole." If some people knew it they Vould go to it. It is preserved from overcrowding, only because there is such diversity of opinion as to its exact location. Seasoned travellers tell you confidently where it is to be found, but no two mention the same place. Since the smoke of Sodom and Gomorrah ceased to ascend", the right to the distinction has been a matter of dispute.

London, Paris, Berlin, Naples, Mos-cow—-the title might be applied to each, and not be seriously misplaced. .'.'Sin, sand, and sorrow"' is supposed to describe Cairo. But to.be alliterative is not necessarily to be accurate. You have only to change it to "em, .sorrow, and sore eyes," and you are free to seek the world's wickedest city at any point' between the Poles. Some people would undertake to find it for you under the Southern Cross, not to be too precise, states "the "Melbourne Age."

Chicago has been described as "hell with the lid off," Buenos Aires as "an international cesspool," Constantinople as "the moral latrine oi Europe." Kip? ling calls Calcutta the "City of Dreadful Night." Clearly the search for the supreme city of evil is likely to be even more arduous than the search for the city celestial, as described in John Bunyan's immortal story. \ t It won't matter' if it is never definitely found. . Yet ifc is a curious fact that timid, tepidly-pious souls frequently display an intense curiosity as to its existence. Presumably they vision a city whose streets are an enlargement of Niw VTbrk'a r<!Great;White Way." They would not inhabit it, but the thought that it ; exists seems to thrill their imagination. In Byron's poem the ■ elderly virgin* '. ask a - certain" question during the sack of I«m»ilj half hoping for. tHeUhing - they = affected to '•'■■ fifty Something \of that feeling-1 keeps ''alive the question :f Which v the wickedest city in the world?-" ' ■■■--/■■»■■ :■.;'::•>■■■ , .■'■" The answers/is to be found in Betsy Prig's 7 reference; to Mrs- ~ Harris-r "There" ain't no such.-person^'" i.Jusjb after Dr. Johnson.:' -published hi* dictionary » ( lady-; (said; : accujnngljjv; "There are,a' great many bad words ,in ypur dictionary) Doctor.", "yqu.lh»y» been looking for them, Madam;; ■ vybti' have! been looking for them," retorted the shrewd philosopher. Similarly the person who/1 knows which ; city ': concentrates the greatest wickedness has been looking forit.:; There are m*h who have been forty years in India without seeing »" tiger. Tfey"weren't; looking for one. Discussion ha« fometimes raged as to which was'the wic^deirt' period -in/history. Some people wpuldT say it was Jerusalem about 33' A.D. Not a few would insist' that it was Berlin in 1914. Variety can,''be imparted to1 the controversyby which is th* the wickedest xlass in society.. »The; verdict wiU! inevitably; be affected by the adjudicator's personal status. The class to which: he belongs' is unlikely to be considered the1 most guilty. ; *.y. .<:.-.: ; Futility is stamped on the face"of all such questions. Every age, race, class, and city is apportioned its share of potential' wickedness. ■ Humanity is engaged ,in perpetual struggle with :that formidable trio—the worlds the flesh, and the Devil. And in • every city you can find levels where the struggle is going on only feebly, and of ten not atall. The world, the flesh, and the Devil hold the floor. But each man. takes his own standard of good and evil about with him; and the standards of some are so strangely constructed that the wickedest city in the world coiild easily be each city they visited. , It is desirable to remember that the city is a composite. Man himself is perplexingly complete. Gautam? 'the Buddha, despite the beauty of his ascetic teaching, died from over-eating. Alexander the Great, having no more worlds to conquer, . disdained to conquer himself and died dead drunk. When the extremes of good and evil can be found.so glaringly in the individual, the city may. be expected to display them- on large scale lines. Everyone knows the two curates who considered it an act of daredevil to travel in a smoking compartment. Between them and those gentlemen who furtively sand-bag and garrofc their fellow-citizens there is a wide margin for varying degrees of wickedness. For some people Monte Garlo is evil incaarnate, however elegant. Others claim to have found in church courts and coteries a personal bitterness and jealousy of which the habitues of Monte Carlo would be honestly ashamed. Each side sees only the other's wickedness. The constant association of wickedness with the city suggests a special and inevitable intimacy between the two. The city has'long submitted to be slandered. The country i» good, the city is evil; so runs the popular and stupid theory. It seems impossible to dissipate the cant which circulates as to the country's, all-round superiority. The philosophy is that man was made to live m the country, but he lives in.the cities for his sins, and there he continues to add to his sins.

When wickedness is to be contemplated, the spectator i» always invited to look at the cities. It is there im,' jpressive because concentrated. ; It is so easy to'forget that, if the ascertained masses of it could be equitably distributed, the unit's share migh^ not be greater than that which the country admirer arid dweller has often to shoulder. For, if the newspapers \re to be believed, there seems to tie a considerable amount of sin and sorrow in t-ho country. Evil is easy in the city. But the country need not assume airs of'goodness when it merely lacks facilities for practising wickedness.

Tha country inclines to be' forgetful and ungrateful when thinking of the cities. Doubtless they deserveto be debited with great wickedness. But_ there is a credit side to that account.. "Cities," said Dr. Guthrie, the famous Scottish divine, " have been as lamps of _ life along the pathway of humanity. Within them science has given birth to her noblest discoveries. Behind their walls freedom has fought her noblest battles. Cities haye been the cradles of human liberty, the active centres of almost all church and Stata reformation." Dante was free to choose his home in all the wide world, but to be out of the streets of Florence was, for him, exile. Socrates never cared to go beyotid the.bounds of Athens. Emanuel Kant demolished the philosophic systems of the past and laid a lasting basis for succeeding thought, yet for fifty years lie had never slept beyond the walls of his old-fashioned native city. < .: • ' ■

The -world's cities need not be so persistently thought of irt term 3of wickedness. ' That men pass from a natural life to an unnatural life, that they drop honest pleasures for artificial pleasures, when they elect to live in cities, isa smug suggestion which should now be hastened on its v way to oblivion. That desire1 for, the 'city's mass and movement is fundamental to our being; Its intensity is overwhelming in youth and maiden , aye, in aire and matron. It is ft natural long-

ing for companionship, for the sense of warmth and protection which the great cities give. Yet it is part of many people's philosophy to stifle their longing, out of a stupid sense of loyalty to thp country: There is good reaaon for the suspicion that much of the loudly-voiced passion for nature is insincere. Wickedness is not entirely congested in the city; nature ia not entirely restricted to the country. A child is as much a bit of nature aa a crocus. And the city has ite children.

The wickedest city in the world -is a myth. But, even if one day its identity be satisfactorily determined, the counteracting influences will also be found abundant. There are sure to be in it ten righteous men whose presence will deliver it from destruction. But perhaps it might be wise to. qualify for a place among these ten men in case our own should turn out to be the wickedest city in the world.