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"By Order" is a Mumbo-Jumbo pearl! How often in lonely walks through the London streets have I mused within my own dear mind and marvelled at "By Order." When I read for instance "No Whistling Allowed (By Order)" I wonder who gave the order and how he climbed to such a novel power. How came he so strong that he could prevent my whistling or in any other way enlivening London? And why did he hide his magic name? I take it that he had no vulgar legal power, but something more compelling and more mysterious, a priestly thing. And there are others. People who own more than 2,000 acres of land love to paint "By Order" in black letters on little white boards. With these they ornament the boundaries of their possessions.

Mumbo-Jumbo has this defect, that if the spell fails through unfamiliarity it looks grotesque; therefore is it essential for all governments to shoe-horn any new Mumbo-Jumbo very carefully into its place.

It must begin with some little habit, hardly acknowledged, hardly noticeable, and it must only gradually grow into admitted authority. Turn Mumbo-Jumbo on too suddenly and people would only laugh. And while I think of it let me say that paint is a main incarnation of Mumbo-Jumbo; paint with varnish—the complete form of paint. People who sail boats know this very well. I will buy you for a few pounds a very rotten old hulk, abandoned in Hamble River, I will stop up the leaks with cement, paint her sides a bright colour, varnish the paint and then varnish her decks, and sell her at an enormous profit. It is done continually; lives are lost through it, of course; the boat bursts asunder in the midst of the sea; but the cheat never fails. Those who understand the art of horse dealing (which I do not) assure me that much the same thing attaches to that also. It seems there are poisons which you can give a horse whereby it acquires a glossy coat, and that even the eyes of the stupid beast can be made vivacious after long dulness. It may be so.