Il8 FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 



which they were without coal with which to heat 

 their house, their telephone was being disconnected, 

 and they had virtually nothing left to set upon the 

 table. But so far as the neighbors could see, nothing 

 was wrong. The Smythes seemed to be living substan- 

 tially as they had been living for the past two years. 



But one day the neighbors became conscious of the 

 fact that the Smythes had disappeared. Investigation 

 showed that two days before Smythe had picked up a 

 hatchet, split open his wife's skull as she lay in bed, 

 gone down to his garage, started the motor in his car, 

 lain down by the exhaust, and asphyxiated himself. 



> 



Then there was the case of Jones which promises 

 to end more hopefully than that of Smythe. 



One day I received a letter from a man named 

 Jones, or a name very similar to Jones, begging the 

 privilege of an interview. He had read This Ugly 

 Civilization, he wrote, and had a straightforward 

 question he wanted to put to me. He asked me to give 

 him a few minutes in which to put his case before 

 me if I possibly could spare the time, since he was pre- 

 pared to stake all he had upon my answer to it. Of 

 course I saw him. And this is the story he told me. 



"Mr. Borsodi," he said, "I am an accountant. The 

 firm for which I used to work failed just about a year 

 ago. I had worked for them for nine years. But I had 

 made such a good record and had managed to save 

 $1,500, so that I wasn't particularly worried. But that 

 was a year ago. Since that time I have walked the 



