White Merrick

How a Stock Exchange Scare Dislocated the Life of the Empire For Two Days, a story in the "Doom of London" series in which the author sounds the clarion call of potential disasters that my befall the great city. Here, it is the tale of an investment "bubble", an irrational exuberance for buying shares of South African gold mining stocks. Excerpts:"From the highest to the lowest everybody was investing their savings in South Africa. ... In other words, there was a tremendous 'boom.' Nothing like it had ever been seen in the history of commerce. It was the golden hour of the promoter. Yet, for the most part, the schemes promised well. There was, however, an enormous amount of rubbish on the market. Some of the more thoughtful financiers scented danger ahead, but they were not listened to."All England was in the grip of the mania. Bona fide speculation and business had become gambling pure and simple. London thought of nothing else. The City was crammed with excited buyers and operators...."Then a cable telegram arrives from South Africa at one London newspaper office, saying that a tremendous earthquake has destroyed the Johannesburg water system and flooded the gold mines. The undersea cables from South Africa then broke down after the message was received, so no further messages could be sent or received to confirm or to learn more. The newspaper publishes the exclusive news. Investors panic and sell their shares at any price before they are ruined by plunging values. But is it true, or a fraud? -- a market manipulation?

A short story in the "Doom of London" series. It begins:"The front door bell tinkled impatiently; evidently somebody was in a hurry. Alan Hubert answered the call, a thing that even a distinguished physician might do, seeing that it was on the stroke of midnight. The tall, graceful figure of a woman in evening dress stumbled into the hall. The diamonds in her hair shimmered and trembled, her face was full of terror."You are Dr. Hubert," she gasped. "I am Mrs. Fillingham, the artist's wife, you know. Will you come with me at once... My husband... I had been dining out. In the studio... Oh, please come!"... "Hubert walked up the drive and past the trim lawns with Mrs. Fillingham hanging on his arm, and in at the front door. ...a human figure lying on his back before the fireplace. The clean-shaven, sensitive face of the artist had a ghastly, purple-black tinge, there was a large swelling in the throat. ... 'Diphtheria!' he exclaimed. 'Label's type unless I am greatly mistaken. Some authorities are disposed to scoff at Dr. Label's discovery. I was an assistant of his for four years and I know better. Fortunately I happen to know what the treatment—successful in two cases—was.'"That is only the beginning. The doctor consults Dr. Label, whose theory is that the disease originates in the soil where houses have been built over former garbage dumps or where raw refuse was used as construction fill in London. "For years I have been prophesying an outbreak of some new disease—or some awful form of an old one—and here it comes."The reader should keep in mind that this was written before the development of antimicrobial drugs, so a diptheria outbreak was very serious. However, even in 1903 there was a treatment for diphtheria, involving injection of anti-toxin produced from animals immunized against heat-inactivated diphtheria bacteria, but it was not used widely or adequately. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diphtheria). Today, people are immunized against diphtheria during childhood.First published in Pearson's Magazine, March 1903 with illustrations by Warwick Goble. The illustrations can be seen at the Project Gutenberg Australia souce; they are omitted from this eBook.Reprinted in Science Fiction By The Rivals Of H.G. Wells, Castle Books, 1979.

Another in the "Doom of London" series, in which the author sounds a clarion call of potential disasters that may fall upon the great city. Here he relates a tale of air pollution. Excerpt:They crawled along through the black suffocating darkness, feeble, languid, and sweating at every pore. There was a murky closeness in the vitiated atmosphere that seemed to take all the strength and energy away. At any other time the walk to Clarence Terrace would have been a pleasure, now it was a penance. They found their objective after a deal of patience and trouble. Hackness yelled in the doorway. There was a sound of footsteps and Cynthia Grimfern spoke. "Ah, what a relief it is to know that you are all right," she said. "I pictured all sorts of horrors happening to you. Will this never end, Martin?" She cried softly in her distress. Hackness felt for her hand and pressed it tenderly. "We are going to try my great theory," he said. "Eldred is with me, andwe have got Williamson's permission to operate with the aeroplane."

Fred M. White published this fictional story in 1903 about London in the grip of a severe 4-day arctic snow-storm, showing the hardships and consequences for which the city was unprepared, including price gouging and angry mobs.Actually, the "The history of British winters" page at www.netweather.tv shows many severe winters, including this dramatic entry: "25th December 1836, roads impassable, snow depths reached a staggering 5-15 feet in many places, and most astonishingly, drifts of 20-50 feet!" That entry doesn't say where in Great Britain those snowfalls occurred, but this one mentions London: "1885-1886: Snow fell in October, November, December, January, February, March, April and May! London recorded 1ft of snow in 7 hours in early January." Generally in the record, a snowfall of 6 to 12 inches in London would be considered unusually severe. Compare that with the snowfall described in this story.First published in Pearson's Magazine, January 1903 with illustrations by Warwick Goble. Reprinted in Science Fiction By The Rivals Of H.G. Wells, Castle Books, 1979.

A Story of What Might Happen In the Days to Come, When Underground London is Tunnelled In all Directions for Electric Railways, If an Explosion Should Take Place In One of the Tubes. A short story in the "Doom of London" series. Excerpts:There was a sudden splitting crack as if a thousand rifles had been discharged in the ballroom. The floor rose on one side to a perilous angle, considering the slippery nature of its surface. Such a shower of white flakes fell from the ceiling that dark dresses and naval uniforms looked as if their wearers had been out in a snowstorm. ..."An earthquake," somebody said at length. "An earthquake, beyond doubt, and a pretty bad one at that. That accounts for the failure of the electric light. There will be some bad accidents if the gas mains are disturbed." ...A scared-looking policeman came staggering along."My man," Lord Barcombe cried, "what has happened?"The officer pulled himself together and touched his helmet."It's dreadful, sir," he sobbed. "There has been an accident in the tubes; and they have been blown all to pieces." ...Nobody knew what to do; everybody had lost their heads for the moment. It seemed hopeless from the very start.

A collection of 12 stories published serially in The Ludgate, London, Jun 1897 to May 1898, in which the criminal mastermind, Felix Gryde, conducts his nefarious criminal work -- theft, kidnapping, ransom, assassination, fraud -- and he never gets caught. The author's introduction:"The history of famous detectives, imaginary and otherwise, has frequently been written, but the history of a famous criminal—never."This is a bold statement, but a true one all the same. The most notorious of rascals know that sooner or later they will be found out, and therefore they plan their lives accordingly. But they are always found out in the end. And yet there must be many colossal rascals who have lived and died apparently in the odour of sanctity. Such a character would be quite new to fiction, and herein I propose to attempt the history of the Sherlock Holmes of malefactors."Given a rascal with the intellect of the famous creation in question, and detection would be reduced to a vanishing point. It is the intention of the writer to set down here some of the wonderful adventures that befell Felix Gryde in the course of his remarkable career."

Six spy-stories published in the US edition of Pearson's Magazine, Jul-Dec 1900. This series features Newton Moore, the top agent of a fictitious branch of the British War Office called "The Secret Service Fund." All of the stories in this series were illustrated by Victor Venner.

Another in the "Doom of London" series, in which the author sounds a clarion call of potential disasters that may fall upon the great city. Here he relates a tale of environmental contamination leading to a medical panic.London in a year of severe drought; water level in the Thames river extremely low, blazing heat wave for 3 weeks in August; a Portuguese cargo ship sinks and contaminates a tributary of the Thames; 3 of the crew members are discovered to be dying of some disease; the local doctor is frightened by what he sees, calls the health authorities, who call for help from Professor Darbyshire, a scientist who deals with "fighting diseases in the bulk", someone we might call an environmental epidemiologist today; he investigates, then ... Darbyshire makes a hurried call asking his friend, Dr. Longdale, to come at once to his house where he has a small laboratory."Darbyshire produced a phial of cloudy fluid, some of which he proceeded to lay on the glass of a powerful microscope. Longdale fairly staggered back from the eyepiece. "Bubonic! The water reeks with the bacillus! I haven't seen it so strongly marked since we were in New Orleans together. Darbyshire, you don't mean to say that this sample came from—"Yes, the sample was water from the contaminated Thames, the river from which roughly 4/5 of the water comes to supply the needs of the 5 million Londoners. Longdale says the water system must be shut off."And deprive four-fifths of London with water altogether!" Darbyshire said grimly. "And London grilling like a furnace? No flushing of sewers, no watering of roads, not even a drop to drink. In two days London would be a reeking, seething hell — try and picture it, Longdale.""I have, often," Longdale said gloomily. "Sooner or later it had to come. Now is your chance, Darbyshire — that process of sterilisation of yours."Will he save London? Of course — he's the hero of the story. But how? Does London panic? How do the authorities respond?