When they return home, however, the Shire hobbits discover their cherished ideal corrupted. A totalitarian state has replaced the carefree rural life, dominated by "the Rules" and suffering from "no beer and very little food." Journeying deeper into the Shire reveals a devastated countryside. Homes have been replaced by ugly row houses and barracks, trees have been wantonly felled, and the old mill has been replaced by "a great brick building straddling the stream, which it fouled with a steaming and stinking outflow." Frodo's own home, Bag End, lies abandoned and stinks of filth. Sam sums up the situation with his exclamation, "This is worse than Mordor! . . . It comes home to you, they say; because it is home, and you remember it before it was ruined."
Mordor has come home; everything the hobbits have fought so hard for has been ruined. At first glance, Frodo and the others blame outside forces for the destruction. Evil men, brigands, and thieves have moved in while the protecting Rangers have gone to war. Sharkey, their leader, has urged them to "hack, burn and ruin" since his arrival. The hobbits soon learn that Sharkey is their old enemy Saruman, who has ravaged the Shire in revenge for his own losses.
The outsiders are not the only ones to blame, however. Like the evil of the Ring, the evil that besets the Shire works from within, feeding on the hobbits' own desires. Lotho Sackville-Baggins, hungry for power and prestige, brought the first Men into the Four Farthings to protect his growing property. "Seems he wanted to own everything himself, and then order other folk about," says Farmer Cotton. Although couched in rustic language, the description fits Sauron as well as Lotho. Other hobbits also accepted and even enjoyed the changes, regardless of the cost. Ted Sandyman, the greedy miller, loves the wasteful and polluting mechanisms of the new mill, "and he works there cleaning wheels for the Men, where his dad was the Miller and his own master." Worst of all, the hobbits have allowed this to happen; whether through inattention or cowardice, the most sensible and good hobbits went along with the changes until, "before we knew where we were," the beauty and joy of the Shire were gone.
