ONE SHILLING. y TOP I A John Petzler. L0N90|^: Authors' Co-operative Publishing Co., Ltd., 20 & 22, ST. BRIDE STREET. ^^^^^^^^ffi / ^° WHY WASTE FOOD? ^^^ When by using FRIGILINE, The Harmless, Tasteless, and Unfailing FOOD PRESERVATIVE, All loss may be avoided. FRIGILINE preserves with the greatest sncooss, Butter, Milk, Cream, Eg-gs, Fish, Meat, Sausages, Bacon, MJk, /6««. First PrUimaa in Therapeutic$, Or9cers, uid Chemiatt, or at Ss, pet 4«l. — Whom we shall deservedly and generously reward when you return us our money. Dir. — He might accept a few coins as a curiosity, for there are but few Utopians who have ever seen any money. Will you now take from your trunk as much linen as will serve you for the first week's stay in Utopia, for afterwards the Utopians will wash for you. They wash twice a week for the whole population, and you always see them wearing snow-white linen, of which especially their ladies are passionately fond. H. D. — Then they are realizing what an elderly gentleman once wished me always to have — a clean shirt on my body and a sovereign in my pocket. Dir. — The comfort of clean linen they enjoy ; but of the satisfaction of having money in their pockets they have no idea, and consequently do not desire it. CHAPTER n. ( The Visitors etiter a train that comes close up to the landing-place. Having arrived at the central terminus of the town, they are most cordially received by G. Austin, the official Guide, ivho takes them through a broad street, lined on both sides with palatial buildings. People are seen walking to and fro in this street, but no shops are visible. ) Guide. — This is one of the principal streets of the metropolis, and is, at all times of the day, frequented by a throng of pedes- trians. Mrs. D. — -I wonder at the quietness of the people ; one hears no street-cries, no shouting, no piercing whistling. 4 LIFE IN UTOPIA. H. D. — I have not as yet heard the rumbHng of a carriage, the trotting of a horse, the howhng of a dog, or the braying of an ass. Mr. D. — The aspect is certainly altogether unlike the bustle, turmoil, and commotion in our great metropolis, London, where it becomes to newly-arrived provincials so impressive, especially in Fleet Street and the Strand, that they not unfrequently break out into tears and wonderment. Miss D. — And besides, all the people one sees in this grand Utopian street are well dressed, especially the ladies. H. D. — Boys and girls seem likewise to be totally absent from this street. Mrs. D. — That I don't in the least regret, for their whistling, shouting, horse-play, and tip-cat, not to speak of occasional stone- throwing, is more a nuisance than an agreeable animation of the street. Guide. — You will presently see some mothers and nurses pass by with babies in comfortable perambulators. Aliss D. — Always a pretty sight to all persons. Guide. — But of the grown-up children, boys and girls, lads and lasses, you see none ; for they are from an early age transferred to the educational establishments situated in the country, and there they are fed, clothed, lodged, and educated by the State till they are fit to enter the active pursuits of life. Mrs. D. — This educational system I admire very much, for it is just the same as that in our own country, where gentlemen's sons and daughters leave their boarding-schools at the age of eighteen, the young ladies perhaps a year or two earlier. Miss D. — And many of them marry as soon as they have left school, which I was not permitted to do, and am consequently still a spinster. Guide. — To marry as soon as they leave school is just the custom with our young folks in Utopia. Now let us go further into the town, for the purpose of inspecting some other streets, and the curiosities to be seen in them. CHAPTER III. Miss D. — I hope, sir, you will lead us into some fashionable quarters of the town, where there are some fine shops, especially in the drapery line. Guide. — Fashionable quarters and splendid streets I can show you in great numbers ; but, my lady, you will feel greatly sur- prised, and perhaps sorely disappointed, at seeing no shops in them. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 5 Mrs. D. — How can people live without shops? — that seems an inexplicable mystery to me. Guide. — In taking you to one of the great storehouses of this town, where people can get all they require to live upon, and that comfortably, and even luxuriously, the mystery of living without shops will solve itself. Mrs. D. — I am anxious to experience a disenchantment ; let us therefore pay a visit to this general storehouse. H. D. — A Whiteley's general store, that will be all. We have seen that ; it is nothing new to us. I shan't go there. Mr. D.—h. place perhaps a great deal larger and more beau- tiful than Whiteley's. Go with us, if only to oblige me and not to offend the guide. {In the drapery department of the general storehouse, a ladies' outfitting room 7vith an elderly Attendant behind the counter and another at an elevated desk.) Guide. — This is the young brides' outfitting-room. Mrs. D. — Why do you speak of young brides alone ? Will not old and young widows be able to procure for themselves in this drapery shop a bridal outfit, should they be fortunate enough to marry again ? Guide. — With the greatest ease, madam ; but they will be accommodated with what they require in another room of the storehouse. Attendant {to Miss D.). — Young lady, have you become a bride, and do you wish to see and to select a bridal outfit in dresses and jewellery ? Miss D. — I should very much like to do so, sir ; but I am not a Utopian, nor a bride. {Aside : I ivish I were both.) {Here three young ladies enter the room.) Miss D. {to her Mother). — The taller one of these ladies is sure to be a bride. I guess it by her happy look and smiling face. Attendant. — My dear young ladies, have you come to see a bridal outfit ? Bride. — Yes, sir ; I require an outfit for myself, two for my bridesmaids, and one for each of my young friends here. Attendant {taking big boxes containi/ig dresses from the shelves of the outfitting-room, and opening them, says:) — As it is now summer time, I should advise you to choose the lightest and brightest quality of the dresses. Mrs. D. {to Guide). — Shall we stay here during the time these ladies choose their outfits? Guide. — Their choice will l)e made in a moment, and it will be interesting to you to witness the rapidity of the transaction. 6 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Attendaiit {to Bride). — What size dress do you require, my happy bride ? Bride. — Size No. 2, sir. Attendant. — And what quahty ? Bride. — The best, sir. Attendant {to Clerk). — Enter bridal dress, size 2, quahty Ai. Miss Z>.— I should like to see what veil they will choose. Guide. — The Utopian women never wear any veils : for she who is pretty, does not like to veil her beauty ; and she who can- not show a pretty face, thinks that ugliness cannot be hidden by the thickest veil. Bride. — Please, sir, will you let us see some diamond jewellery — earrings, necklaces, bracelets, headbands, diadems, and girdles ? Attendant {taking four boxes from the shelves). — Here are the various jewels you wish to see. {Taking up a necklace arid diadem.) This beautiful necklace was once worn by an ex-queen, and this diadem by an ex-empress. Bride. — Then I shall be very proud to wear them. Dear me ! we almost forgot the most important item of my bridal outfit — I mean the wedding-ring. Attendant. — There are a great number of them. Bride. — Let me have one initialed R. Attendant {to Clerk). — Enter all the jewellery taken by these ladies into the delivery-book. {To the Bride and Bridesmaids.) Will you now retire into that side-room and dress yourselves just as you will appear on the wedding-day ? Guide. — We ask this favour so that we can present you in your bridal attire to these illustrious strangers, who have come as visitors from afar to see our country and observe our customs. {Bride and Bridesmaids retire.) H. D. {to Attendant). — May I ask you, sir, what account-books and ledgers you use ? Aitcfidant. — We use only two books. {Pointing to them.) This is our receipt and this our delivery-book. Miss D. {to Attendant). — May I ask you, sir, who this bride is to whom you have handed over those beautiful diamond orna- ments ? Attendant. — She is one of the young ladies who has just left school, and is going to be married to a young man of her own choice and age ; and there is no doubt that both of them are skilled in various kinds of labour, and in some arts, too, useful to themselves and to others. Miss D. — How delightful for them to marry so young, and to have learned something gratifying to themselves and other people ! LIFE IN UTOPIA. 7 Attendant. — There are no useless people in Utopia ; all must work. Mrs. D. — But, sir, your boxes of diamond jewels will soon be emptied if each bride takes her full complement of these precious and costly things. Attendant. — By no means, madam ; for as soon as the marriage ceremony is over, the married woman remits these national trea- sures to the place from which she received them, and where they are kept ready for the adornment of other brides. Mrs. D. — I should not like to wear the ornaments which have adorned another person. Attendant. — But, madam, I can assure you that our young women look forward with anxious desire to the time when they shall be favoured with the jewels which were once worn by em- presses, queens, and duchesses. Aliss D. — I sorely begrudge them this favour. Mrs. D. — Silly girl ! you were always foolishly fond of diamond ornaments, even when you knew that they were counterfeit ones. {Enter Bride and Bridesmaids in their bridal attire.) Miss V {to her Mother). — How surpassingly charming they are ! I wish I was one of them. H. D. — How beautiful they look ! I wish I was the bride- groom to one of them. Mr. D. {approaching the Bride and Bridesfnaids). — Fair and gentle maids, I might almost say angelic embodiments of beauty and gentleness, accept from us — myself, wife, son, and daughter — the sincerest congratulations on the approaching wedding fes- tivities. Bridesmaids. — We thank you heartily for your good wishes, and should feel greatly pleased if you would favour us with your pre- sence. ( The Bride and Bridesmaids retire again to the side-roo?n to don their ordinary dress. ) Guide. — Now, ladies and gentlemen, it is getting towards dinner-time ; and if you will accompany me, we shall proceed to one of the associated homes, where we can get a good dinner, and where you can likewise be accommodated with an abode during your stay in Utopia. Airs. D. — We hope, guide, you will take dinner with us. Guide. — 1 intend to do so, for much that you see there will yet require explanation. LIFE IN UTOPIA. CHAPTER IV. {A small dining-room with pictures on the walls, and a table covered and dinner-service laid for Jive persons. Enter Guide and the four Visitors.) Mr. D. — This is a cosy little dining-room — just such a one as we ourselves have in our little villa' in England ; and how beauti- fully it is adorned with pictures ! Guide. — The pictures in this private dining-room are changed every quarter of the year. H. D. — Not a bad plan, for one gets even tired of looking at a most beautiful picture, if it is continually placed before our eyes. I am sure I have not for years cast a single glance at the costly Rembrandts and Van Dycks that hang on the walls of our dining- room. Mrs. D. — But this frequent change in the display of great works of art must inevitably be a most costly arrangement ; and where do you get your pictures from, for their number must be exceedingly large to permit these frequent changes in every dining- room? Guide. — When our State adopted the Utopian organization of society, it came not only into possession of the pictures contained in all the picture galleries, but also of all those that belonged to private owners, and which were even more numerous than those in the national galleries. Mrs. D. — Surely we should not like to give up our Rembrandts and Van Dycks. Mr. jD. — They cost me an enormous sum of money. H. D. — And, father, you could have often sold them at a profit, and then have bought still more costly ones. Guide. — But after all your expenses you would still only be the possessor of very few pictures, which, though of great merit, you scarcely ever look at. H. JD. — That's what I just said. Miss D. — But, brother, if you took little notice of our pictures, I did not ; for I often remembered Sir Joshua Reynolds' saying : " A room hung with pictures is like a room hung with thoughts." I drew, and even painted a not very bad copy of them. Guide. — Any artists, either professional or amateur — and there are many of them in Utopia — can make copies of the pictures that we exhibit in our public galleries where the great works of old and modern masters remain, and also of any picture that adorns our private rooms and public halls. We have innumerable LIFE IN UTOPIA. 9 artist-painters, and they provide us with such a quantity of works that, with them and those formerly drawn from the private col- lections, we can afford a quarterly change of pictures in all our private rooms and public halls ; and every artist thus enjoys the privilege of having his works somewhere exhibited to either the public or private gaze. Now let us sit down at the table, for din- ner is ready ; it is always punctually at twelve o'clock. Mrs. D. — I wish our cook were as punctual ; I have often to scold her for being late with dinner. Guide. — Will you kindly fill up these dining-cards, and a female attendant will presently come to fetch them, and then bring your dinner, consisting of the dishes you have ordered. Air. D. {reading aloud the dining card). — Soup. — Vermicelli, Julien, Oxtail. J/raA— Roast Beef, Roast Mutton, Roast Pork, Roast Veal and Ham. Vegetables. — Potatoes and Cabbage. Puddings. — Rice, Semolina, Apple-tart. Proper English diet this, and no mistake ! I hate the French menu. Mrs. D. — In order to give the least trouble, let us all have the same kind of dishes, for at home we partake of the same sort of dinner. H. D. — Then, father, what shall I write down ? Mr. D. — Write down : Roast Beef, Potatoes and Cabbage and Rice-pudding for five persons. {A female Attendant enters and takes the dining-cards away.) Guide. — There are a great many more private dining-rooms like this in our associated homes, and also one large dining-hall, where from three to five hundred persons can sit down for their meals, which are all cooked in one general kitchen. Afrs. D. — But how can you know what quantity of meat, vege- tables, flour, rice, etc., will be recjuired for so many people, when each person fills up his dining-card but a few minutes before taking his meals ? Guide. — Our people don't do as we did just now (for the dinner we ordered is an exceptional one ; it is a strangers' dinner) ; but they give orders by their dining-cards the previous day, or perhaps for a whole week or a fortnight in advance, for some of us like to frequently partake of the same kind of food. Mr. D. — As for meat, I myself lived for years exclusively on roast beef. H. D. — I always relished roast mutton very much, when it just came from the roasting-jack, for dinner on a Sunday ; but when 10 LIFE IN UTOPIA. it was dished up cold every following day in the week, my relish for it diminished very rapidly. Afiss D. — Sir, I saw nothing mentioned on your dining-cards of roast duck, fowl, goose, turkey, or venison and other dainties for the palate. Guide.— Geese we roast at Michaelmas ; turkeys at Christmas ; fowls and ducks once a month ; and when these savoury meals are dished up, there is not a person in Utopia who does not like to partake of them, for their taste has not been blunted by fre- quent tickling with the same dainties. Mrs. D. — We observe the same custom in England, having roast goose at Michaelmas, but more seasonable at Christmas ; the only thing to be regretted being that the poor people of our country have not the means for regaling themselves with such savoury meals. Guide. — I should feel very sorry if such were the case in Utopia. (/4 Waitress brings in bread on a bread-plate, and places Jwt plates on the table.) H. D. {approaching her). — How long, pretty maid, have you been in service at this hotel ? Waitress. — I am not a maid, sir, but a married woman, being a mother of three children. Mrs. 1). — What ! a wife and mother, and going into service ! By what adverse circumstances have you been reduced to such a dire necessity, and degrading situation ? JVaitress. — Madam, there is nothing degrading in any domes- tic servant's position in this associated home, for we are the equals of all those whom we serve, and who, in return, serve us with their labour. We perform our work in relays, and by this arrange- ment all women are periodically called upon to participate in the performance of domestic labour, and we delight in scouring and scrubbing floors, sweeping and cleaning rooms, being employed in the kitchen and scullery, washing, ironing, and mangling, linen- cleaning, and blacking the fire-grates, bright-polishing the fire- irons, laying and lighting the fires in the winter time, in a hundred rooms, in this extensive social palace, and that often as early as five o'clock in the morning, our people being early risers both in summer and winter. And in serving meals and waiting at table we have many a pleasant talk with those whom we serve, for they are likewise servants and intimate friends and acquaintances. Mrs. D. — Dear woman, you entirely forget to mention amongst your various domestic duties the making of beds in ladies' and gentlemen's sleeping rooms. LIFE IN UTOPIA. II Guide. — Madam, permit me to explain this omission from the series of domestic employments. In Utopia every one makes his own bed ; even the very children are at an early age accustomed to it. In married families the mother makes the connubial bed and that of her children. Miss D. — I always thought it strange, to say the very least of it, that in French hotels men-servants make the beds in ladies' sleep- ing apartments, and it is highly satisfactory to decent people that the Utopians know how to avoid such incongruity. This place is therefore on all accounts a pleasant and decent servants' home. Mrs. D. {to Waitress). — And how long, my dear, will you have to remain in service here ? Waitress. — Only three months in three years. Mrs. D. — Then you will be out of work eleven months every year ? Waitress. — By no means, madam. Three other months I spend in needlework, dress and shirt-making, and some time also in gardening ; but the greater part of my leisure hours I devote to the pursuits, practice, and study of science and art ; and when I am enceinte, or have a baby to attend to, I am entirely exempt from work, except that which the care of my infant requires of me. And when I am in child-bed the board of the organiza- tion of charital)le labour always provides me with an attentive, kind, and qualified nurse. Mrs. D. — And what about a wet nurse, if you should stand in need of one for your baby ? Waitress. — There are always some women in our home whose babies have died in child-birth or soon after it ; such mothers, having an abundance of milk in their breasts, most joyfully give suck to the babies whose mothers are deficient of milk, or too ill to give the breast to their own babies. Guide. — My friends, permit me to testify to this waitress's merit in our Utopian community. She is not only a most useful servant, needlewoman, and dress-maker, but possesses, moreover, a fair acquaintance with law and medicine, and is, besides, one of the most admired poetesses, of whom there are not a few in Utopia. I cannot forbear calling upon her to give us a recitation of one of her own poems. Waitress. — One of my latest productions in poetry is on money, and it runs thus : — " Golil, many Ininted, sweat, and bled for, Wak'd all the night, and labour'd all the day ; And what was this allurement, dost thou ask ? A dust, dug from the bowels of the earth, 12 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Which, being cast into the fire, came out A shining thing that fools admired, and called a god !" {After the recital the Waitress leaves the room.) Mr. D. — I can well understand that, having so much leisure time, the Utopians can easily make an extended and rapid pro- gress in science and art. Guide. — Now, ladies and gentlemen, let us take our places at the dinner-table, for our waitress will serve up the dinner. {They sit down.) Miss D. — Mother, look here ! the entire dinner-service, spoons, knife and fork, soup-ladle, salt-cellars, pepper-boxes, and even the plates seem to be of solid gold. Mrs. D. — You are mistaken, girl ; they are surely only silver- gilded things. Guide. — Madam, your daughter's guess is the correct one; they are all of pure gold, and so is the dinner-service wherever a table is laid in Utopia for a mid-day repast. And when there is a ban- quet, beautiful vases, urns, candle-stands and candelabra of solid gold adorn the table. H. D. — Though we ourselves have sometimes seen, and even used, silver-gilded spoons, and knives and forks with gilded handles, we have never yet seen such a display of luxury as plates and dishes of solid gold. Mr. D. — And when Utopia provided every private and asso- ciated home with plates and dishes of solid gold, she must have spent many years' accumulation of the total income of her national revenue, or she must have had a mountain of gold in her terri- tory. Guide. — We resorted to none of these alternatives, but merely melted all the gold coins down when money was abolished through- out the whole of our land, and when all bullion and ingots were impounded. H. D. — A most simple, but very arbitrary proceeding. Guide. — Certainly simple, but by no means arbitrary, for the whole nation supported it with an almost unanimous vote. Mr. D. — I should certainly have voted against it ; and if I had had any gold in my possession, I should have stoutly refused to give it up. ( The dinner is brought in., and is consumed quietly, amidst plea- sant table-talk.) LIFE IN UTOPIA. 13 CHAPTER V. (A tailors' zvorkshop. In the middle of the room stands a big ro7ind table, and close to it is placed a circular bench, in which round holes are cut, wide enough for conveniently admitting both legs of a man into one opening. On the table lie parts of garments, the tailor's goose, pressing-board, shears and reels of sewing-thread. ) Foreman (entering). — I hope our workers will not be late, for I late reporting any of them for this offence. Fred {a Workman) enters. — Good-morning, sir. Fo7-eman. — Good-morning, Fred. I am glad to see you arriving the first to your work. Fred. — So am I, for I thought I should be the last; and keeping almost a racing pace in coming here, I tumbled down, but as quickly rose as I fell. Foreman. — I hope you did not hurt yourself. F?-ed. — Not very much, sir ; the thumb of my right hand felt rather queer for a moment, but as it does not pain me now, and is not swollen, I shall be able to ply the needle without any in- convenience. Foreman. — I am glad of it, for if you had been incapacitated by a sprain, dislocation, or fracture, from performing your work, I should have had to get a substitute for you. You well know if the amount of work that has been allotted to this workshop is not turned out in the specified time, I alone will be blamed for it, and should probably lose a grade in my prospect of promotion to the general management of the nation's clothing department. {Other Workmen are arriving in groups. Just as the dock strikes eight, they take their seats at the work-table.) Foreman. — I see there one seat unoccupied. A Workman. — It is Charles', who has not yet arrived. Foreman. — I shall be exceedingly sorry if I have to report him. Charles {entering). — Good-morning, foreman ; good-morning, mates. Foreman. — Good-morning, Charles. You have just by a hair- breadth escaped being reported. Sit down and work with your very best application to efface even this little shortcoming in the performance of your duty. Charles. — I overslept myself, sir ; and although I have a power- ful alarm-clock in my bedroom, my auditory nerves have been so blunted by receiving the alarm-strokes so frequently, that I don't hear them at all, and they no longer have power to awake me. Foreman. — But, Charles, you know very well that there are J4 LIFE IN UTOPIA. several members of our community unusually early risers, who have volunteered and have been appointed as wakers-up for others. You need only to give notice to any of them to wake you at the time you wish to rise. Charles. — I shall tell one of them who is appointed for the sleeping departments where my bedroom is situated, to wake me every morning at six o'clock. Foreman. — Now, my friends, let there be no relaxation in the execution of your work, and in the performance of your duty. Remember that you are the trusted servants of the State — that you will lighten the burden of labour not only to yourselves, but to the whole nation; for the more expeditiously Utopians can turn out articles of produce in all departments of industry, and the quicker labour is performed by hands and machines, the greater is the leisure for all. A Workman. — We know that very well, sir ; for ten years ago the work-time for every member of the community was four months per annum, whereas it is now but three. Forenuifi. — But if every one of us did not do his very best, or indulged even in culpable idleness, we should not attain any shortening of the hours of labour, but on the contrary increase them to the old level of twelve hours every day in the week, Sunday rarely excepted. A Workman. — How dreadful those long hours of work must have been to all working-men ! Foreman. — It was a dreadful state of slavery, till at last the feeling of the whole nation revolted against it. I am now going into my oiifice to put the various garments which you have already finished into parcels, of which I shall make out the invoices, and send them to the national storehouse. In the meantime go on with your work just the same as if I were here ; and if any visitors should happen to call, apprise me of it. Here is the National Gazette, but do not transgress your hour's limit by reading it during work-time. One of the Men. — We usually read our paper at dinner-time ; but as there have been two great accidents yesterday, we should very much like to have a look at it now. {Foreman retires.) Another Man. — A very kind, considerate, and just foreman we have, and we shall select him again to his place, if in the interim he is not promoted, which in all likelihood he will be. Fred. — Charles, will you read the paper to-day ? I will read it to-morrow. Charles {taking tcp the paper and looking through it). — Good LIFE IN UTOPIA. I5 gracious ! What a terrible disaster ! There has been a terrific ex- plosion in No. 5 coal-mine, and as many as twelve persons have been killed. Amongst the victims of this accident are three of our most distinguished citizens : one, a statesman; one, an actor; and the third an engineer. Fred. — They will not be easily replaced. Another Alan. — There are plenty of men to take their place and rank. Fred. — You, Charles, are an excellent tragedian, and could worthily fill up that of the actor who has so lamentably perished in this accident. CJiarles. — It would be presumption and arrogance were I to aspire to his rank and fame. {The Visitors and Guide enter ^ Guide {to Visitors). — This is one of our national workshops. There are a dozen more for tailoring alone in the associated factories, besides dozens of others for all kinds of trades. Any man being skilled in tailoring, can work in any of the tailoring workshops, and with any mates he likes ; and our artizans are quite at liberty to choose, not only the workshops and mates, but also a period in the year when they will enter on their three months' task in any particular occupation to which they have been prepared by a previous training in the industrial schools. Mr. D. — Every man who loves freedom must grant that these are excellent means for securing and maintaining it. Guide. — Utopia is extremely anxious to make her working- people contented and happy ; she even cares for their comfort and ease when they are at work, as you can see by this novel construction of the tailors' work-table and seats around it. Mrs. D. — What an ingenious, appropriate, comfortable, and handy work-table and bench ! Nobody, and certainly no tailor's journeyman, will deny that it is a thousand times preferable to the large board which our English tailors use, and which serves them both as a work-table and a seat. Miss D. — And certainly not as a comfortable seat, for they can only sit on their board with crossed legs, mother. Mrs. D. — I know that very well, Mary Ann; I have often pitied them in their uncomfortable, if not painful, attitude. H. D. — Mother, what you say reminds me of an acquaintance of mine, a master tailor, who being a very stout and corpulent man, with truncheons of legs of the Squire Arden size, had to pull every now and then one leg over the other, as by their roundness and bulk they rolled off from each other and had to be replaced again and again into their cross-wise position. l6 LIFE IN UTOPIA. A Workman. — We should not like to sit cross-legged at our work, in Turkish or Hindoo fashion. Guide. — You see, then, my respected visitors, that our labour arrangements tend to secure Ireedom and comfort to all workmen, wherever they may be employed. Air. D. — From what you say, I can easily see that in Utopia all labourers are properly cared for. But let me see what opinions your men are holding on the labour system under which they are seemingly contented to work. {Addressing the Men.) Being now thoroughly aware that no money nor monetary medium of ex- change exists in Utopia, and that therefore the reward of labour by the payment of wages is altogether inadmissible, I am impelled by an urgent curiosity, which I hope will be forgiven, to ask you by what incitements you are attracted to share in industrial and manual labour, and to choose such occupation voluntarily ? Fred. — All must work ; and all do work in Utopia, and I should feel ashamed of remaining idle, and getting neglectful of the duty of labour which I owe to the State and my fellow- citizens — a neglect which, moreover, I would not indulge in at all, for I should thereby endanger and destroy my maintenance in food, dress, and habitation, which would be withheld from me as soon as my indulgence in culpable idleness and continued neglect of labour became known. Mr. D. — A very forcible inducement to labour, which the Apostle Paul submitted to the serious consideration of the early Christians in the memorable words : " He who will not work, neither shall he eat." Guide. — The Utopians realized the practical application of this scriptural text, before any Christian community felt inclined to put its members under so terrible but just an alternative. H. D. — -But, sir, allow me to interrupt you. Our labour arrangements in England are very much the same as yours here in Utopia ; for if working men in our country wall not work and prefer being idle, they earn no wages, and earning no wages, have consequently no means of procuring for themselves food, clothes, and lodging, and both they and their families must starve. Miss D. — But, brother, you forget to mention that, when they and their families have reached a starvation point, we most humanely and charitably admit them into our work and poor- houses, so that no person need starve himself to death in Eng- land. H. D. — If he is not silly and obstinate enough to starve him- self to death in preference to going into the workhouse. Mr. D. — But, Mary Ann, our English workhouses are not very LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 7 humane and charitable institutions, for the idle and improvident must all perform a task of daily work of a not very agreeable kind. H. D. — -And when they refuse to do this task they are sent to prison to undergo punishment with still harder labour. Mr. D. — Which many prefer to the workhouse. Guide. — I must regretfully and blushingly own that we in Utopia have likewise had to punish, from time to time, a few obstinate idlers ; and as culpable idleness is considered a crime in our code of laws, idle persons are at once put into prison, where work is put before them, not disagreeable tasks, but work in the trades in which they are skilled ; and if they should refuse to work, no food and drink is set before them, and they may starve to death. But, sir, after they have been incarcerated a short time without food, they invariably take up the work. Only one case is known of a person obstinately starving himself to death, and it was thought that he committed suicide, being at the time of unsound mind. Mrs. D. — This is a Utopian custom I much admire. I wish idlers, beggars, and vagabonds were in England punished in the same summary and wholesome fashion ; for all the income our people derive from property, trade, or labour, is heavily taxed to maintain the useless and numerous inmates of our workhouses, of whom a great number are able-bodied men and women, and of the latter many with illegitimate children. Mr. D. {to the Guide). — Now, sir, let me have another word or two with your men here. [Addressing the Me/i.) Now, my friends, tell me candidly what other inducements besides the freedom and comfort of labour you consider to act favourably and encourag- ingly upon the performance of your work ? Fred. — Amongst others, we consider the variety of labour a most powerful one. In tailoring we can work in any branch of the craft ; for every one of us knows how to make any garment that men and boys wear in Utopia. When I am tired of making trousers, I take up waistcoat-making ; and when this becomes too monotonous for me, I take up coat-making ; and entering a new department of my craft at short intervals, I find my mind refreshed l)y the new and varied attention that is required in the new branch I have entered. I hate working mechanically with my needle like a sewing-machine, and without any application of my mind as to how I can give the best shape to a garment, how I can cut it out most economically, and how I can trim it most elegantly. Mr. D. — Certainly a most sensible and practical view of the attractiveness of a tailor's business. 1 8 LIFE IN UTOPIA. H. D. — But I doubt exceedingly whether a tailor with a know- ledge of every branch of his trade be a swift and efficient worker in any. It seems to me like the man who has too many irons in the fire. Our tailors in England turn out work as swiftly as though by magic, by being only skilled in one branch of tailor- ing. Guide. — And we in Utopia could turn out ten times as much work as you in England, for we have ten times as many people skilled in tailoring ; and were they all employed twelve hours a day, the whole year through, they would certainly produce ten times more than your English tailors. But our men, who work only six hours a day for three months in the year, produce all we require for home consumption, and even a certain amount for exportation. H. /). — Sir, our London tailors have lately likewise been think- ing of agitating for an eight hours' daily duration of labour, and may perhaps have obtained this boon before we return. Then they will be nearly as well off as your men with their six hours a day. Fred. — Not by a long way, sir ; for wq work six hours a day for only three months in the year. But when we are at work for this short period, we work carefully, attentively, and assiduously, not hurriedly, and thus turn out well-made garments. Mr. D. — I can well see the drift of your argument, how with more men, and little work from each individually, you can turn out better-made garments than the men in our London estab- lishments who, with their ten to twelve hours every day in the year, produce in the end but miserable slop-work, and being, moreover, sweated to the very utmost extent. H. D. — But, father. Parliament has raised its hand against this abominable sweating system. Mr. D. — But it flourishes, notwithstanding, more or less defiantly, in all trades and industries. Fred. — Sir, the variety of work we can take up in our trade is only one of the minor inducements for the due performance of our work, for it has but a powerful attraction to the intelligent mechanic, whilst the dull workman prefers being occupied in one and the same branch of labour. But there is a still greater and more important variety of labour in store for us, during the time our life is devoted to the duty of work. When we leave the tailors' workshop, every one of us is able to take up two other trades. Mr. F>. — Just as there are men in our country who know two or three businesses. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 9 Mrs. D. — And who, for that matter, are skilled in none. Fred. — The trades we know we can enter at periods of the year which we can choose for ourselves ; and as there are a numerous staff of workers in all trades, it does not matter where and when we enter upon our duties. Air. D. — But how can the State expect that the right number of men will present themselves in every trade ? Guide. — I'here is a very simple arrangement to fill all the workshops in Utopia with the necessary number of men. Mr. Z>.— How, sir ? Giiide. — The board of trade or central administration possess- ing a list of the skilled workmen in every trade, makes an appeal to them for the necessary number of men to enter on duty. This appeal is generally responded to by a greater number of volun- teers than are required, in which case the lot is drawn for those who are to enter the shops. If sufficient numbers do not present themselves, their deficiency is made up from the trades - list. But we have seldom been left with incomplete numbers of workers after a second appeal has been issued. H. D. — But how can you know that all have volunteered, and that some do not present themselves at all and shirk work ? Guide. — No one is permitted to volunteer twice till the whole list of all the members of his trade is exhausted ; and as the names of all those who have served are struck off from the trades- list, we know exactly who has not yet volunteered. Mr. D. — The plan is simple and effective, for no one can in this manner escape labour. Fred. — Our list of workers in the tailoring trade contains now such a large number of efficient men, that it becomes only ex- hausted in three years, so that every volunteer serves only three months in three years, with the complete liberty of choosing this short period of work in the first, second, or third year. Airs. Z*.— Certainly a long period of inactivity in which to make up their minds, and form a resolution to do the small amount of work, and that at their own option. Delightful ! but incredible. Guide. — When our men volunteer into the ranks of active labour, they do so by groups in which they are known to each other as intimate comrades and mates, having become acquainted with one another as fellow-workers in their particular trades, in mining, manufactures, agricultural operations, as also in the pursuits of literature, science, and art, and also in the participation and sharing in dangerous, unhealthy, and repulsive occupations. Mr. D. — I doubt very much if you will ever get a sufficient 20 LIFE IN UTOPIA. number of men to volunteer for any dangerous and repulsive occupations. Guide. — Plenty of them volunteer, especially amongst the young men with venturesome spirits, daring dispositions, and a hardy disregard of everything that may be dangerous and loathsome in labour. //. D. — I admire such fellows, and should not mind being one of them. Guide. — All our sailors, miners, quarrymen, road-makers, porters, coal-heavers, dockers, railway servants, sewerage men, scavengers, and rag-gatherers are recruited from the ranks of young men ; and as these make one third of the whole number of grown-up men, we obtain always plenty of volunteers to serve in the occupations I have just named. Mrs. D. — But if there were a deficiency in the number of coal-miners and heavers, you would have to go without fires in your grates, ovens, and kitchens. (?///d't'.— Such an occurrence has not taken place during my whole life-time, and Utopia's previous history of labour mentions not a single instance. All our people, especially the able-bodied men, are so imbued and fortified with that sense of duty which teaches them that not to participate in dangerous and unwhole- some labour, and to let others perish in it, amounts to a crime of cruel murder. Miss D. — A very sublime sense of duty and elevated sentiment of justice. Mrs. D. — I doubt very much whether our English labourers would ever work from a mere sense of duty, if they were not impelled to do so by dire necessity, or by the prospect of good wages. H. D. — You are right, mother ; but let them once become con- scious that they are inhumanly and unjustly exposed to dangers and hardships, whilst others never share in them, and the sub- version of our English labour arrangements, and may be the disruption of society, will take place without much delay. I tremble at the idea ; for I have never done any heavy or dangerous work except working uninterruptedly for two nights and days at the pumps, when the ship on which I was sailing as a holiday- tourist was in a sinking condition, and we could only keep her afloat by the most strenuous efforts of our arms applied to the handles of the ship's pumps. Guide. — As I have said, Utopia has embodied a solemn law, enacting that all heavy, dangerous, unhealthy, and repulsive labour must be shared equally by all grown-up men which is LIFE IN UTOPIA. 21 cheerily and voluntarily done by our able-bodied young men ; so that Utopia's stringent law has, almost, and will ere long, become entirely obsolete. One of the Workiitcii. — Why should we not volunteer into heavy work, such as that of the sailor, the miner, the quarryman, the dock-labourer, the coal-heaver, carpenter, smith, and others, well knowing that these heavy occupations give strength, healthiness, and endurance to our constitution, muscles, and limbs ; and where is the man who is not proud of his bodily strength, lifting a heavy weight, or carrying a load ? I therefore like heavy work. Mrs. D. — Our G.O.M. must certainly entertain the same idea as you, concerning the healthiness of hard labour, or else he would not have felled so many trees, and continue to do so even in his advanced years. Guide. — I should say that tree-felling by a man in old age takes more strength away than it can give. Mr. D. — It is said that Mr. Gladstone feels always greatly refreshed after he has laid low an old inhabitant of the wood, and walks home from his day's work merrily and cheerily, his axe slung over his shoulder in the fashion of the hardy woodman. Miss Z>.— And I have read in the " Biographical Dictionary " that Louis XVI., king of France, was a locksmith ; and Louis Napoleon a printer. Mrs. D. — But, despite their laudable tribute to the dignity of labour, the one lost his head and the other his throne. If. D. — There must be something very attractive in the skilled trades ; and as soon as I go home, I shall certainly have fitted up a joiner's bench or turner's lathe. One of the Workmen. — Sir, you would do better to stay here in Utopia; for all these workshops and many others we have in abundance ; and it occurs very often that visitors coming from foreign parts to Utopia, enter our workshops as apprentices, learn a trade or two, and become thus naturalized citizens of our ■country. Mr. D. — After this conversation I have no doubt that skilled trades, and even heavy manual occupations, have their attractions; but these would, in my opinion, not suffice to make men work without the influence of other stimulants. Charles. — There are many more inducements for the strict and faithful performance of our work, whenever and wherever we take it into our hands. Amongst others we consider the system of decoration and promotion one of the strongest. Mr. D. — I grant you one thing before you proceed further with your remarks. xV combination of decoration with a system of 22 LIFE IN UTOPIA. promotion is the proper thing ; but decoration without promotion counts for very Httle as an element of inducement to labour. H. D. — Our EngUsh soldiers owe not a little of their courage and daring to a just system of decoration and promotion. I myself heard a soldier say, that the next time he was sent to the front he would earn the Victoria Cross. M7-S. D. — And perhaps be made a corporal. Miss D. — And obtain permission to marry. {Ahf a sigJi.) Charles. — All these privileges we possess in Utopia ; and as to marriage, there is not a young man or woman unmarried amongst the Utopians. Ali^s D. — How cruel, on the contrary, is our own country, which is leaving so many women unmarried, and young ones too. {^Ah me ! - a7id a deep sigJi.) Mrs. D. — It is a proper and perhaps providential state of things, for if all could and would marry, our country would soon become so over-populated that no one could live in it. H. D. — I hope, mother, you will not introduce here the population topic ; for you are a fanatical Malthusian, and we should have to enter into an interminable and embittered discus- sion upon it. Giiide. — On this subject I may mention, en passant., that, as marriages amongst our young people are restricted to the age of eighteen for women and twenty for men, early marriages at the unripe age of thirteen to eighteen are therefore prohibited ; and this puts a not inconsiderable check on the increase of our popu- lation. Of other impediments to over-population, and of its abatements, I shall tell you something on a later occasion. H. D. — Then, sir, let us take up again the subject of decora- tion and promotion as an inducement to labour. Guide. — Utopia awards four distinct grades of decoration to the members of her industrial army : namely, a brass medal for ten years' satisfactory service ; a silver one after twenty years' work, and a gold one on the completion of the total twenty-five years' service ; the last five years being generally spent in the distribution of produce, and also in superintending, managing, and directing labour and industry. Airs. D. — And which is the fourth decoration, sir? Guide. — It is the grand star of merit, set in brilliant diamonds, and is awarded only to persons who have distinguished themselves by their eminent service as discoverers, inventors, and promoters of science, art, and industry. This highest order of merit is like- wise granted to all those who, by great courage, superhuman efforts, and noble disregard of their own lives and comforts, have LIFE IN UTOriA. 23 saved others from drowning or perishing in fire. Also those who have courageously joined rescuing parties, manning life-boats or descending into mines where men are entombed, have a claim to be decorated with the brilliant star of the grand order of merit. The possessors of these four kinds of decorations are only allowed to wear them on holidays and other festive occasions, of which there are many in Utopia, when they have their best clothes on. Afiss D. — Are women decorated in Utopia? Guide. — Just the same as men, for similar service and merit. We have even had the sublime satisfaction of decorating several Grace Darlings with the brilliant star of merit. And when a great number of our men and women, being decorated with silver and gold medals, and wearing the brilliant order of highest merit, parade the streets, the sight of such a display can but have a most beneficial and inciting influence on those who have not yet received any decoration ; were it not for the example they thus visibly and impressibly give to others, they would wear no decora- tions, but be content with the consciousness of having done their very best in the service of the State and through it to themselves and their fellow-men. Mr. D. [addressing the Men on the tailors' bench). — And now, my friends, let us hear something of the system of promotion which gives you some incitement to labour. Fred. — We aspire first to become foremen, to which rank we are elected by our fellow-workmen for one year's term, during which time the elected foremen are exempt from the work which the men under their command and supervision perform. But nearly all our foremen are generously disposed to voluntarily labour with those under them when time permits them to do so. Any foreman may, after a year's service, be re-elected ; and the oftener a man is re-elected in his own trade, and has thus shown that he is an able director of labour and labourers, he may be promoted to a membership in the supreme council of industry and trade ; and having become a member of the council, he may be elected its president, and as such have a seat in the ministry of the State. H. D. — I wish our English workmen had such prospects in view. It is true there are a few of them M.P.'s, but it will be a long time before any of them obtain a seat in the ministry. Mr. D. — \Ve know only of one instance when a bona-fide working-man had a seat in the government of his country, and that man was Albert, who sat in the provisional government of the French Republic in 1S48. 24 LIFE IN UTOriA. Guide {addressing the Men). — Now, my men, I don't think that you have exhausted the hst of stimulants that induce you to work. Charles. — There are many more which we have not yet men- tioned to our friendly visitors. One of the most important and })owerfu], for every Utopian, is the early and total cessation from labour, after he has worked twenty-five years about three months every year, when he will be about forty-five years old. Mr. D. — And what would happen if he did not perform the amount of work the State expected of him in these years ? Charles. — His dispensation from labour would be deferred pro- portionately to his neglect. Mrs. D. — Many of our English workmen would neglect work often if an ulterior punishment for their neglect of duty was deferred ten or twenty years. Guide. — -But, madam, the postponing of the dispensation from work after twenty-five years' service is only the first degree of our punishment for idleness. It cannot extend the prolongation to more than five years, and that only after a workman has been reported a dozen times for neglecting service. Should his idle- ness, however, cause more than a dozen reports, it becomes a crime punishable by imprisonment with hard labour and spare diet. Charles. — No workman in Utopia is so foolish and senseless as to destroy his fairest prospect in life, which the dispensation from labour holds out to him. Mr. D. — This prolonged dispensation from labour at the early age of forty-five seems to me rather an inconvenience than a boon. 1 should really not know what to do in the next twenty, thirty, and may be forty years of my subsequent existence. Guide. — But, sir, as all Utopians are conversant with science and art, they estimate that period of their life which succeeds their cessation from labour as the most welcome opportunity for the pursuit of their favourite occupations. The rapturous pre- sentiment with which every Utopian awaits the realization of this happy second half of his earthly existence is beautifully described by Bellamy, who says that the inhabitants of regenerated Boston entertain a similar joyous expectation of being freed from labour at the comparatively early age of forty-five. He writes in this strain ; " We all agree in looking forward to the date of our discharge, as the time when we shall first enter upon the full enjoyment of our birthright, the period when we shall first really attain our majority and become enfranchised from discipline and control, with the fee of our lives vested in ourselves ! As eager boys in your day LIFE IN UTOPIA. 2$ anticipated twenty-one, so men now-a-days look forward to forty- five. At twenty-one we become men, but at forty-five we renew youth." Charles. — But this does not say, that at that charming period of our hves we shall be wholly and exclusively occupied in science and art. ^\'e shall perhaps more eagerly use our long leisure time for the pursuit of pleasure in travelling, staying in health resorts, and in the Utopian country mansions, the former histori- cal castles of our ancient nobility ; walk on the carpeted lawns, and shadowy parks that surround them, make rambles into the adjacent country, or seek sport in hunting, fishing, and yachting. Miss D. — And do the women enjoy the same privilege in the exemption from labour at their forty- fifth year, and in the sharing of all the subsequent leisure and pleasure, like the men ? Guide. — Certainly, Miss ; and their enjoyment is the greater as they travel, reside, or ramble in the country or abroad, either in company with their husbands, their friends, or with other women. Miss D. — How delightful ! I wish I could bear them com- pany. Fred. — I have yet forgotten to mention to our visitors some other things that act favourably on our endeavours to do the best at our work, and among these I reckon companionship. We like to work in company with others ; and in doing so we can mutu- ally cheer, encourage, and advise each other, and entertain our- selves with song, talk, or whistle. To be solitary and alone at my work would soon drive me mad. Guide. — Most of our handicraftsmen and artizans work in groups of twelve and upwards. Miss D. — I cannot imagine any more sorrowful situation than the poor seamstress in a lonely room. H. D. — Or the solitary shoemaker in a dark basement-cellar of a dilapidated house. Mrs. D. — But, Harry, many of our English workmen who labour in their rooms are not so solitary as you imagine, for they have their wives and children about them the whole day. Mr. D. — And whom they often shamefully ill-use. H. D. — Such ill-treatment is happily only exceptional. Cliarles. — As we in Utopia work only from eight to twelve and from two to six, we can be at least six hours every day in com- pany with our wives and our youngest children, the grown-up ones being away in schools. When they come home from the edu- cational establishments and training schools, looking the very picture of health, and grown in stature and intelligence, we love 26 LIFE IN UTOriA. and admire them much more than if they had ahvays been with us. Afrs. D. — This is a very proper arrangement, and it comes to the same as the sending of grown-up boys and girls to boarding schools and colleges by wealthy English people. Miss D. — And if all our people, including the working-classes, could do the same, we should be in the enviable position of the Utopians. Guide. — The frequent presence of visitors to our workshops from the ranks of our own people, especially from those who have passed the dispensation from labour, is no inconsiderable stim- ulant to labour ; for these visitors, having themselves had the fullest experience in labour, possess a most accurate and discern- ing eye in detecting any working-man not doing his duty, but they make a correction or admonition always in the most friendly manner, well knowing that it is then more effective than if given in a brusque and offensive way. Mrs. Z>.— But what incentives have Utopians for the incompetent, the clumsy and unskilful workman ? Surely such cannot with all possible incentives turn out work to the same amount and finish as the clever mechanic? Charles. — No workman amongst us in Utopia is called a stupid, but is considered with humane forbearance, and has inferior and easier branches of work assigned to him ; yet he enjoys, for all that, the same privileges, regard, and honour as the skilful, dex- terous, and quick workman ; and seeing that he is treated with respect and kindness by both foreman and mates, he tries to do his very best, and this constitutes his just claim to be on an equality with them. Miss D. — How wisely humane and forbearingly just the Utopians are ! H. D. — Not so we in England. Our incompetents are pushed to the wall and crushed by the stern and unmerciful competition of abler craftsmen. Guide. — Moreover, all our workmen being from their very youth initiated in handicrafts, find it an easy task ; and being also from an early age educated up to the serious duty of labour, and seeing that all must work to live, they enter the industrial service with a considerable foreknowledge of the work they will have to perform, and feel that it is their bounden duty to do it. And you. Jack, what is it that makes you ply your needle with such rapidity and alacrity? Jack. — It is, sir, because I get plenty of good food before, be- tween, and after our work-time ; and the quicker and harder I work, LIFE IN UTOPIA. 2/ the greater is my appetite, and when my hunger is satisfied my needle goes as by enchantment. H. D. — A sensible man this, for I myself don't like to be long without food, and an empty stomach always makes me dull. Jack. — And l)esides our good food, our work is not continuous, and we have plenty of leisure time, quite as much as we like. Guide. — And you, Sam, what serves you as an attraction to work ? Sam. — It is the very work itself, sir ; for when I have turned out a well-cut, well-finished, well-fitting, and new-fashioned gar- ment, I am as pleased with it as if I had executed a great musical composition or a highly finished steel-engraving. Mr. Ruskin's saying, " When one gets to love work, his life is a happy one," sounds continually in my ears. Guide. — I must here remark that our Sam is an excellent and much-admired musical composer, and has executed some large and highly-finished steel-engravings both of old and new paint- ings. Saul. — Besides, our work-time being so short and our leisure so long, no one ever complains of work getting tedious and tiresome. The old English saying, " All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy," is therefore not in use in Utopia. Guide. — And despite all his excellence in tailoring, musical composition, and engraving, he shows not the slightest trace of being proud, and prefers being called Sam to Samuel, the Biblical appellation. Sam. — And I do so chiefly in remembrance of the working-men who passed by that name in former unhappy times, when this country had not yet adopted the Utopian organization of society. Mr. D. — This custom of yours in sticking to a humble name, puts me in remembrance of an inscription in golden letters, deeply cut in black marble, over the entrance gate of one of the largest commission merchant's warehouses in Manchester, and which merely bore the words : " Sam Mendel." I was told at the time that the proprietor of this gigantic warehouse rose from the lowest rank of porters to the highest eminence a man could reach in that great town of the commercial world, and that, to show his humble origin, he retained the name Sam by which he was called when yet a simple porter. Guide. — And you. Bob, what do you consider an effective en- couragement to labour ? Bob. — It is an all-pervading watchfulness in every workshop and department of labour by the eye of the foreman in authority, as also by that of the workers themselves for mutual and reci pro- 28 LIFE IN UTOPIA. cal supervision. The regard we pay to this watchfulness is greatly enhanced by the fact that there are amongst the workers in all shops and labour-yards men of high esteem and merit, members of the learned professions, renowned artists, literary celebrities, working as mates with them on the same bench or in the same yard, and these distinguished men naturally give us workers the best example of perseverance and assiduity, and we should feel ashamed if we did not imitate or even surpass them. Guide. — And what other benefit does Utopia derive from the presence of artists and men of science in the ranks of labour ? Bob. — These are the very men who know how to give an artis- tic shape and aspect to all articles of produce, and are, moreover, sharp-sighted enough in detecting imperfections in the process of labour, in the shape and use of tools ; and in this way many valuable inventions are made. Miss D. — I highly admire this application of artistic beauty to all things that come from the hand of the artizan, and it follows admirably the example which the Greek and Roman artizans left us in the artistic turn they gave to all objects of work, not even excepting the spokes of a wheel or the commonest kitchen utensil. Mr. D. — From all the answers the men have given us, and from the explanations which you have added to them, we can clearly see the possibility of inducing men to work, and to work with delight, without any reward in payment of wages. We have now only to ask one more question of you. Guide. — \V hatever you ask us, we will give you a ready, and, if possible, an intelligible answer. Mr. D. — Then let me inquire what is the condition of appren- tices in your labour arrangements ? Guide. — All our apprentices enter our workshops with some previous acquaintance of the trades which they have chosen for themselves, and in which they have been, to some extent, in- structed in the public training schools ; so that when they enter into the apprenticeship of the real workshops, they know at least already the use of tools, and their proper apprenticeship scarcely ever lasts more than a year. H. D. — What a difference ! In our country there is no appren- ticeship under a term of three years. J/r. D. — It was formerly even for the long term of seven years. Fred. — We teach our apprentices as quickly and as efficiently as we can, for the more of them we turn out skilled mechanics, the more workmen will there be in all, and the less work will each individual workman have to perform. LIFE IN UTOriA. 29 Air. D. — How different and lamental)le, on the contrary, is the condition of apprentices in my own country ! Little is taught them except what they pick up for themselves. Our workmen regard them as their enemies, and, when made efficient, as their future dreaded competitors in the labour market. Mrs. D. — And I know but too well that they even treat them sometimes with insolent harshness and cruelty. {Guide, Visitors, and Workmen leave the room.) CHAPTER VI. A VISIT TO AN artist's STUDIO. [On one side of the room stands an easel., and a chemist^ s chest on the other. Artist at work with palette and brush in his hands.) Guide. — Good-morning, Professor Wilson. Piof. — Good-morning, sir. Guide. — Excuse me, sir, for introducing this party of visitors to you at so early an hour as seven o'clock. They have come from a foreign land, and are so anxious to see our metropolis and our modes of working and living, that they intend to spend every day, from early morning till late in the evening, in visiting and inspect- ing all our public buildings and institutions, including picture- galleries and art-studios. Prof. — I offer you all a hearty and sincere welcome, my friends. Your visit does not in the least inconvenience me on account of it being at so early an hour, for. I have been already at work since four o'clock. Guide. — I am astonished. Professor, at your activity. Prof. — -I could not sleep at all last night, for I was pursued and finally lifted from my bed by the conception of a new picture for a large canvas ; and although I have passed a sleepless night, and have worked since early dawn, I feel better, and certainly happier, than if I had slept well the whole night and got up when the sun was high in the zenith. I am now greatly elated, and almost in a state of ecstasy since I have represented my ideas on canvas, and my imagination has taken a visible form. Miss D. — Are not imaginations and ideas for new conceptions often haunting you, sir ? Prof. — Almost continually, by night and day. Miss D. — And disturbing your sleep? Prof. — Often, Miss. Afrs. D. — If such is the case, it must be very injurious to your health and longevity. 30 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Prof. — I have felt no injurious effect from it on my health. I feel happy, contented, and well. Guide. — Such continued activity in one branch of art, and the perpetual strain it must exercise on the imaginative and con- ceptive power of the brain, would certainly prove injurious to many a constitution and threaten many a useful life, were it not for the admirable and occasional interruption which Utopia has devised, by making all artists and professional men share in the wholesome and useful participation of physical labour. All our artists are consequently marvellously long-lived. Miss D. — Had such an arrangement existed in Europe, the lives of Raphael and Mozart, who both died at a very early age, to the great detriment of art, might have been prolonged many years. H. D. — And I ascribe even the longevity of Haydn, who died at the age of ninety, to his frequent journeys to England, which at his time had to be made in post-carriages and slow sailing vessels, thus necessitating long interceptions of the great com- poser's activity, greatly conducing to his health. Prof. — There is great truth in your remarks, my friends. I always feel myself greatly restored and fortified both in body, mind, and imagination, when I return from my labour in a factory, mine, or a quarry, or having volunteered as a common sailor amongst the crew of an ordinary trading vessel or a steamboat. Mr. D. — Every one of us must admit that there is no better proof of the excellency and beneficial effects of the Utopian cus- tom of alternating art with manual labour than the experience, admission, and assertion of Professor Wilson himself. Prof. — I consider the common sharing of all labour one of the most beneficial, just, and humane institutions in Utopia. H. D. — And in what kind of mechanical labour do you gene- rally participate, Professor ? Prof — I have chosen calico-printing as one of my occasional occupations, as it has some relation to the art of painting and designing ; and occasionally I am engaged in works where chemi- cals are produced, for these have relation to chemistry, a science in which I have been studying and experimenting since my early youth. From my studio I just step into that laboratory (pointing to a side door), where I have retorts, melting crucibles, filters and sand-baths at work ; and having seen that they are all in proper activity, I return again to my easel. AJr. D. — And of what use have your chemical experiments been to you ? ^ Prof. — Certainly not mere detractions, for I have by their LIFE IN UTOriA. 31 continuance discovered several new chemical colours for the use of painters, and an important mordant for calico-printing. But if I had not discovered any new chemical substance or combination, I should nevertheless be provided with a rich chemical chest and an efficient laboratory. H. D. — But surely, sir, every one who knows something of chemistry — and there must be many in Utopia— is not provided with a complete laboratory and a well-filled chest of chemicals ? Frof. — Only those who have had the highest degree of profici- ency conferred upon them by the academy of science, and by the assent of the people, are entitled to this privilege. H. D. — But how do the inferior men of the chemical science, and especially the amateurs, fare ? Prof. — Utopia provides for all of them proportionate means for studying and pursuing their favourite science ; and as there are, in all sciences and arts, three degrees of efficiency — namely, members of academies, masters of art, and undergraduates or novices — so are there three degrees in the quality, quantity, and variety of scientific and artistic implements and materials assigned to them. All our people may be artists and scientists, for Utopia leaves a scientific or artistic career open to all her citizens of both sexes, but makes physical labour a bounden duty to them. U'he avenues in the realms of science and art are thrown open by the State at certain periods every year, and as the most attractive and distinguished occupations can only be found in them, they are instantaneously filled up by numerous novices and under- graduates, who perhaps in the next year become masters of arts, and are as such eligible to a membership in the academies. AH these you may call amateurs. There is in Utopia, however, one essential distinction between an artistic or scientific occupation and that of handicrafts or manual labours. The first is entirely voluntary, the second only partly so ; for although we may choose any handicraft we like, our work in it is obligatory, and we cannot without a penalty absent ourselves from it, whereas we may abstain from ever entering a scientific or artistic occupation, and having entered it, may also again voluntarily quit it. Air. D. — Utopia acted very wisely in making the study of sciences and arts a voluntary gratification to her people. She certainly realized in this instance Goldsmith's saying: "There is unspeakable pleasure attending the life of a voluntary student." Ahs. D. — But I should think that your novices, undcr-gradu- ates, and amateurs must be entirely unacquainted with the rudi- ments of any art or science, not to mention the difficulties and 32 LIFE IN UTOPIA. disappointments they may on this account meet with in their study. Guide. — By no means, madam. Utopia has by a wise educa- tional system put an impediment against such a contingency. The rudiments and elementary practice of all arts and sciences are taught in all our schools, but not until the pupils are proficient in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Then they enter tlie artistic, essay, and training classes, wliich they are, without distinction, obliged to frequent as long as their presence in them is found use- ful and advantageous to the progress of science and art. Mrs. D. — But surely, sir, you cannot make artists and scientists of all children ? Prof. — Permit me, madam, to add an important remark to your observation. The sole aim and purpose of this early and elementary instruction of all children in the practice of arts and study of sciences is the discovery of special talents, aptitudes, and may be children of genius amongst the scholars, and the training of those who have passed the initiatory essay classes with distinction. There are consequently in all our educational estab- lishments two classes engaged in the preparation and advance- ment of pupils to an artistic or scientific career, and these we call respectively essay and training classes. In the former talents and geniuses are found out, in the latter they are improved. In giving artistic and scientific instruction to all her children, regardless of age and sex, Utopia has realized the noble aspiration and prophetic forecast which H. W. Beecher expressed in the following memorable words : " The time will come when there will be liberty for all who are ordained artists, to become artists without rebuke, when scholars may become scholars, when orators may be orators, whether they be men or women." Mr. D. — But who has made your schoolmasters efficient teachers in arts and sciences ? Prof. — Nobody, sir ; nor do many of them know much of science or art. The staff of teachers for the essay and training classes are exclusively drawn from the ranks of accomplished artists and men of science, especially from the masters of art and members of academies. And it is on account of these onerous duties artists and scientists perform, in relays, at these classes, that they assume the title of professor, as I am entitled to do, having served already several times in the capacity of teacher in he educational staff of the art-training schools. H. D. — Your statements, sir, put me in mind of the lectures which Professor Tyndal and Faraday used to give to juveniles at the Royal Society, and to which I always asked mother to take me. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 33 Mrs. D. — And where you laughed and applauded frantically when you saw some flash experiment. H. D. — But what I saw I ever remembered afterwards, and tried to explain. Prof. — The lectures by those eminent professors which you heard, sir, when yet a youth, may in reality be regarded as the embryo of our artistic and scientific training schools, the differ- ence consisting merely in the number of lectures and teachers; for while at the Royal Society they are exclusively confined to a few at Christmas, and that on one subject and by one exponent only, they are, in our institutions, continued throughout the whole year by a numerous staff of professors, and on a great variety of subjects. Miss D. — I find it an excellent plan that all those who in the fine arts and scientific erudition have risen to eminence should be gently compelled and authoritatively induced to teach others what they themselves know to perfection, and show how they have acquired such skill and knowledge. Mr. D. — Your remark, daughter, is a sensible one. I always thought it very much to be regretted, to say the least of it, that Beethoven, Handel, and Paganini never had any pupils, and that only Mozart and Liszt made honourable exceptions to this system of keeping to yourself what you know. Miss D. — In the case of Mozart and Liszt, their laudable dis- interestedness has had great and notorious results ; for Hummel, Mozart's only pupil, ranks next to his master as a composer of classical music, and Liszt's numerous pupils became all pianists of eminence. Prof. — And our great masters of the art of painting, like Michael Angelo and Raphael, had not only numerous pupils, but founded schools of their own, to which they gave the impress of their own genius. Guide. — There is in Utopia no lack of pupils or masters in the fine arts. {Guide to Professor.) Now, Professor, explain to our visitors the constitution of our art-academies, and their func- tions in relation to their members. Prof. — Every one of our art-academies is governed by a coun- cil of twelve, and is presided over by one of its most distinguished members. This council elects and appoints the members of the academy from the ranks of the masters of art ] and the M.A.'s again recruit themselves from the ranks of novices who have been sent into academic supervision from the art-training schools, where only the most promising and advanced pupils have been selected as novices for admission into the academies. The superior grades superintend the lower ones in the same manner as in the elections; D 34 LIFE IN UTOPIA. and also their authority is exercised in the graduated dis- tribution of the appliances, implements, and materials used by artists, as, for instance, canvas, colours, palettes, and brushes, for the painter ; clay, marble, chisels, drapery, and models, for the sculptor ; musical instruments, and printed or written music, for the musician ; and for dramatic artists and actors, a stage and scenery, with the necessary performers and co-actors. Mrs. D. — Will your artists, actors, and musicians, not often have to perform to empty benches ? Frof. — Not at all, madam, for the performances of our artists' first productions on the stage, in the concert-hall, or private saloon, are generally attended by audiences overflowing in num- bers and sympathy, and that for several reasons. Utopia having a great number of artists in every branch, who are also members of academies, grants them first performances or exhibitions of their works of art, and it is quite natural that all the members of an academy flock to the first performance of a work by one or several of their fellow-members. The friends of the artists make another sympathetic party of the audience ; and the intelligent and art-loving public furnish the third, and always the greatest contingent. Mrs. D. — But, sir, as there are so many artists in Utopia, all their productions cannot possibly be performed or exhibited. Prof. — Madam, nothing in this respect is impossible in Utopia, where every work of art can be brought before the eyes and ears of the public for appreciation, inspection, and criticism ; and I must here remark that our art-critics are the severest, and also the most impartial, that have ever gazed on, or listened to, a work of art. The possibility of performing and exhibiting the works of all artists, I prove by the following explanation. The same as there are three grades of artists — namely, members of academies, masters of art, and novices — so are there three graduated modes of bringing their works before the public. To illustrate this, I will, for instance, take the work of a painter. If he is a member of the academy, his work will be exhibited in the principal annual saloon, and subsequently hung in the national picture gallery, where it will for ever remain, and become immortalized with the artist's name. If he is a master of art, he will exhibit in a secon- dary and smaller saloon ; and if his pictures are worth a perma- nent public view, they will be hung in the public dining, reading, and meeting-rooms. The works of novices, which are sometimes of considerable merit, are exhibited in the artists' own studios, and when finding admirers, are hung in the smaller rooms of the associated homes, in passages, kitchens, and workshops. LIFE IN UTOriA. 35 ^fiss D. — These illustrations of yours, Professor, are really very interesting ; may I ask you to give us another one, as to how a dramatic poet brings his work before the public ? Prof. — If he is a member of the dramatic academy, his work is acted, and set in scenery on the stage ; if he is a master of art, his piece will be read publicly to an assembly of actors, art-critics, and members of the academy ; and if he is but a novice, he will read his work to his teachers and friends, but not in public. Mrs. D. — And what about the musicians ? I hope you will tell us something as to how their craft is nurtured. Prof. — In a similar manner as the other fine arts. There will be amongst them members of the musical academy, whose works have a claim to public performance, either by a full orchestra, or other instrumental combination, in a concert-hall, or in the national opera-house, by solo-singers, choruses, and band. If any of their works become popular, they are printed by advice of the academy, and performed in all our towns. Masters of art have their works performed before an assembly of academists, art-critics, and friends, but not in public. Novices perform in their own music-rooms before their fellow-students, friends, and companions. H. D. — Sir, permit me to reopen once more the question of the distribution of art appliances and materials. I can easily see how painting materials, canvas, colours, palettes, and brushes can be abundantly, and almost in ecjual quantity and quality, supplied to all artist-painters ; but when we come to musicians, I cannot see my way to supply all the skilled instrumentalists with the best instruments, which are, of course, very rare and costly, such as a violin by Amati, Stradivarius, or Stainer. Prof. — Our guide, who is an excellent performer on the violin, although only a master of art, can dispel your fears concerning the distriliution of musical instruments, in a quicker and more satisfactory manner than I. Guide. — The best instruments, violins, cellos, flutes, pianos, etc., are in the possession of the most eminent performers, who, by their eminence, are members of the academy. H. D. — But what would they do if there were only one, or a few of the very best instruments for a considerable number of performers ? Guide. — They pass these instruments from hand to hand to every member of the academy who is an acknowledged first-rate performer. Paganini's fiddle has made this migratory circuit many a time through the hands of all our eminent violinists, and I am striving with might and main to attain to such a degree of proficiency as will procure me admission into the academy of 36 LIFE IN UTOPIA. music, and having become a member of it I shall enjoy the privi- lege of playing upon this charming and bewitching instrument, from which the spirit of the great violinist seems still to speak. Members of the academy, besides being occasionally in possession of Paganini's fiddle, a Stradivarius or an Amati's, have each another very good violin assigned to them. Second and third- rate violinists must content themselves with inferior instruments. Mrs. D. — But, sir, our English artists, painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, and actresses will do nothing without being well paid for their work. Our prima donnas would not enter an opera-house without having the road to it paved with gold. Guide. — Our artists having voluntarily chosen an artistic voca- tion, perform voluntarily. Those who are members of the musi- cal academy perform from a sense of duty due to their member- ship, owing to the possession of the best instruments. Others, especially the novices and masters of art, perform from an anxious aspiration to fame, and admittance into the academy. Mr. D. — Then, sir, I shall be pretty near the truth, when I think that your artists and men of science produce their works by striving for fame, by which artists in all ages and countries have been impelled to activity. Frof. — Partly so, sir, but principally for the love of art itself; for the greater and more eminent our artists are, the greater is the attraction and inspiration that art exercises over them, and the greater are the works they produce. In confirmation of this prin- ciple I am delighted to adduce a striking proof from the life of Sophocles, who not only wrote a hundred tragedies, and amongst them some of the greatest works of art, so that on one occasion he wrested even the prize from ^schylus at the festival of Bac- cheus ; and you will be astonished when I tell you that he pro- duced all his prodigious works for the love of art alone ; for the etiquette of ancient Greece forbade any man to dispose of the creations of his genius for gold, the crown of wild olive being his only reward. Mrs. D. — Are your artists ever engaged in portrait-painting or modelling portrait-statuettes, for this seems an occupation which our English painters and sculptors only reluctantly take up when they are short of money, knowing that they are always paid well, be the portrait a good or bad likeness of the person who has been sitting for it. Frof. — We have plenty of portrait-painting in our studios, madam. First there is our national portrait-gallery, to which a dozen or more portraits are added every year, and the execution of which the State entrusts to those members of the academy who LIFE IN UTOPIA. 37 are the best portrait-painters. Painters, sculptors, and engravers are generally most eager to execute these paintings of eminent men, partly as a tribute of recognition to merit, and partly because the name of the painter will go down to distant posterity with the celebrated men with whom they sat face to face. Guiik.— Besides the portraits of illustrious men which our artists execute by command of the academy and State, they fre- quently paint themselves, their wives, children, and friends. Prof. — But our Utopian artists are especially anxious to paint, design, engrave, photogragh, model, chisel in marble, or cast in bronze the likenesses of beautiful women, and the nation has built a special gallery for the permanent exhibition of the portraits of these beauties. Mrs. D. — I should call it a vulgar beauty show. Miss D. — Mother, you have always been accustomed to cast a slur on all shining beauties, but you should at least perceive the skill of the artist in their portraiture, for I think it to be one of the most difficult tasks of a painter to produce a true likeness of a striking beauty. Mrs. D. — But, Professor, would not your fellow-artists, with their preference for making and taking portraits of beautiful young women, neglect those of elderly matrons ? Prof. — By no means, madam ; for lineaments of real beauty, and even complexion, do not fade in the matron, but take a beauteous stateliness, which neither the old masters nor our own artists have neglected to depict ; and as there are in Utopia many painters, and consequently many mothers of painters, their portraits will be painted by their dutiful sons ; and as many of our Utopian matrons are eminent artists or distinguished members of the learned professions, they will either paint their own por- traits, or other artists will be charged by the State or academy to paint them. Mr. D. — If these matrons paint their own portraits, they will certainly not neglect to flatter themselves. Mrs. D. — Was there ever a portrait that was not, to some extent, a piece of flattery — to wit, your own, in our drawing-room ? Mr. D. — It is more a disfigurement than an exaggeration of the beauty I could boast when I was young. H. D. — Now, Professor Wilson, I must once more refer to your statement that you always felt greatly refreshed in body and mind, and newly filled with energy for your artistic employment, after you had returned home from sea, field, or mine ; and may I ask you, did not the temporary participation in those occupa- tions greatly interrupt your artistic activity, and materially reduce 38 LIFE IN UTOPIA. the number of great works which the nation and academy might have expected from you ? Prof. — I acknowledge the importance of your question, but am able to answer it most satisfactorily by stating that in such a case relief is quickly at hand ; for the generosity and admiration the Utopians manifest on all occasions towards first-rate artists, and other eminent men, is so great, that as soon as such a case gets known, numbers of volunteers from amongst our people present themselves to be enrolled in the ranks of labour, instead of those who are for the moment arduously engaged in executing a masterpiece of art, or making an important scientific experi- ment, or finishing a great literary work. Guide. — But so great is the sentiment of humanity felt by our great masters of art and science, that they rarely accept this proffered substitution of their service in physical labour, but most cheerfully and uniformly share all labour equally with others, and are never absent where dangers are to be braved or discomforts to be endured. {Guide and Visitors iake leave of Professor Wilson, and resolve 07i inaking a visit to a needlewo7nen^ s workslwp. ) CHAPTER VII. A needlewomen's workshop. (Talk amo)!git the Women.') Lena. — I should be glad if our work-hour was over ! All {respond in turn).- — So should I ! so should I ! so should I ! Rose. — And I too. Blanche. — I don't dislike work, but merely the fixed time of it. Isabella. — How can you like work, when you dislike the time of it? Blanche. — I like to work when I list. Elfrida. — I like the regularity of work, it makes it easier. Christina. — Work can never be easy, for it is said, " In the sweat of thy brow shalt thou earn thy bread." Ada. — That was said only to Adam, and not to Eve. Maud. — But as Eve was his wife, the woman has to bear the same trouble as the man, Christina. The one of you who said this is well up in Holy Writ, and should superintend a Bible-class. Ada. — So I do ; and that is the kind of work I like. Several. — And which all of us should like. Hilda. — When I ply my needle I do as good and meritorious a work as if I expounded the Word of God. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 39 Christina. — True ; so we say, labor are est or are. Isabella. — And I say, that the only prayer worth the name of such is work. Lena. — And, my fellow-workers, what do you intend to do when our work is over and the clock strikes five ? JosepJiine. — I am going to see my young man. Isabella. — I am going home to see my husband. Gertrude.— Knd I am going to pay a visit to the national boarding-school where my boys are being brought up. Hilda. — And I am going home to nurse my twin-babies — angelic creatures they are, only two years old. Alice. — I think a woman is the happier the more babies she has. I also had once two cradles going. C/iristina. — Bless the babies ! Isabella. — And their mothers ! Josephine. — I wish all women were mothers ! Christina. — Then all must first get married. Isabella. — Is there any one amongst us who is not married ? Josephine. — I am not ; didn't I just say that after 5 o'clock I was going to see my young man ? Ada. — I envy you. Josephine. — You ought not ; for when you were a spinster, you also liked to go and see your young man ; and since you got married to him, you ought to be the happier, and have no reason to envy me. Ada. — I don't think I am the happier, and cannot help envy- ing you. Josephine. — It is because you have no children. You ought to get a divorce ; for our Utopian laws regard a childless mar- riage an unnatural matrimonial union, and permit its dissolution. Ada. — If my husband should desire a divorce, I shall do as you advise ; but if he should oppose me, I should submit to him, for it is written in St. Paul's Epistle to the Ephesians : " Wives, submit yourselves unto your husbands." Lena. — I should just like to know what you all are going to do when our term of work expires a month hence ; but mark we are only in the first week of the term ? Hilda. — I shall go to the seaside with my husband and babes. Alice. — I shall join you with mine. Gertnide. — I shall go to an inland watering-place with husband and children. Maud. — So shall I with mine. Ada. — I shall make use of my travelling permission and make an excursion to an adjacent island with my husband. 40 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Elfrida. — And as you have no children, I shall join you with mine. Josephine. — And I shall immediately take up again the study and practice of music and drawing. {The Foreivoman or Mistress of the workshop enters.') Mistress. — Now, my friends, has every one of you done the task. I set? A Worker. — 'We shall have finished before the clock strikes five. Mistress. — Then you can rest during the visit of a party of strangers who wish to inspect the labour arrangements in Utopia. Answer their questions politely and correctly, and use no idl6 talk. One of the Workers (aside). — I wish they would do the same, and ask us no unnecessary and paltry questions. (A knock. The Strangers and Guide enter.) Forewoman. — Now, my busy women, put your work aside, and let me introduce to you these strangers, and now honoured guests in Utopia. The Workers {rising from their seats) exclaim with one hearty voice. — Welcome to you ! One of them. — \Ve are always highly delighted to see strangers, either in our workshops or in the streets of the city ; for they are so rare, and so few of them ever make a journey to Utopia, that all those who do come are always highly and cordially welcome to us. Guide. — As our honoured guests are now sojourning in Utopia to gain an insight into our institutions, and are especially anxious to get a detailed account of our labour arrangements, they will have to enter into a close and exhaustive conversation with you, and it will be convenient for such a purpose that you tell them your names by which you are known amongst your fellow-workers of the fair sex. Ansrcers. — My name is Lena. My name is Hilda. Mine is Elfrida. Mine is Josephine. I am called Blanche. And I am called Maud. My friends call me Gertrude. I pass by the name of Alice. My name is Ada. Mine is Rose. 1 am called Isabella. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 4 1 And I was christened Christina. Miss D. — ^\'hat a row of pretty names ! I wish, mother, you had given me one of them, instead of Mary Ann. Mrs. D. — I had that name given to you because it is my name ; and as we were then in very humble circumstances, I thought Mary Ann would suit you best. Common names are suitable for common people, and gentle names for gentle people. I should therefore have been rather pleased if they had told us that their names were Sally, Polly, Jenny, Lottie, Susan, Kate, Lucy, Minnie, and other names fit for hard-working people. Mr. D. — I deeply regret the now prevailing custom amongst our upper classes in England of giving their children heathen names instead of the venerable Christian and Biblical appella- tions. H. D. — Father, your remark just reminds me of a gentleman, high in the social rank, who had his son named Hector. Mrs. D. — What a profanation of holy baptism ! JI. D. — Later on, when his boy was about three years old, his father bought a valuable dog which answered to the name of Hector ; and whenever the boy was called, the dog would come first, being more obedient than the boy. H. D. {addressing the Ncedlewojiien). — Now, my pretty maids, tell us with what kind of work you are chiefly occupied in this workroom. Gertrude. — The first answer we have to give you is. We are not maids, but married women, except one of us ; and that conse- quently the beauty some of us still possess ought not to strike any- body else but our husbands. Mrs. D. — A sensible woman this, to be sure ! Miss D. — But the beauty of a woman cannot help striking all men. Mr. D. — But it is for the men not to be dazzled by it. G2dde. — Now, women of the needle, thimble, and thread, tell Qur guests what your principal occupation is in this shop ? Lena. — We perform here all the work of the seamstress, besides shirtmaking ; we make pillow-cases, seam bed-linen, dusters, towels, and similar needlework. J\ose. — But, my honoured visitors, we should feel ashamed it we could do no other work, and should soon get tired of and dislike it. Ada. — And do it badly. Isabella. — We like the variety of work. Alice. — It gives us such a zest for it. Mr. D. — And what variety of work is there open to you ? 42 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Maud. — A variety in many other occupations and workshops as well 35 in this one. Airs. D. — Surely you cannot have much variety to boast of in needlework, for it is simply stitch, stitch, stitch. Christina. — Even that stitch, stitch, stitch, is capable of being varied ; for we can have it done by the sewing machine with our foot on the treadle, or with the needle in our hand. Miss D. — I very much regret that our solitary English seam- stress and needlewoman cannot enjoy this recreative variety, as they are mostly too poor to purchase a sewing machine. Foreu>oma7i, — Our workwomen are certainly not solitary when at work, for they all labour in companies of from a dozen to twenty ; and when occupied in their work, they talk, chaff, joke, and even tease each other by an occasional prick with the needle, and I often add a word or laugh to their exhilarating mirth. Miss D. — How very different from the life of the solitary English seamstress ! Foreivoman. — There is even a variety in the various branches of their work. They are not confined to one and the same article, and may at one time be cutting out shirts or collars, and at another preparing and making bed-linen. Isabella. — And we are especially interested in collar and shirt- making, where we can display our taste and fancy in cutting out new shapes for collars, shirt-fronts and cuffs. Mr. D. — If I am not mistaken, the new-fashioned and continu- ally altering shape of these things is in England introduced by men who call themselves collar and shirt makers, and are mostly also dealers in these articles. H. D. — But they never yet called themselves by the mongrel names of needlemen and seamsters, although they have usurped the needlewoman's and seamstress' work. Miss D. — It is the same with men-milliners ; I never liked having anything to do with them. Lena. — My honoured and respected visitors, the pleasing variety of occupation which we derive from being acquainted with and skilled in all branches of needlework Mrs. D. — The jack-of-all-trades again. Gtiide. — Please, madam, don't interrupt the information they are willing to give you. Lena {continuing). — This variety would count for little, if there were not a greater one in store for us. Guide.— K\\o\y me, Lena, to interpose here a remark before you enter more particularly into the exposition of women's work and its variety in Utopia. In our country all must work, LIFE IN UTOPIA. 43 old and young, men and women, and even children of both sexes. Airs. D. {to her Son). — Harry, you would have fared badly had you ever been a schoolboy in Utopia ; for you never liked to do your home-lessons, not to speak of any other work they might have set you to do. H. D. — I can't say but that I might not have preferred manual labour to the dreary home-lessons which the schoolmaster used to give me. Guide. — It is a general experience we Utopians have, that all children are extremely fond of manual labour, of the handling of tools, using saw, gimlet, chisel, hie, or hammer ; and we have acted upon this experience, and made manual labour one of the elements of education, and as this education takes place in es- tablishments which serve our scholars as homes concerning main- tenance and habitation, their inmates have to keep them in order, sweep the rooms, clean and dust their contents, make their own beds, empty their own slop-pails, and fetch the water for washing themselves. And as all our schools and colleges are situated in the country, and are consequently surrounded on all sides by fields and woods, the pupils must take part in some light agricul- tural labour. That the boys and lads in all our schools are like- wise taught the elements of various trades and handicrafts, I have stated on a former occasion ; but what kind of work, and upon what principle it is assigned to women, I leave to the mistress of this workroom to explain to you. Foreivoman. — The principle by which our State was guided in allotting work to women aimed at two things : firstly, to make their labour varied, like all other work ; and secondly, to make it lighter than men's, exempting them from all heavy and dangerous occupations, though they have to participate in some unpleasant and slightly loathsome work, such as washing dirty linen, emptying chambers, shaking mats, brushing carpets, and sharing in all the necessary scullery work. Miss D. — To which mother and I have also at one time been accustomed, but since we have become independent our servants do it for us. Mrs. D. — But never do it so well as we used to. Forewoman. — My honoured lady-visitors, there are happily no servants in Utopia, for we attend upon each other in turns, and in that sense and manner serve and are served. But as domestic labour, such as making fires, cooking food, serving meals, clean- ing rooms, laundry and pantry work, is of a light nature, it has been almost exclusively assigned to women. 44 LIFE IN UTOriA. BIiDiche. — Another important variety in the performance of our work has also been secured to us by our acquaintance with other light occupations and occasional participation in them. Among these we reckon dress, bonnet, and mantle-making, embroidery, lace-work, and knitting. Mr. D. — I always wear hand-knitted socks and hand-sewn boots, and prefer them greatly to those made by machinery. Elfrida. — Some of us are also good hands in straw-plaiting for summer hats, and others in corset and stay-making. Fore7voiiian. — But that does not say that my needlewomen here work alternately in all those occupations. Needlework and do- mestic labour is obligatory to all of them, and they have only to choose two other branches of light employment from amongst the occupations that have been indicated to you. Miss D. — But why should women work in more occupations than men ? Guide. — Because, Miss, their labours are so light, and require so little apprenticeship, that they can scarcely be called trades ; any woman can work with little previous knowledge of them. There is, however, another weighty reason why Utopia has made house and needlework, besides two other light occupations, obligatory to all women, and this is their exemption from all heavy, dangerous, repulsive, and dirty work. H. D. — The Utopians act in this respect wisely and humanely. To expose women, and amongst them many mothers, to danger, might prove fatal to two human creatures, or deprive tender chil- dren of motherly nurture. The labour laws in some European countries even exempt women from labour several weeks before and after childbirth. Forewoman. — In Utopia they are, moreover, exempt from work the whole time they have any babies or infants to nurse or to attend to. Aliss D. — How very kind and considerate your customs are in comparison to those that obtain in our country, where factory women confide their babies to the care of neighbours, while they themselves go to their work in the factory as soon as they rise from childbed. Mr. D. — I even read of one who, being recently confined, and going, soon after confinement, to long hours of work at the factory, experienced such a pressing accumulation of milk in her breasts that they were nearly bursting, and she had to go out several times during the day to the lavatory and press the milk from her breasts, the most precious and nourishing infants' food, down in spurts into the gutter of the sewer. LIFE IN UTOriA. 45 Guide. — There is, however, still another branch of labour, and one especially performed and volunteered by women, and this is charitable employments. Mrs. D. — What do you call charitable labour, sir ? Guide. — When any of our women volunteer to do the work of a midwife, act as a nurse in a hospital or asylum for lunatics, or assist infirm people or cripples, and when they lend a helping hand in washing and laying out the dead. Mrs. D. — I should not like to volunteer to do any of these occu- pations, unless I was well paid for it. But by saying this I do not in the least intend dissuading your women from charitable works. Foreuwman. — Great numbers of them volunteer for this work, and the distinction and honour they earn by devoting themselves to the works and ministration of charity are very great. They are distinguished by their dress ; and when they appear amongst the people, men lift their hats to them and women bow their heads. They wear the order of the red cross, and are altogether exempt from all other work as long as they are engaged in the holy labour of charity. Mrs. D. — English nurses, midwives, and doctors must be well paid and fed, or else they will not attend a single case. H. D. — And by their greediness, justified by a perverse social system, deprive the poor of the efficient assistance of a nurse, mid- wife, or doctor in cases of need. Mr, D. — It is well known that not a few of our very poor English women are their own midwives, and deliver themselves at childbirth of their children. Mrs. D.— Horrible cases, that make one shudder ! Foreivovian. — That our women are quite disinterested in their works of charity, and for how long time they serve in charitable ministration, you can hear from their own lips. Now, my fellow- workers, tell our visitors in what branches of charitable labour you have been engaged, and for how long. Hilda. — I acted as a midwife in forty cases of childbirth. Maud. — And I was a nurse in the general hospital for three successive years. Frederica. — I was a nurse in a lunatic asylum for two years. Josephine. — And I served for five years in an asylum for the infirm and cripples. Ada. — And I attended the bedside of about 300 private patients, and when a death occurred, I helped to wash, dress, and lay out the body. Fhillis. — And I have been an attendant and teacher in the institution for the blind, deaf, and dumb these three years. 46 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Mr. D. — All honour and praise to you for your charitable work on behalf and for the relief of suffering humanity ! Guide. — My honoured visitors and respected workwomen, I feel much inclined to open now a discussion on the important subject of men's charitable labour ; and if you seamstresses, nurses, and midwives are no further interested in the matter I am going to introduce to our visitors, you may now retire. Hose. — We prefer staying here, for our husbands are often en- gaged in men's charitable labour ; and as this kind of work is often of a dangerous and hazardous kind, we feel great anxiety for their voluntary sacrifices in the service of humanity. Guide. — Although men's charitable work is by far more oner- ous and dangerous than women's, yet they volunteer with the same alacrity as women. A/iss Z?.— Then tell us, Guide, at once, some of their dangerous ventures and hazardous undertakings, for I am extremely inter- ested in all things that concern charity and humanity. Guide. — Our men's charitable work consists chiefly in manning our lifeboats, of which we have a good number ; in doing light- house service or rescuing men who are endangered in them ; in joining our fire brigades, of which there is one in every town ; in serving as pilots to ships entering our harbours and navigable rivers ; in joining rescuing parties, in mining accidents ; and last, but not least, in joining our army of grave-diggers. Airs. D. — What ! an army of grave-diggers ! you greatly astonish me. Guide ! Guide. — Madam, it is a humane and honourable custom among the Utopians to dig the graves of their own relations, friends, and other persons whom they have loved ; and you will find, in reading the biographies of our great men whose funerals receive such a tribute from the hands of their friends and admirers, that the names of their grave-diggers are always mentioned in the mem- orable accounts of their history. Our funerals are thus no mere shows of pageantry, but ceremonies sanctified by the tribute of the grave-digger's charitable labour. Mis. D. — I am now quite satisfied with your explanation, sir, and my wonder at the army of grave-diggers has now entirely dis- appeared. Blanche. — When one of our children, a little boy, died, my husband himself dug the grave for the poor little fellow. Mr. D. — I honour him for it. Blanche. — And so do I. Mr. D. — I also admire those who man a life-boat, join a fire- brigade, do lighthouse service, and so on ; but I have a serious LIFE IN UTOPIA. 4/ apprehension that these charitable volunteers will not be so efficient, though perhaps more daring, as the thoroughly trained and well-disciplined corps of our English lifeboat crews, our fire- men, our pilots, and our lighthouse-keepers. Guide. — 'Ho one in Utopia entertains any fear that our volunteers to charitable labour are in any way inefficient ; for the great leisure which all our people enjoy, amounting to quite three- quarters of the year, allows them ample time to practise for weeks, or even for months if required, in the particular branch which they have chosen for their exploits in charitable work. Alice. — My husband and others underwent several weeks' training in the fire-brigade ; and although he afterwards served with distinction as an efficient fireman at the breaking out of many a fire, he fell nevertheless a victim to the flames. I was greatly distressed at his untimely death, for he was only twenty-four years old, and a finer man was not to be met with in the whole of Utopia. I courageously suppressed my grief, and replaced it by the proud feeling of having been the wife of a man who nobly fell in the service of humanity. Christina. — And we wives cannot help thinking with admiration of your husband whenever we see you. Alice. — And I give you my most sincere and heartfelt thanks for remembering him. Forewoman. — My honoured visitors, if you like to address another short question to my workwomen, you must do so now, for I have to dismiss them exactly at 5 o'clock, as our labour laws do not permit any overtime, or remaining in] workshops when work is over. Mr. D. {to Forewoman). — Then I will ask them a question. {To Workwomen.) Are you seamstresses really as happy as you seem to be ? Hilda. — We should not be altogether so happy if we were only seamstresses and needlewomen, but we are something more, and this something more provides us the greatest enjoyments and makes us the happiest creatures on earth. Miss D. — Will you allow me to guess what this something is that makes you all so happy ? I venture to say it is marriage, or the enjoyment of companionship with your husbands and children. Christina. — That, Miss, is only part, and perhaps the greater part, of our happiness ; but it would still leave us without much that powerfully contributes to the enjoyment and happiness of our life. Mrs. D. — And what can this secondary enjoyment be that you say is added to matrimonial happiness ? 4? LIFE IN UTOPIA. Atniie. — It is our acquaintance with art, science, and literature. I, for instance, am a graduated doctor of medicine, and often join the hospital staff of doctors in the female wards, or give medical advice to patients in private families. Lena. — I am a doctor of laws, and often plead for clients, and the people call me the queen of the law courts, a nickname I greatly despise. Isabella. — I am a tolerably good pianist, and find the greatest enjoyment in playing over and over again the works of Mozart and Beethoven. Frederica. — I am an efificient violinist, and often join the ladies' orchestra, in which I play the second fiddle, which perhaps gives me a more legitimate enjoyment than if I played a solo to my own and nobody else's satisfaction. Maud. — I have made many attempts in poetry, and though only a few of my poetic productions have become popular, I felt quite as much pleasure and enjoyment in the conception and versification of my unsuccessful attempts as in those that caught the favour of our public. El/rida. — I am often engaged in painting and modelling, and must say precisely the same of my enjoyment in these artistic occupations as Maud said of hers. Hilda. — I am a mathematician, and am able to solve equations up to the quadratic ones. I am now anxious to become ac- quainted with the differential and integral calculus. j\[,: D. — We thank you all for the readiness and lucidity with which you have given us the information we asked ; and we shall keep you in grateful recollection when we have returned to England. {The Needlewomen^ in leaving the workroom^ shake hands ivith the Visitors, Guide, and Forewoman.) Mrs. D. — Surely, Guide, you cannot prove to us that there are no unhappy women in Utopia. Guide. — What I can, and am going to prove is, that in our country there are fewer unhappy women and a great many more happy ones than in any other country in the world ; and that this " improved state of happiness has been secured by the indefatigable endeavour we have made and the humane laws we have passed for the emancipation of women. Mr. Z>.— Our English reformers have often considered the subject of the emancipation of women, but have hitherto not succeeded in practically dealing with the subject. I am therefore exceedingly anxious to hear how Utopia has handled the question. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 49 Guide. — I will mention to you twelve of the principal reforms through which we succeeded in securing the emancipation of our women. I. In Utopia no woman need fall a victim to prostitution, either from necessity or a desire of earning money by withdrawing herself from useful labour in order to embrace vice. Mr. D. — In our country prostitution has almost assumed the aspect of a trade, and is on that account tolerated as a necessary evil. Guide. — Our State securing an ample maintenance as a reward for only moderate labour, and money being non-existent and even unknown to our people, prostitution sacrifices no more victims to Moloch or need. Mrs. D. — But surely, sir, all your women are not as chaste as you paint them to us? Guide. — There may be, and naturally there are, irregularities and excesses in sexual intercourse, and in the satisfaction of the sexual desire \ but though immoral in themselves, they bear no semblance to the bestiality of prostitution. H. D. — Human nature is not perfect ; to err is human. Mrs. D. — Harry, you always say so when you have done something wrong. Guide. — 2. Utopia has relieved all women of nine-tenths of their domestic labour ; partly by having all house-work performed in periodical relays by all the women in the State ; and partly by having all the elder children brought up in our national boarding- schools. Mrs. D. — Having once been a domestic servant, I should never like to be one again, especially at my age. Guide. — Madam, your statement of aversion to domestic labour would have no effect in Utopia, for you would have been exempt a long time before you attained your present age. Mrs. D. — Then you almost induce me, sir, to stay here amongst the Utopians. Guide. — 3. All persons in Utopia attend and wait alternately on each other in one capacity or another, and especially in domestic labour. There are consequently no more domestic servants in the old sense of the word ; and as our women have replaced them by willing and obliging service, they naturally respect each other mutually, and thankfully recognise the service rendered. Our domestic labour is therefore performed most willingly and even joyfully. Mrs. D. — Then you have abated a great plague, from which all European households have suffered for ages, and do to this very day. E 50 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Guide. — 4. All our people, as you well know, women included, perform and share labour in a variety of employments, by which the monotony and long duration of labour is avoided. Mr. D. — I am now convinced that the long hours of work and its monotony make a real slave of our otherwise free English workman, and that you have emancipated both men and women from this cruel slavery. Guide. — 5. Our humane Utopian constitution exempts all women from heavy, dangerous, unhealthy, and loathsome work. Mrs. D. — I agree with that, provided the men willingly do this kind of labour. Guide. — So they do ; but in alternate relays. Mr. D. — And our English Government has likewise put a stop to the employment of women in coal-mines. Guide. — But if I have been rightly informed by some visitors who came to Utopia years ago, the women prohibited to work in coal-mines put on men's clothes, and descending thus disguised to their subterranean work, avoided by this deception the humane ordinance of the English legislature. 6. Our Utopian labour laws exempt, moreover, from work all women who have weak and delicate constitutions ; all women who have babies and children of tender age to attend to; also four weeks before and after child-birth ; and likewise when they have the menses. Mrs. D. — If you exempt all these, you will get no women workers at all. Guide. — Such a contingency can never occur ; for our women's leisure time and their desire and custom to work are so great, that the ranks of female workers are at all times filled to overflowing. 7. All women can in Utopia study, practise, and exercise art and science to their heart's delight, be they geniuses or only ordinarily endowed, and they enter these delightful realms of human enjoyment at any period during their lifetime, having moreover been generally initiated during their educational career. Mrs. £>. — And if I now entered the study of astronomy, would they provide me with a large telescope ? Guide. — Ultimately, when you had reached a high degree of theoretical knowledge of this sublime science, and had been admitted a member of the academy of science. But you could at ail times make use of the large telescope that is put up in the movable turret of every associated home ; and when a student, you would even have access to still larger instruments in the movable dome of the national observatory, under the guidance and instruction of the appointed professors of astronomy. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 5[ 8. The Utopian institutions provide for all young people of both sexes fit opportunities and possibilities, which almost always prove certainties, to marry as soon as they have attained the age of puberty and have become marriageable. This has completely put an end to that painful state — spinsterhood, as you call it — under which thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, are still smarting in all countries except Utopia. H. D. — Often a single life is painful to experience ! Miss D. — If there is almost a certainty of women getting married in Utopia, and if I can live by a modicum of labour and enjoy much leisure, I shall certainly stay here with you in Utopia. Mrs. D. — Wait a bit, girl ; we have not yet seen all this interesting country, whicli, with its humane institutions, might not be acceptable to us; and if we departed and left you behind, we should have to make a very sad journey back to our own country. Therefore, subdue your wishes and defer your resolu- tion. When we have seen all, then we shall decide whether we will stay here or depart hence. Guide. — 9. If a marriage should, however, turn out an unhappy one, it is easily dissolved by our divorce laws ;, for as our marital unions are entered into by the free choice and voluntary agree- ment of a free man and a free woman, who are merely the servants of the State, they enforce no other obhgations on the partners except faithfulness ; and as the utility of married persons to the State might become doubtful, or even endangered, if they lived in disunion, our divorce laws permit dissolution of marriage and separation in all such cases, and are in this respect certainly more lenient than those that formerly prevailed. Our legislature based the tenor of our marriage and divorce laws on this happy founda- tion : if nature has destined a life-long union Ijetween the sexes, which is now proved that it has, our institutions are the best to favour it ; and if nature has not such a tendency, our laws provide facilities for a legal and peaceful disunion. Dowries, property, estate, wealth, settlements, and reservations never come into corveideration at our marriage contracts. 10. A Utopian woman is entirely free from the man she has married ; she owes him no obedience except that which love may command, and he has no authority over her unless it is willingly and lovingly submitted to by her ; for he contributes nothing to her maintenance, which she secures to herself by discharging her obligations to the State in contributing her quota of labour to the benefit of all. 11. All our women, like our men, enjoy most encouraging 52 LIFE IN UTOPIA. prospects of promotion in all the fields of lat)our, art, and science. Mrs. D. — Are they admitted within the pale of the church as rectors and into the ranks of church dignitaries, and can they become deaconesses and abbesses ? Guide. —They might be promoted to any church dignity, but have, till now, been humble enough to confine themselves to preaching, though a few of them have graduated doctors of divinity. 12. The burden which the care of a numerous family used formerly to lay upon our married women is now greatly mini- mised by the transfer of their elder and grown-up children to the national boarding-schools ; infants and babies alone being left at home, whom their mothers will treat with all tender care, not only instinctively as a natural response to the babies' endear- ment, but also as a dutiful tribute to Utopia in nursing and bringing up her future citizens and sustainers. CHAPTER VIII. Guide.— Now, my respected visitors, let us have a change of scene by going into the park of the associated home. Mrs. D. — Let us go there, for I really wish to sit down. Mr. D. — You always wanted to sit down when we took a walk in Hyde Park. Mrs. D. — I hope there are plenty of seats in your park, sir ; for when we sometimes went to Hyde Park we traversed miles of sandy walks without meeting a single seat, and when we saw one, it was already fully occupied by other people, or stood quite in the scorching sun. Guide. — Then it is no wonder, madam, that you felt tired and wanted to rest. There are in the park of the associated home plenty of comfortable seats, cosy bowers, shady walks, cooling grottos, long avenues of trees, splashing fountains, ponds of crystal water on pebbly ground, in which gold fishes disport themselves, and the whole of these beauties interspersed with marble and bronze statuary executed by Utopian sculptors of the first rank, for only those enjoy the privilege of having their work erected in a public park of the metropolis. Miss D. — What emulation this privilege must cause amongst first-rate artists ! Guide. — I am glad, Miss, that you so quickly and accurately perceive the wisdom Utopia displays in all things that relate to the promotion of art. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 53 H. D. — Though I am only an amateur sculptor, I always felt the greatest pleasure when I could turn out a tolerably good work and show it to a circle of friends ; and I can now perceive how great the pride of those must be who have their works erected in public parks and squares ; and I think if a similar emulation were created amongst our London sculptors by a com- petitive admittance of their best works into our London parks, squares, and circuses, art would be highly promoted and the aspect of the town greatly improved. J//-. D. — Your remarks, Harry, remind me of a shocking act of disregard to art perpetrated by one of our London vestries, which rejected the advice of an artist-sculptor who proposed to have one of his works erected in Piccadilly Circus, it being a beautiful equestrian statue that had been admitted both to the London and Paris salon, and would have been eminently fitted for the fashionable circus. Shortly after this refusal, a lavatory was put up instead of a work of art. Miss D. — I am greatly astonished, father, that there could ever exist a body of men, and those too who ought to care for the beauty of the town, who should have dared to insult art in such a shameful manner. Airs. D. — Dear me, it was no insult to art ; our city-fathers merely provided, instead of sculpture, a public convenience, and this time not only for gentlemen, but also for ladies, for which I praise them very much. Guide. —Madam, you take a most sensible view of the matter. Miss D. — How far, Guide, is the park from here ? Guide. — Only half a mile's walk. But as there are always a large number of people in our streets going to their work or coming from it, at all hours of the day, we should be greatly impeded in our walk, so we will enter an electric tram-car which goes directly from here to one of the park gates. (yAll take seats in the electric car, and alighting after a few minutes' smooth ride at the gate of the park, walk up the principal avenue, take a side-path, and sit down in a woodbine arbour, ^chose scarlet and purple leaves, Just tinged by the autumn chill, break the light and heat of the sun in a most agreeable manner.) ( When all are seated, the folloicing discourse takes place.) Miss D. — What a charming place of retreat this cosy arbour must afford to all visitors to the park ! I should not mind sitting here till twilight ushers in the night. Guide. — Certainly not alone. Miss. APiss D. — Ah ! no, no ; not alone, but Guide. — But if you had some one to keep company with ; excuse 54 LIFE IN UTOriA. me, Miss, for adding the if to the but^ and thus completing the sentence you were going to utter. Miss D. — I thank you very much for saying what I had indeed intended to. Guide. — And I venture further to suggest who this companion sliould be, who would be permitted to sit with you in this cosy bower till twilight overshadows the light of day. Miss D. — Do tell me, Guide, I pray you ! Guide. — Mr, and Mrs. D., may I ask your permission to give a decisive answer to your daughter's anxious inquiry ? Air. D. — Since you have excited the girl's curiosity, you may as well satisfy it. Guide. — Then, Miss I)., take it not as an offence, but as a sincere expression of sympathy for and respect to you, your parents, and your brother, when I tell you who this companion should be. Mrs. D. {aside to her Husband). — I am sure the man has fallen in love with our girl. Miss D. — Guide, you keep me in a painful suspense of ex- pectation. Mrs. D. — By heavens, man, let the cat out of the bag, and tell her that you want to marry her. Guide. — Not I, madam ; but I am greatly inclined to propose my only son as a suitor to your daughter. Miss D. — Then, Guide, tell me at once when and where I can see him. Guide. — Not to-day, and not for some days. Aliss D. — Ah me ! wait, wait, wait ; nothing but waiting for me. Guide^ — He is now staying in one of our national educational establishments, and having lately graduated with honour in the university of art and science, and having just come of age by passing his twentieth year, he is now a free citizen of Utopia, and possesses the right and facility of marrying. Mr. D. — We shall all feel greatly flattered if your son would become a suitor to our daughter. Guide. — I am quite sure that he will joyfully assume that character when Miss D. is introduced to him as an intended spouse. Miss D.— \n marrying a Utopian, I expect to get a good husband. Guide. — You will, at all events, get a well-educated and useful husband, for I have told you already many times that all Utopians are skilled in manual, artistic, and scientific labour ; and having LIFE IN UTOPIA. 55 spent their whole youth in our excellent schools, colleges, and universities, they have there received quite as sublime a training in morality, religion, and intelligence as Socrates was ever able to give to his disciples. He is an excellent musician, a tolerably good painter, a skilful printer and compositor, and an enthu- siastic and daring aeronaut. Miss D. — I like him for all these eminent accomplishments, but chiefly for his daring balloon ascents. I shall ascend with him, high, high, high ! into the aerial regions, and share with him all the danger he may expose himself to, for I have read in Plato's Republic : " Whether the women remain in the State or go forth to war, they ought to keep guard with the men, to hunt with them like hounds, and in every case take a share in all things as far as they can." Guide. — Miss D., if you have read Plato's Republic, you are already half a Utopian woman. Miss D. — But I should like to become a whole one by marry- ing your son, sir, and living with him here in Utopia, and not go home again to England ; for I am sure if he went with me he would certainly feel most unhappy in our country, as its customs and institutions are at such a variance with those of Utopia. Guide. — And if my son's personal appearance and qualifications should not please you, there are now some more marriageable men leaving our universities, and who are all anxious to get mar- ried. To them. Miss, you could likewise be introduced, if my son should not meet with your favour. Miss D. — I am sure I shall be pleased with him, if he looks anything like you, and will be as kind to me as you have hitherto been to us all. Guide. — He is the very counterpart of me in look, stature, gait, and speech ; and as to his gentleness, good character, and noble- mindedness, Utopia is the warranty for them. Miss D. — Then he shall have my hand and my heart. Mrs. Z>.— Stop a bit, girl, and don't be so rash, for I shall have a word to say to that. Guide. — Madam, the parents' interference in their sons' and daughters' love-matches and choice of partners in wedlock is out of custom in Utopia. Mr. D. — A very wise custom, in my opinion, as it must prevent many a sore disappointment on both the part of lovers and their parents. Mrs. D.—l am not quite so sure of that, for I think more un- happy marriages are prevented by the parents' interference in the love affairs of their marriageable sons and daughters— at least ia 56 LIFE IN UTOPIA. my country, where the young people would run headlong into lifelong misery, were it not for their parents' interference, putting a stop to the mad unions raving lovers often attempt to conclude. It may, however, be quite different in Utopia ; and we trust that all will go right with the proposed marriage of our daughter. Guide. — If she follows our marriage customs, and lets herself be guided by them, she will become a happy wife, and a blessing to her husband. Mr. D. — We leave it all in your hands, and trust in Utopia's generous wisdom. Mrs. D. — But, sir, we almost forgot to mention two of the most important points of this marriage arrangement between our daugh- ter and your son. Guide. — And what is that ? Mrs. D. — It is the dowry with which we could furnish our daughter, and the fortune your son is likely to bring with him. As to the dowry, we could easily make it a splendid one, by devot- ing to it ;!^2o,ooo of our savings. Guide. — Madam, I thank you most heartily, in the name of Utopia, for your generous offer of so rich a dowry ; but I, my son, and my noble country must reluctantly decline such a splendid marriage gift, for it would be of no use to any one of us, as the use of money is strictly forbidden in the whole of our territory ; and as there is no money in Utopia, the saving and accumulation of the same, or making of fortunes, is here out of question. Con- sequently my son can bring you no fortune. But if you will accept his skill in manual, artistic, and scientific labour, fertilized by industry and discipline, your daughter will acquire a true and great fortune in the shape of a worthy citizen of Utopia. Mrs. Z>. — If our daughter meets with a worthy suitor, and we keep our money, so much the better. Guide. — Now, Mrs. and Miss D., if you will take a walk in the park, and enjoy yourselves by looking at its beauties and statuary, I and your husband and son will remain in this arbour for a dis- cussion on sundry matters connected with industry, manufacture, conveyance, foreign trade, and other important subjects. Will you meet us again here in about an hour or so ? CHAPTER IX. Guide. — Although you must have attained a tolerably good view of our labour arrangements in having visited the tailors' and seamstresses' workshops, what you saw there is but an infinitesimal item of our great industrial organization. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 57 Mr. D. — Is this grand organization superintended and carried out by the State, or by some central authority ; or is it left, as by us in England, for each trade and industry to organize itself ? Guide. — If we had left industry to organize itself, as with you in England, we should have had often to cope with over-production, gluts in the market, a commercial crisis, recurring periodically and with accelerated frequency, numerous bankruptcies, ever-increasing lock-outs and never-ending strikes in the beggar-my-neighbour's A\shion, failures of small tradesmen, and no ends of shops to be let., in which the hard earnings and prospects of many a man lie buried, and but too often the corpse of a suicide and murderer of a whole family. H. D. — Then, sir, if Utopia has devised an industrial organiza- tion which is capable of preventing all those drawbacks from which we suffer in England, she worthily deserves the envy and admiration of the whole world. Guide. — Utopia can justly lay claim to such. Mr. D. — Please, sir, give us a full description of your industrial arrangements. Guide. — I may state, preliminarily, that the object and aim of our industrial organization tends to regulate demand and supply ; to share labour equally amongst the whole of our able-bodied male and female population ; to train children to labour and in- dustry ; to promote progress, improvement, invention, and dis- covery ; to ease and save labour ; to prevent the waste of materials and produce ; to protect the lives and limbs of the workers when- ever and wherever they are employed. Mr. D. — I can understand without much difficulty how you share labour equally, but how you can adjust demand to supply is quite inconceivable to me, for this is just the difficulty which in our country has defied all attempts of removing. Guide. — With us it is as easy as child's play. When the stock of an article in our storehouses gets diminished, we replenish it to the required extent. We have the conditions for this adjustment always at our command ; for the nation, being the sole producer of every article of consumption, knows exactly what it has, and can produce, and how much of it has been delivered from the stores to the people. Mr. D. — Of this facility we in England could make no use, for not one manufacturer knows even the amount of goods his neigh- bour may turn out of the same kind as he himself; and as to the quantity of the same article which all the manufacturers in the country may have produced, or are producing, he has no correct information, and can therefore only speculate upon it. 58 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Guide. — Utopia, knowing the number of her people by the triannual census, and having ascertained the annual average con- sumption of every article of produce by a distribution that has now been in operation for more than 200 years, and being also the sole agent of her trade with foreign countries, and receiving from them directly all orders, is in the advantageous and enviable position of being able to produce no more than is required, and having always everything in store that is wanted. Air. D. — I can well understand the advantage Utopia has over us in foreign trade ; for, though our foreign traders have each their special agents abroad, they never receive simultaneous reports from them ; and those of our home manufacturers who get their orders first through their foreign agents, begin at once a lively pro- duction, and so advantageously outstrip their competitors who receive later advice and information on foreign demand. H. D. — It seems that our own English Government is stepping into the footprints of Utopia in matters of such agencies, for they have just issued an order to their consuls in foreign parts to make reports as to trade prospects and likely demands for home-made goods, J/r. D. — It would certainly be much better for our English traders if they received such reports from their own agents, and not from the Government consuls, who mostly know but little of trade and commerce. But any one knowing anything of com- petition must at once see the impossibility of one trader's infor- mation being made generally known, as he wants to be the first to make use of it, and secure the lion's share of profit by being the first in the foreign market. Guide. — From what you both say, it is evident that England is yet groping in the dark. H. D. — But England, with all her groping in the dark about supply and demand, is getting richer and richer. Mr. D. — But the great number of poor we have detracts sadly from the progress we make in accumulating money. Guide. — You will never get rid of your poor as long as money exists and accumulates. U. D. — Many centuries will yet pass by before England can and will follow Utopia in suppressing the use of money and the possession of property. Guide.— Our second consideration relating to the organization of labour embraces all the various principles of ways and means by which ail labour, be it productive or distributive, is shared equally amongst all able-bodied men and women. Mr. D. — This is easier said than done. I grant you that work LIFE IN UTOPIA. 59 can be shared out equally ; say, a dozen pair of boots to be made by a dozen shoemakers ; but then we know very well that one will not complete his work in the same space of time as another ; one will finish his pair of boots in eight hours, whilst another will not be able to do his in twelve ; besides, the quality of work they turn out will vary considerably. I think, sir, I have caught you in a trap ; how can you get out of it ? Guide. — Very easily, sir ; we should merely give the man who had finished soonest some more work to complete in the time of his day's work ; for all work in Utopia is day-work, and not piece- work. Mr. D. — You are only half out of the trap. I cannot release you until you tell me how you can make day-work to be performed with the same assiduity by alii Guide. — Our foremen and forewomen have enough influence and authority to induce the workers to do their duty — that is to say, to do his very best during the whole of his or her allotted work-time, and all workers do it by custom and habit, with which they have already been made familiar, and to which they have been trained by education and apprenticeship. And I call to your mind what you heard from the lips of our workmen in the tailors' workshop concerning the stimulants which induce our men to do their very best in the performance of their work. Air. D. — I release you from the trap into which you had seem- ingly fallen, and I do so chiefly in remembrance of what those men said to us concerning their willingness to labour. H. D. — But, sir, although you have most satisfactorily removed my father's scruple, I myself entertain yet some doubt on the subject, which I venture to put in the shape of a question. How can you rt-gulate the demand for labour in all the various trades and multifarious branches of industry, manufactures, agriculture, mining, and navigation ? Guide. — For the skilled trades we regulate this demand by always keeping a full complement of hands at command, and these we recruit from the number of efficient apprentices leaving our training schools. This plan ensures the ability of retirement for those artisans who, at their forty-fifth year, are quitting the ranks of labour. And the whole number of men required in every particular trade is calculated from the annual average de- mand, as ascertained in our stores, and from the average work- man's amount of production. These two factors give us the number of men and the time they must annually occupy at work in every particular trade if they were employed twelve hours every day ; but as the regular work-time of our people is only six 60 LIFE IN UTOPIA. hours per day and only for three months a year, we have to sub- tract the number of efficient workmen in direct proportion to the reduction of their work-time. H. D. — Then, sir, you will require at least three times as many artisans and mechanics as we employ in England. Guide. — Though all our men do but a third of the work, as they labour only three months annually, and our whole adult population being trained and skilled in handicrafts, we have plenty of people to complete the ranks of labour. We have moreover effected such a saving of labour by a more extended application of machinery and of the subdivision of labour, by the concentra- tion of trades into certain localities, by the suppression of luxury, and by the distribution of produce and articles of manufactures in large stores, of which there are twelve in our metropolis, and a proportionate number in all other towns of Utopia, that even with a three months' work-time per annum we don't employ as many artisans as you do in England. The reduction of work by labour- saving machines, and the concentration of the distribution of produce, have of late so enormously increased, that we cannot at present employ the full complement of our artisans, but let them voluntarily, or by lot, choose their work for themselves. Those who have thus entered on work-duty have their names struck off from the trades-list, and those whose names remain still inscribed thereon take work up in their turn till the list is emptied. Mr. D. — I think, sir, you have mentioned these trades-lists already once to us. They remind me of similar lists of the un- employed being kept in the offices of our English trades unions and in other houses of call, and from which men are taken into employment in direct order as the names follow each other. H. D. — And how, sir, do you regulate the number of men required for the heavy, dangerous, and repulsive labour of the coal-miner, the sailor, the navvy, the porter, the coal-heaver, the chimney-sweep, the road-maker, the gas-stoker, the scavenger, the fireman and engine-driver, the stableman, the sewer-man, the dung and dust-carter, the slaughterer, and, may I even ask, of the hangman ? Guide. — I have already told you on a former occasion that all heavy, dangerous, and dirty labour is equally shared by the whole of the adult male population, the women being altogether exempt from it. But as the period of work varies very much in all these occupations, being in some of them not more than a few hours, days, or weeks, and seldom more than a month, the administra- tion of this kind of labour issues appeals for men to the whole adult male population ; and we generally find that a full comple- LIFE IN UTOPIA. 6l ment of workers present themselves for going to work in these disagreeable employments. Besides, many of these occupations have been made less dangerous and disagreeable by mechanical appliances ; coal-mining is now done by the coal-cutting machine, heaving and shifting heavy loads by the crane, and the work of the gas-stoker and fireman has now almost ceased in consequence of the substitution of electric light for gas, and of the application of electricity instead of steam. Conveyance being almost univer- sally effected by electric carriage, few horses and consequently fewer stablemen, porters, gas-stokers, firemen, and coal-miners are now wanted. Coal-mining has, moreover, greatly diminished in Utopia by the reduced consumption of coal, following the sub- stitution of the associated home for the private household, for where there were formerly burning twenty fires for cooking and heating purposes we burn now one ; and as there are no shops in Utopia, and our large storehouses being only open during the day- time, the consumption of gas in our stores, and even of the electric light, has been reduced by quite half. Consequently so much less coal is required for the production of gas and electricity, that of course the number of men employed in these operations is greatly diminished. Concerning the work of the hangman, I am exceedingly glad to state that his disagreeable and repulsive work dropped with the abolition of capital punishment which Utopia decreed two hundred years ago. ]\[r. D. — If I am pleased with anything in Utopia, it is certainly the general shutting up of all the shops. I wish we could do the same with ours in England, for they never present a very charm- ing aspect by the display butchers, fishmongers, cheesemongers, buttermen, oilmen, and poulterers make in the closest proximity to ladies' drapery, artistic furniture, gold watches, diamond jewellery, and fashionable gentlemen's clothing establishments. There is no more hideous and foul-smelling display of ugliness than in the incongruous muddle of our English shops ; and being a nation of shopkeepers, as Napoleon called us, the ugli- ness and incongruity of our business display stands out greatly intensified. H. D. — Father, I have yet a lively remembrance of the first dazzling effect the London shops produced on me, when we came up to town from the country village where we used to reside. Mr. D. — Because thou wast then a boy. H. D. — And, father, even now as a grown-up man I like seeing the shops in our great thoroughfares. Mr. D. — That would be an innocent and pleasant diversion for many persons, were it not for the irresistible allurements the 62 LIFE IN UTOPIA. beautifully dressed shop-windows exercise over thoughtless passers by, and induce them to step in and make unnecessary, wasteful, and expensive purchases, as thou hast often done. If. ID. — But, father, such purchases are all good for trade, and benefit others. Mr. D. — I sincerely hope Utopia has somehow put a stop to an extravagant, wasteful, and needless delivery of goods and articles of consumption from her storehouses, there being apparently no check or restraint to what, and how much, any of her citizens draw from the storehouses. Guide. — Our people are too well educated to take more from the common stores than they actually require ; and they are more- over mindful that all waste and extravagance entails additional labour on the whole community, and consequently on themselves. They are therefore greatly inclined to avoid all excess in their demands on the stores. H. D. — In our country the well-educated are often the most extravagant. Guide. — Gentlemen, I excuse you both for having diverged somewhat from our principal subject under consideration, namely, the distribution of all dangerous and heavy labour amongst the whole of our adult male population, the sharing of which, I said, would be taken up voluntarily by all our grown-up and strong men from a sense of'duty and justice inherent in all right-thinking and right-feeling people. Should the required number, however, not be forthcoming, then this kind of labour will be shared out by drawing the lot from the names of all those who have not worked in these occupations in the past year. But, gentlemen, I cannot recollect one single instance during my lifetime that the drawing of the lot had to be resorted to ; for our men are so well educated and morally trained that they at once see the gross in- justice and culpability of those who would let others perish, suffer injury, and experience discomfort in dangerous, heavy, and re- pulsive labour without sharing it with them. The next subject that will occupy our attention for a few minutes is the Utopian system of the distribution of produce. We have closed shops, not only in the metropolis of Utopia, but throughout every town and village in the country, and have erected in their stead immense storehouses, in which lie ready for consumption, articles of clothing, bedding, drapery, linen, chirva-ware, cutlery, provisions and grocery, writing materials, in fact anything and everything necessary, useful, and consumable. Most of these storehouses are situated in the immediate neighbourhood of the associated homes, or within a radius of half a mile from them, LIFE IN UTOriA. 63 for the purpose of securing the quickest and shortest way of dehvery of every article of produce consumed or used by the inhabitants of these associated homes. From these stores large quantities of meat, butter, eggs, cheese, flour, tea, coffee, cocoa, spices, fruit, currants, raisins, salt, soap, candles, and other pro- visions are transmitted to the kitchen and pantry of the home, some of them daily, others weekly, and others monthly, as, for instance, tea and coffee, which is supplied in large canisters. Mr. D. — We can clearly see the immense amount of labour you save by these stores, not only in the number of attendants in the same, but also in the trouble the consumers formerly had in fetching these things individually for each separate household and kitchen. H. D. — But what did you do with all the former numerous provision dealers, butchers, grocers, cheesemongers, fishmongers, milk and dairymen, and all the others who sold articles of con- sumption, in short the whole number of wholesale and retail dealers ? Guide. — The younger ones under forty-five years old had to learn some handicraft, and those forty-five to fifty years old were employed in the new stores ; and those over fifty years were freed from all labour, but could take up art or science, which many of them did with great alacrity. Mr. D. — Very forbearing, humane, and generous on the part of Utopia. H. D. — I don't think, father, that many shopkeepers thought so. Guide. — I must mention to you the existence of other large storehouses containing the raw materials, tools, implements and appliances used in the various trades and manufactories. These stores are situated in the immediate neighbourhood of concentrated trades and manufacturing districts, to be handy at all times when required. There is consequently not only a con- centration of trades, but, combined with it, a concentration of raw material and tools. Mr. D. — It occurs to me that a similar concentration of trades and their implements has taken place all over England ; for we see the shoe manufacture concentrated in Northampton, the silk manufacture in Macclesfield, the wool and cloth manufacture in Leeds and Bradford, the tool manufacture at Sheffield, and the cotton manufacture at Manchester and surrounding districts. Our concentration of trades has evidently saved much expense in the conveyance of material to the various centres of industr}'. If the cotton-spinner has a depot of necessary material close at 64 LIFE IN UTOPIA. hand, if the weaver has next door to him a dealer in yarns, and if the cahco-printer finds a calico-dealer in his vicinity, and the prints can be sold to a commission agent over the way, the cotton manufacture flourishes. Guide. — And if your English cotton manufacturer could set up all these branches of the cotton industry under one roof, he would do exactly what we do in Utopia for the concentration of trade. H. D. — Several of our manufacturers have advanced in a similar direction ; for instance, many of the great outfitting and clothing establishments manufacture their own cloth. Mr. D. — But what I deprecate very much in our English manufactures is a combination of the concentration of work with the implements and materials used. A cotton-weaver, for example, who formerly attended to one loom has now four of them under his hands. Guide. — Now, my friends, there remains for me only to put the keystone to the construction of our industrial organization and labour arrangement. This important piece of construction in our social edifice consists in the administration of all branches of labour, manufacture, art, science, conveyance, sanitation, habita- tion, etc. At the head of this administration stands our board of works. Mr. D. — I sincerely hope, sir, that your boards of works will not acquire the reputation that our defunct London board of works did. H. D. — Father, remember that there is no money in Utopia, and that it was the love, greed, and temptation of money that corrupted the members of the London board of works and brought it into bad repute. Guide. — It would be a great calamity if corruption crept into our boards of works, for we have not merely one single board of administration, but scores of them. There are the boards of domestic labour, agriculture, manufactures, conveyance, mining, skilled trades, navigation, charitable labour, steam boiler and locomotive attendance, distributive labour, railway, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, and postal service, public information and of the expression of public opinion, police and prison service, waterworks, gas and electric lighting, printing and publishing, foreign trade, education, or academies of art and science, health and sanitation, amusements, religious ceremonies and festivities ; in all twenty-two boards. Mr. D. — ]\Lay I ask you, sir, to give us a more detailed account of the constitution and action of some of these boards, especially LIFE IN UTOriA. 65 of the board of foreign trade, the hoard of health and sanitation, the board of pubHc information and expression of pubhc opinion, and the board of pubhcation ? Guide. — Concerning the board of foreign trade, I must tell you that it is the principal agent of our export and import trade, and ascertains from the reports of the various boards of works what amount of foreign goods and raw materials there is required for our home consumption. It gives, according to this estimate, orders to our commercial agents residing abroad, for the purchase of the required amount. H. D. — But, sir, as Utopia uses no money, how can they pur- chase anything ? Guide. — Our foreign agents are the authorized receivers of payment for all we export and sell abroad ; and the money they thus receive remains in their hands and is never sent back to Utopia, but is used by those agents for purchasing goods which we require for our home consumption. If the sale of our exports and the purchase of our imports can be effected in the same place or country, their values are simply compared, and the surplus or deficiency is made up in payment by money. If we cannot purchase in the same country where we sell, our agents transmit money to other agents of ours in countries where our required import goods can be obtained. Mr. D. — But, sir, if I carried on an extensive import and export trade in the manner you have just described to us, I should be afraid of my agents abroad decamping with all the money they received for my export goods, and using it for the purchase of articles not for me, but on their own account and for their own profit. Guide. — I admit that in our foreign trade we stand somewhat under the baneful influence of money ; but we have been able to checkmate it to a considerable extent. Firstly, we allow a generous commission to these agents, who are all foreigners, for no Utopian will touch money ; and secondly, we have con- cluded commercial treaties with all the countries we trade with, containing a proviso, that should any of our agents be convicted of fraud, or decamp with our money, our loss must be made good by the country in which he was convicted, or from which he escaped. Mr. D. — An obligation certainly very advantageous to Utopia, but I doubt very much whether England would ever have acceded to such a commercial treaty. H. D. — Your commercial treaty, sir, resembles very much the Chinese law, which compels a landlord to pay the funeral expenses F C)6 LIFE IN UTOriA. and compensation to the relatives of a suicide who has committed self-murder on the said landlord's house or premises. Guide. — ^Ve have till now gone on pretty smoothly with our foreign agents, but knowing that not even the threat of a death-penalty would frighten away the temptation to take money, we guarded ourselves against the evil as well as we could. Mr. D. — The next thing, sir, I want to ask you, is : what busi- ness your board of health and sanitation is transacting, and how it is carried out ? Guide. — You English say, " Cleanliness is next to godliness," but we Utopians say more practically, " Cleanliness is next to healthiness," and act in obedience to our maxim ; for we fre- quently and often unexpectedly visit all the rooms, stairs, passages, corridors, closets, cellars, kitchens, pantries, coal-bunkers, heating and lighting appliances of our large associated homes. The same careful and searching inspection takes place in all our workshops, factories, farmhouses, schools, railway carriages, boats, ships, and steamers. Mr. D. — We praise you for that. Guide. — Our board of health sees, moreover, that all our people are provided with a comfortable suit of clothes for every season of the year, and also that every working-man is fur- nished wath such garments as can be most conveniently and durably worn during his work-time, and may, to some extent, protect him from dirt and injury. H. D. — I should earnestly recommend this humane and laud- able custom of your board of health to my own countrymen ; for I often wondered how our navvies could perform their work, being clothed at all seasons of the year in thick, heavy coats, corduroy trousers, and hobnailed shoes, and could thus, over- burdened with heavy garments, execute the hardest work imagin- able, and often in the greatest summer heat. Guide. — Nobody in Utopia would work under such irksome burdens. I will now mention the chief, and certainly the greatest, blessing our people derive from the action of our board of health. H. D. — I am anxious to learn from you what that is. Guide. — It is, sir, the annual inspection of the health of all persons — men, women, and children — by medical men. By this inspection the germs of diseases, lingering ailments, complaints prevalent in certain trades and employments are detected, and means devised for removing them, or checking their recurrence. Since we have rigorously and universally applied this inspection, LIFE IN UTOrixV. G-J there has been an astonishing decrease of disease and a corre- sponding increase in the healthiness and happiness of our popu- lation. Mr. D. — I cannot see why such an inspection could not at once be introduced into my own country. H. D. — Our English authorities expect every one to take care of his own health, and to seek the advice of a doctor when it is impaired. CHAPTER X. Mr. D. — Now, sir, you mentioned before this a board for public information and expression of public opinion, including a section for pubUshing printed matter. Pray tell us something about it. Guide. — This is again one of our most important boards of work, for it has now successfully and advantageously become the powerful substitute for the whole of our former printing establish- ments and publishing firms, including the newspaper press. H. D. — We are very curious to hear what you have to say on these matters. Guide. — There are in Utopia three channels of information for the people; namely, the special weekly newspapers for every trade, art, industry, and occupation, the quarterly reports of the boards of works, and the National Gazcfte, which is the only daily publi- cation in Utopia. The special trades newspapers bear the names of the respective trades for which they are puV^lished, as the Carpntier, the Sailor, the Hatter, the Painter, the Musician, etc. They give news of the members that compose a trade ; of their betrothal, marriage, birth of children, diseases, accidents, deaths ; of the entry of apprentices, and their promotion to the rank of artisan ; of the coming in and going out of efficient workmen ; of the number of all those who are actually at work every week ; of the names of those who have been reported for non-fulfilment of duty ; of the elections of foremen and forewomen ; of the amount of work turned out from each workshop, or done in each occupation. The information thus supplied to the members of every particular trade has powerfully promoted an interesting emulation, not only amongst the members of every trade, but even amongst the trades themselves. The trades papers also publish letters of their respective members containing sug- gestions for the saving of labour and material by mechanical appliances or otherwise, and for easing work generally. From 6S LIFE IN UTOPIA. tlie trades' news, the boards of trade pardy draw their quarterly reports. J/r. D. — Such special trades papers are no novelty with us in England, we have them for nearly every trade ; l)ut we must own that yours are decidedly superior to ours in usefulness to the cause of labour. Guide. — Concerning the quarterly reports of the boards of work, I have to state that they give, not only the number of all those who have been at work during the quarter, or have newly entered or quitted a trade ; these reports also give the esti- mates for the next quarterly demand of supply as ascertained from the consumption of that in the stores and goods depots. As every board of trade has a committee that watches the progress made in saving and easing labour, their reports become highly demonstrative of the continued progress we are making in all branches of work, industry, art, and science. The quarterly reports of the board of our foreign trade and commerce are especially eagerly expected, as the well-being of our whole population greatly depends upon its tenor. Mr. D. — Your trade reports resemble much the periodical reviews of the state of trade, commerce, and agriculture, published by our London papers ; but certainly with this difference, that your reports can give an e.xact estimate of demand and supply, whilst our papers can only make guesses, and leave all traders in a perplexing uncertainty. ff D_ — Sir, you also told us that Utopia, or her board of in- formation, provides for the ventilation of public opinion. How is this done ? Guide.— It is done through the daily publication of the Nationat Gazette, which, besides giving a general survey of the state of the weather, of remarkable events, of the people's health, records also the deaths of eminent persons, with a biographical account of the same. H. D. — But, sir, this is no more than our London papers give us daily, and with illustrations to boot. Guide. — The report of daily news and current events is, how- ever, only the least striking and important feature of our National Gazette. What will you say when I tell you that in its columns are concentrated the pith and essence, and perhaps the whole of the leading articles, such as your London papers are able to publish daily in their broad-sheets ? Mr. D. — Then you must have a tremendous staff of leading article-writers at command. Guide. — So we have; for our excellent schools, colleges, and LIFE IN UTOPIA. 69 universities turn out such a number of able writers, art-critics, and reporters, that we count them l)y thousands, while you have to confine yourselves to hundreds only. Moreover, we engage no one especially for this distinguished task, but accord unre- stricted freedom to any writer who wishes to have his opinion published in the Gazette, either in the shape of an article or communication. Air. D. — I perceive here a great advantage arising from the in- tegrity, truthfulness, conviction, and even honour of the writers in the National Ginzette of Utopia, whilst our English journalists will write in any vein, and even against their own convictions, provided they are well paid for their work, which, however, is rarely the case, for the "penny-a-liner" has become an almost ubiquitary individual. Some of these needy and greedy leader- writers are said to be made use of by both our Conservative and Liberal parties. If. D. — Granting, sir, that your journalists are superior to ours, will not the eagerness of so many able writers to see themselves in print cause voluminous contributions, making the size of the paper so great that your citizens might hesitate, or even refuse, to contribute their free and voluntary labour in order to publish it ? Guide. — There are in Utopia many causes that reduce the quantity of matter sent by writers ; amongst which I place again their good education, which teaches them the restriction of self- assertion ; then there is the entire extinction of political party strife, and the substitution of our industrial administration for political government, needing but little comment ; moreover, the board of public information exercises some discretionary power in the matter of acceptance or rejection of contributions to the National Gazette. The board has, however, no power of refusing to accept any contributions written by members of the academy of art, science, and literature. The associates of these learned institutions being not only persons renowned throughout Utopia, but counting amongst themselves many able writers, authors, critics, and polemics, their contributions attract the attention of the public in preference to any other, and inferior writers prefer remaining respectfully silent, noticing the admiration the people are paying to superior writing. And, again, as each article is to be signed by its writer, who in no case is permitted to assume a noni de plume, libellous criticism is kept at bay, and all contributors get extremely careful not to injure their reputation by inferior or offensive writing. Mr. D. — And what about the publishing of books ? Guide. — The impediments which Utopia has devised for check- 70 LIFE IN UTOPIA. ing a possible outbreak of a publishing mania, are of three kinds. An author who desires a work of his to be printed and published can do so in three ways : one by command of an academy of which he must be a member ; another by soliciting recom- mendations for his work from at least five hundred citizens ; and, again, another way by the writer joining the ranks of the printers and book-binders who are engaged in putting his manuscript into print and book form. This latter mode of publishing is generally resorted to by young and enthusiastic authors. Using one of these permissions, any person can publish a book in Utopia. H. D. — I don't think, sir, that with such impediments, Utopia will ever enrich her literature and her libraries with such a num- ber of books as our English writers, printers, and publishers are spreading broadcast over the whole world. Guide. — Perhaps not ; but what we publish is solid good writing. Mr. D. — Harry, you know very well that many of the books, and novels especially, published in England are mere trash, and not worth the ink and paper that have been wasted in their publication. H. D. — Father, nothing is wasted in publication of worthless books, especially of innumerable novels in volumes, for it employs a great number of workmen in printing and bookbinding, and gives a decided impulse to the paper manufacture, and wholesale paper trade ; a great number of people gain thereby their daily bread. Guide. — It seems to me that you English are always highly gratified when new sources of labour are opened or the old ones flow more abundantly, whereas we in Utopia regard the reduction of labour as an element of progress. Mr. D. — A palpable and most striking difference. Guide. — Gentlemen, you must yet permit me to make an im- portant addition to my description of our organization of labour. Our multitude of workers is otificered somewhat like a regular army of soldiers, our foremen being its captains, our managers its colonels, and our boards of work its general staff, and the directors of the boards of work its generals ; it requires the same strict dis- cipline as a regular army; and just as the least breach of discipline in a body of soldiers may endanger the lives of all, so may lax discipline in our industrial army endanger the welfare of our whole nation. Infractions of discipline, committed either by workers, foremen, managers, or directors, are therefore considered punishable offences by our criminal law. Mr. D. — We punish our workmen, foremen, managers, and LIFE IN UTOPIA. 7I directors by fines for trivial faults, and by dismissal for gross neglect of duty. Guide. — Utopia has three degrees of punishments for the dere- liction of duty in the performance of labour and its superinten- dence : slight offences are publicly reported in the trades papers ; in more serious cases the delinquents lose their option of working in the lighter and pleasant handicrafts, and are exclusively confined to heavy, dangerous, and irksome labour ; and very serious and culpable infractions of duty are considered criminal offences punishable by imprisonment with spare diet and penal labour. Now I see Miss and Mrs. Douty coming back from their walk in the park. Let us go up and meet them, and return with them to the associated home where you have taken up your residence. But, as you have not yet seen much of our social palace, I will to- day conduct you through the whole of this gigantic pile of build- ings. H. D. — We shall be glad, Guide, to follow you. CHAPTER XI. Guide. — Let us enter the town here, and go through this street, which we call Shakespeare Street. There you see the name of the great poet written on yonder wall in golden letters, whose shining hue will, during the darkness of the night, become even more resplendent when the electric light from an adjacent lamp falls upon them. Mrs. D. — It would be a very proper and useful innovation if the names of our London streets were illuminated by night, for I am sure that people often lose themselves in the winding maze of our side streets from sheer inability to find and read the names, which are frequently painted in black letters on black walls. Guide. — We should feel grievously ashamed if we had written the names of our streets in such an illegible manner; for our street names serve not only as indications to the streets, but are, moreover, daily and hourly calling to our remembrance the fame and merit of great men, for we have given only names of world-wide renown to our streets. Thus we have them named after Shakespeare, Milton, Chaucer, Spencer, Wordsworth, Dante, Moliere, Goethe, and Homer. Miss D. — I see, you are a poetic people. I love and admire you ever so much more for the tribute you everywhere pay to the names of .— And how beautifully this hearth is faced on all its sides by china tiles ! A lady in evening dress could attend to cooking on it without the least inconvenience from dirt, smoke, or heat. Guide. — The smoke from the fire in this hearth is drawn out into the open air by a flue under the floor. Mr. D. — I often wondered how the smoke of those beautiful china stoves was drawn off, that always stand in the middle of the room of all French coffee-houses, and diffuse not only an equable heat through the whole apartment, but are, by their truncated, columnar shape, and round marble plate, on the top of which plates, cups and saucers can be kept warm, of great convenience, and are quite an embellishment to the place. I know now that their smoke is drawn off in the same way as this. Cook. — We have here, on the side of this big boiler, a large compartment where all our china ware is constantly kept in a moderately heated condition. I will now show you our kitchen LIFE IN UTOPIA. 85 appurtenances. Here along these shelves, on this side of the kitchen, you see long rows of dishes, plates, saucepans, copper kettles, pots, gridirons, etc. Miss D. — And how beautifully they are kept ! M7-S. D. — Our cook never turned out anything so clean and bright. Cook. — On the other three sides of our kitchen are numerous compartments shelved into the wall. This first one has several drawers for all our knives, forks, and spoons to be put in when they have been cleaned. Next to it is a cupboard in which we keep tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, arrowroot, tapioca, semolina, salt, sugar, spices. All these groceries we keep in large canisters, and when one of them is emptied, we have it immediately filled again from the general store. Most of these canisters require filling up about once a month. Mr. D. — What an enormous saving of labour these canisters are capable of effecting when compared to the tiny tea and coffee boxes used in our kitchens in houses in London, which require filling up almost every week, and in poor households even daily, entailing incessant errands to the grocer's for the smallest possible amount,— a hap'porth of sugar and a farthing's worth of tea being often asked for by some little barefooted urchin. Cook. — Here, sir, is our storeroom for preserved meat, fish, and fruit, in tins, cans, and pots ; and next to this compartment is a place which you may call a pantry, for cold meat, eggs, butter, cheese, bacon, and flour ; and here we also keep milk and cream in large glazed pails. All our milk is brought every day direct from the national dairy farm. Guide. — There are consequently no milkmen to be seen in our streets calling out in moaning and muttering accents, "Milk ! milk! milk!" H. D. — I am glad that you have done away with the man-milk- walker. I always thought it to be a kind of work better fitted for the pretty milkmaids. Mr. D. — \\'hat is more unsuitable than to see men milking cows ? Guide. — Cow milking is in Utopia exclusively done by women. Cook. — Here, next to our milk and cream store, is an ice-cham- ber, with a freezing apparatus, or refrigerator, very convenient for keeping fresh meat, fish, and butter, and for the making of iced drinks in the height of the summer season. And here, in this chamber, stand several great bread-pans, each of them containing about twenty loaves, for keeping the staff of life always in an eatable and enjoyable condition. And here is a compartment 86 LIFE IN UTOPIA. with chests of drawers in it, in which we keep our clean table- linen, table-napkins, waitresses' and kitchen-maids' aprons, and kitchen towels. And here in this room stand several large wooden chests, into which we put our dirty table-linen and towels, napkins and aprons that have been used in the kitchen and dining-hall. Next to this room is a receptacle for wood, and close to it are our coal-bins, which only require to be filled twice a year, as we cook chiefly by gas, and not by coal-fires. A/rs. D. — Then, Cook, how many assistants do you require to do all this grand cooking ? Cook. — There are, besides myself, three kitchen-maids, three scullery-maids, three waitresses, and one man who does the carry- ing, lights the gas, and makes the fire ; in all, ten persons who do the kitchen and dining-room work for a thousand persons. Mr. D. — The cooking and serving dinners for looo persons, which you can do by the assistance of about ten maids, would necessitate more than 300 cooks and maids in our English one house-wife and one servant system. Mrs. D. — Husband, say nothing more of our English servants ; I have had quite enough of them. H. D. {to Guide). — Sir, as we have just now seen a place into which dirty linen is put away before going into wash, may I ask you where, and by whom men's and women's shoes are brushed and cleaned ? Guide. — Sir, there is, in the basement of the building, a large, open, and well-ventilated room in which shoe-brushing and polish- ing is done by machinery. H. D. — I "suppose, sir, in the fashion of our London hair- dressers, who brush gentlemen's heads with cylindrical brushes driven at great speed by machinery. Guide. — Just in the same way, sir. Mr. D. — Who holds the shoes to the revolving brushes, and performs thus an easy but by no means agreeable task of work? Guide. — Our women being exempt from this kind of work, our young men generously volunteer to do it ; and since they have read that the American President, residing (1890) in the White House, brushed his own shoes, there has been quite a rush of volunteers for the shoe-brushing service. Mrs. D. — I should have nothing to do with machinery; I like the old-fashioned hand-brushes for shoe-cleaning. Wherever there is machinery there is danger. Mr. D. — You are right, Mary Ann, this time ; for a strange acci- dent caused by machinery happened once in a London barber's LIFE IN UTOPIA. 8/ shop. When an assistant was brushing a gentleman's rather long crop of hair, a curl of it got twisted around the handle of the rapidly revolving cylindrical brush, and lifted him right out of his chair. Guide. — In the basement of every associated home is also set a heating apparatus, from which warm air is sent to every room, hall, and apartment throughout the whole range of the building. The pipes from the heating-apparatus discharge their contents into air-chambers, of which there is one in the wall of each room, and in large halls in four sides. From the wall the air is let into the room by a small oblong shutter, half a foot long and three inches high, which can be partially or entirely closed, accord- ing to the heat required in the room. This system of heating has not only greatly contributed to cleanliness, for the heat from the wall produces neither smoke nor dust, but it has moreover proved to be one of the greatest economical successes we have yet achieved in Utopia, by having reduced the work of the coal- miner quite one-half of his former painful, laborious, and dangerous occupation. Mrs. D. — Cook, we thank you very much for having shown us over all that stands under your care and command. Cook. — I am always pleased to show all our culinary arrange- ments, especially to visitors from foreign lands. Mrs. D. — How long have you to stay here, for our guide told us that all domestic work is done by shifts of workers and super- intendents ? Cook. — Madam, my engagement here expires to-day, but I have voluntarily entered upon another term of three months' super- vision, as the woman who should have replaced me is busily occupied in finishing a work of art for a competition. Guide. — Exchange and substitution of labour is very common amongst the Utopians. Mrs. D. — We wish you good-bye, and hope to see you again at some other time. Cook. — But you have not yet seen our large dining and ban- queting-hall. Go in now, for our people are at this moment sitting down to dinner and enjoying it. Mrs. D. — I never like overlooking people when they eat their food. Guide. — Madam, you can sit down amongst them and have dinner too. Mrs. D. — I would rather not, sir. Guide. — If you don't like to go in with us, madam, you can just take a walk for a little while in the garden, where we will again meet you after we have seen the people at dinner. 88 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Guide. — Here is the entrance to the dining-hall. It opens and shuts by a folding swing-door. Let us go in. {Having entered^ the Guide addresses those who sii at table in these words.) Friends, don't be disturbed in the enjoyment of your midday meal. I brought these strangers in, not for the purpose of looking at you, though they cannot help doing so, but rather to see the hall, how dinner is served, and how our country makes you happy and joyful. Several. — We always like to see strangers, and never mind how, when, or where. Guide {to Visitors). — You see, there are four long tables occupy- ing the whole length of the hall, with a wide passage between them. The men sit along one side of the table, and the women opposite them, on the other. If. D. — I notice that the artillery of the eyes is both quick and well-aimed from both sides. Guide. — It is of the most innocent and natural kind, and will always take place where the sexes meet in public. Mr. D. — Public enjoyment prevents private vice. Guide.— YoM see, further, that all the food is served in large dishes, carried along the tables by waitresses and waiters, and from these dishes ever)- one takes on to his own plate as much as he wants. Miss D. — Where is that l^rass band playing that charms the people with such sweet, though somewhat subdued, music ? Guide. — Miss, it is not a band, but an orchestra, in a recess there, and is so encased that the music sounds quite soft, and does not hinder conversation and table-talk. Many of our people like to listen to music whenever they can hear it, and that is the reason why their conversation is now so subdued. You also notice many of them looking at the pictures on the walls, for they are real works of art, painted by some of our best artists, and have only recently been hung there. CHAPTER XIV. Guide. — Let us now go and fetch Mrs. D. from her walk in the garden, and then we can have dinner together in my private residence ; and this afternoon we will go by the electric railway to one of our grand educational establishments, situated in the country, about thirty miles from the metropolis. Afiss D. — I anticipate the greatest pleasure in passing through a part of this interesting country. LIFE IN UTOriA. 89 Guide. — You will all feel greatly enchanted in seeing our beautiful country, with its picturesque scenery, limpid rivers, luxurious grass-lands, golden cornfields, shadowy woods, and dark forests, and how it is cultivated. I might have taken you to one of our farm-homesteads, for a better insight into our mode of agri- culture ; but I think that I can sufficiently inform you, in going along by train through our fields, meadows, and woods, how Utopia carries on the cultivation of the land. We shall go by the three o'clock train, and arrive at the schools at four. JOURNEY TO THE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTE. At the Raihuay Station. Guide. — Let us all enter this carriage. Airs. D. — But, sir, we have no tickets. Guide. — None are needed, for all persons travel free in Utopia. Mrs. D. — Of course they must ; I always forget that there is no money in Utopia, and that consequently tickets can neither be sold nor bought. Mr. D. — If the Utopians took any payment for railway travel- ling, it would be the same as if we in England introduced the tolls again that we had so much trouble to abolish. Guide. — Just as free as your high-rOads are now to the English people are our railroads to the Utopians. Now let us take our seats. The train will start in a few minutes; it is timed 3.5. There is never any delay in the starting or running of trains on our railways, for their management is punctuality reduced to mathematical certainty. Mr. D. — Such exactitude we have not yet attained on our Eng- lish railways. Miss D. — And how imperceptibly the train started, and how smoothly it moves on, just as if it were gliding along a watery surface. By what means have you secured such smooth running to your passenger trains ? Guide. — By only one means, and that is electricity. In driving our railway carriages by this invisible power, we obtain, besides smoothness of motion, the greatest comfort to our passengers, through the absence of coal-dust, smoke, and noise from the engine. Airs. D. — I always liked to hear the puffing of the engine, for it used to nurse me gently to sleep on a long and tedious railway journey. Miss D. — I rather think, mother, that I should fall asleep easier when all is quiet around me. Guide. — But none of us must now fall asleep, for we have just 90 LIFE IN UTOPIA- entered the beautiful fields and woods of our country, which you must not neglect to look at from both sides of the line. We have just passed the extensive park and plantations that surround the metropolis. J/r. D. — I wanted to ask you a little while ago, when we left the town, the reason the Utopian metropolis has no suburban districts and pretty villas adorning them ? Guide. — There were formerly such suburbs, with numbers of pretty villas and sumptuous residences in them, mostly inhabited by rich people ; but we pulled them all down when we introduced dwelling in associated homes. H. D. — Did you pay them any compensation in ready cash for their property, for you must have had an enormous amount of it when you withdrew all money from circulation ? Guide. — We allowed them ample compensation, for there were but few of the very rich who laid claim to compensation, which we granted them under the condition that they left the country. They are now living abroad, enjoying their wealth in sumptuous idleness. But the greater number of the dispossessed accepted the new arrangement as to their dwelling in associated homes without protest or murmur, for most of them had even joined the nation's vote for the abolition of money, and the substitution of common for private property. Mr. D. — In exiling the dispossessed rich and compensating them generously, you lost nothing by the transaction, for the money you paid away to them was of no more use in Utopia ; neither could those rich idlers, who had never done any work or learned any trade, be of any advantage to your country, in which every one is an artisan and useful citizen. Guide. — Sir, you are taking quite an Utopian view of the matter. Mrs. D. — What an immense number of cattle and sheep we see here grazing on both sides of the line ! Guide. — This is one of our largest grazing-grounds in Utopia, extending for miles along the line and from it as many miles into the country, covering at least ten square miles. Mr. D. — It seems as if you had introduced into this country the Australian squatter's mode of breeding and raising large herds of cattle and innumerable flocks of sheep, which roam about as they do on a Spanish sheep-walk. Guide. — By no means, sir. These extensive grazing-grounds, herds of cattle, and flocks of sheep are national property, and from them we draw the three principal articles of our people's susten- ance ; namely, meat for food, wool for clothing, and hides for shoe-leather. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 9I Miss D. — How beautifully these plains of grass-land are dotted all over with bushy copses and shadowy trees ! Guide. — They give shelter to the cattle and sheep in wet and hot weather. Mrs. D. — Now we are passing through immense cornfields, in which the golden crop is already ripe for the sickle. Guide. — All the corn in these large fields will be cut next week, and you must not be surprised, madam, when I tell you that it will all be cut in one day. We shall merely wait for the first fine one, and bring as many corn-cutting and binding machines into the field as are required for clearing the whole area in one day. A few hundred persons will be employed in this reaping opera- tion. Mr. D. — What an enormous difterence this speedy mode of reaping makes compared with the custom that prevails in my own country, where one single harvest-man is often put to the task of cutting a large cornfield, which with his whole might and main he cannot accomplish in less than a week or a fortnight, or maybe three or four weeks, when interrupted by bad weather. Guide. — All our agricultural operations are done on a most gigantic scale, and finished mostly, by the assistance of machines, in the quickest possible time. Mr. D.— \ see, likewise, that your fields are much larger than our English broad acres. Guide. — And so are our farm-homesteads, which mostly form large villages by themselves, with numerous and large appurten- ances for the sheltering and indoor feeding of cattle, sheep, and pigs, for the storing of produce, and of farm implements, agricul- tural machines, and lastly for the housing of the farm inmates and agricultural labourers. Mr. D. — Then you carry on the consolidation of farms in a similar way to us in England ? Guide. — Much in the same way, with only this difference, that whilst you consolidate the smaller into larger ones, we consolidate the largest into still larger, so that farms with a thousand acres would now be considered dwarfs amongst our giant ones. H. D. — Father, look at this large field yonder ; I see about twenty steam-ploughs in operation on it. Guide. — The whole extent will be ploughed to-day, harrowed to-morrow, and drilled the next day, and all is done by machinery. Mfs. D. — I wonder, sir, why we have not yet seen the smallest plot of waste-land with its golden heather and blooming thistles on it, a sight at which we English are always highly delighted. 92 LIFE IN UTOl'IA. Guide. — Every inch of ground being cultivated in our country, we have no such charming waste-lands as you have just described, which, however, I should rather call eye-sores that would draw tears from every Utopian were his country afflicted with them. By cultivating every perch and pole of land, we produce for ourselves sufficient corn, wool, flax, milk, butter, and cheese ; our cattle, sheep, pigs, and fowls give us plenty of meat ; our fields plenty of vegetables, and our orchards plenty of fruit and herbs ; so that we need no foreign importation of provisions. Mr. D. — I wish we could do the same in England, for it would prevent so much of our money going out of the country. Guide. — Our universal cultivation of every rod of land is more- over rendered still more productive by our agriculture being carried on in the most scientific and skilful manner by the use of artificial manure and mechanical implements mostly worked by steam or electricity. Mr. D. — Artificial manure we also use in England, but not to the extent you are applying it to your fields in Utopia. Miss D. — Mother, look out of this window, and you will see a most beautiful castle in the midst of an extensive park, with massive and luxuriant oak and cedar trees all around. Mrs. D. — I can distinctly see a great number of people on the large, green lawn before the mansion. I wonder if there is any festivity going on in the place. Guide. — Madam, noisy festivities are unknown in this place, and a pleasant calm reigns there instead. This beautiful castle, which once belonged to some mighty lord of ante-Utopian times, is now a place of retreat for the aged. It has been considerably enlarged by several wings and courts having been added to pro- vide dormitories for about 300 residents. There are in Utopia more than a hundred of these ancient castles that have been in a similar manner converted into places of retreat for the aged or convalescent. Mr. D. — Though the Utopians acted munificently on behalf of humanity and charity, I should, nevertheless, have opposed them if they ever had a chance of converting my own English country mansion into a charitable asylum. Mrs. D. — We should rather like to contribute a large sum for the building of such institutions somewhere else. Miss D. — What is the reason, sir, that we nowhere get a view of any agricultural labourers' cottages ? Guide. — The reason, Miss, is : there are none in Utopia. The whole of our agricultural population, both married and single, being accommodated in the extensive premises of the farms LIFE IN UTOPIA. 93 themselves, there was no longer any need for those isolated and dilapidated cottages. Mr. D. — I wish that a similar clearance had been made of the agricultural labourers' cottages in England, for most of them are so ill-conditioned for human habitation that they defile both the land and the people. Mrs. D. — No wonder they flee from them as though they were pest-houses, and seek more comfortable and healthier homes in towns. Guide. — If you now look out from this side of the carriage, you will see a number of farms close on to the line. Miss D. — We can count about half a dozen, and can also see that each of them is surrounded by large orchards, extensive gardens, plantations, hot-houses, and nurseries. Guide. — Garden-cultivation by the spade is one of the principal branches of agriculture in Utopia. H. D. — Why should you have resorted to spade-husbandry when you could do almost everything by machinery ? Guide. — Though we could easily spare spade-husbandry, we yet introduced it for creating a healthy and invigorating employment for our population, a third of which takes its abode in the country by triennial displacement of those located on it the previous three years. Owing to the large number we send on these triennial periods into the country, some suitable employment had to be found for them, as they are not all needed in field-labour, which is mostly done by machinery. The cultivation of fruit and flowers in the orchards and gardens, as well as in the hot-houses, and the attendance to the poultry-yard affords them another kind of occu- pation which agreeably diversifies their more arduous work in the neld. And wnen the stated the weather is such that field and garden-labour must be abandoned for a time, our husbandmen find useful occupation indoors in the industrial shed of the farm- homestead, either at a loom, a knitting frame, a turner's lathe, a joiner's bench, or other industrial pursuits which our board of agriculture thinks fit to combine with this occupation. Mr. />.— The peasants in Switzerland and in the Black Forest of Germany combine almost everywhere silk-weaving, watch, clock, and toy making, with their ordinary field-labour ; and at present there is an attempt made in England for the introduction of cottage industry. Miss D. — Mother, another beautiful mansion with large pleasure grounds is to be seen on this side of the line. I see a number of very fashionably dressed people walking about on the lawn, that reaches nearly down to the railway line. 94 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Mrs. D. — Now I can clearly perceive that they are all very young people, apparently between twenty and twenty-four years old, for I can distinctly see their features. They walk about in pairs, man and woman, regarding each other tenderly. They form no crowd, but each pair seems to take a separate path and to avoid meeting others as much as possible. Miss D. — Mother, I just saw a pair kissing each other. Mrs. D. — A strange, but withal, a happy sort of people. Qiiide. — A happy lot they are, that is certain ; for they are none other than our young married people, who are spending their honeymoon in this charming rural retreat. There are many more such places in Utopia, and in all of them happiness reigns supreme. Mrs. D. — What a number of children I can now see at work in yon fields ! Guide. — Madam, they are the children that belong to the school which we are now going to visit, and which will soon come in sight. All the children of our schools are trained in agricultural labour for usefulness and health. Mr. D. — 1 wish such training-schools existed in England. Guide. — Before we reach the school, which we shall in about a quarter of an hour, I will recite to you, in five short points, all the excellencies of our agricultural system : — 1. It makes the enjoyment of country life, combined with agri- cultural labour in turn, accessible to all the people. 2. That cultivation on a large scale, on large fields, and with an extensive application of macnmery, is undertaken and regulated by our board of agriculture. 3. That cultivation on a small scale, consisting chiefly of spade- husbandry and gardening, takes place at the side of field labour by machines. 4. That all grown-up children contribute a share to agricultural labour. 5. That with each farm-homestead some industrial occupation an^ their necessary appliances are combined. Mr. D. — All excellent points for securing the greatest amount of agricultural produce with the greatest enjoyment of health for the people. Miss Z>.— Will you now allow me to recite some lines from Mr. Ruskin's celebrated work, " The Laws of Labour " : — " Now the fulfilment of all human liberty is in the peaceful inheritance of the earth, with its herb yielding seed, and fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind ; the pasture or arable land, and the blossom- ing or wooded and fruited land uniting the final elements of life LIFE IN UTOPIA. 95 and peace, for body and soul. Therefore, we have the two great Hebrew forms of benediction, ' His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk ' ; and again, ' Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know how to refuse the evil and choose the good.' And as the work of war and sin has always been the devastation of this blossoming earth, whether by spoil or idleness, so the work of peace and virtue is also that of the first day of Paradise, to ' dress it and to keep it.' And that will always be the song of perfectly accomplished Liberty, in her industry, and rest, and shelter from troubled thoughts in the calm of the fields, and gaining by migration^ the long summer's day from the shortening twilight " : — " Where the bee sucks, there Uirk I, In a cowsliji's bell I lie : There I couch when owls do crj', On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily : Merrily, merrily, shall I live now Under the blossom that hangs on the bough." Guide. — All Utopians consider John Ruskin's allusion to migration in occupying the calm fields of the land as a remark- able prophetic indication of the triennial transfer of their whole population from towns into the country. Mrs. D. — You do nothing more than our English nobility and merchant princes, who live partly in their beautiful country seats and partly in their luxurious town mansions. H. D. — I can, however, mention a curious exception con- cerning this alternate living in town and country. There resided on Taplow Hill a rich Scotch gentleman, in a splendid and gor- geously furnished Roman villa, which he had built for himself; and although thus living for a considerable number of years in the immediate neighbourhood of London, he had never seen the great city, and persistently refused ever to see it, on account of his not unnatural aversion to all great towns, an aversion likewise shared by John Ruskin. CHAPTER XV. Arrival at the Schools. Guide. — Let us go into the refreshment-room. Mrs. D. — I find it a very large one for such a small station. Guide. — We require a large refreshment-room at all the railway stations next to our national schools and colleges ; for so many parents are daily coming to see their children, and not getting 96 LIFE IN UTOPIA. provided with food in the colleges and schools themselves, they resort to the refreshment-room at the station on either arriving or leaving. Mrs. D. — I think they would do better by bringing their own food with them, as some of our London people do when they go to the Crystal Palace. Guide. — But, madam, the people in Utopia are regaled gra- tuitously at any railway-station in the country, and the trains are frequently stopped for the passengers' meals. I will now go and order tea for us. Miss D. — How delightful railway travelling must be throughout Utopia! Guide. — Before our tea is brought in, I have an important com- munication to make to Mr. Harry Douty. H. Z).— What is it, sir? Guide. — It is nothing less than a marriage proposal. H. D. — You greatly surprise me, sir. Guide. — As your sister is already prospectively engaged to my son, who is a graduate and fellow of the university of this very school we are going to visit presently, I thought it would be a most charming thing if you could become similarly united in Utopia and celebrate your marriages together. Miss D. — It would make us all doubly happy. H. D. — But how, sir, can you arrange a marriage for a man who does not personally know a single woman in Utopia ? Have you a daughter ? Guide. — I have none ; but if you let me have your photograph, I can find you a well-educated young Utopian woman who is leaving school to-morrow and is privileged to enter the state of matrimony as soon as she quits school. H. D. — Here is my photograph ; it was taken the very day we left England in search of Utopia. Guide. — All first interviews with a prospect of marriage are, according to our custom, suggested to either sex by the presenta- tion of photographic likenesses. I will send your photograph off to-day, as the marriageable women will to-morrow make their selection of future husbands from a number of the photos of marriageable men. Mrs. D. — It looks to me much like a lottery, and makes marriage a thing of chance. Mr. D. — And that it is and has always been. Our great Dr. Samuel Johnson's practical views on marriage engagements point in the same direction, for he says : " I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made LIFE IN UTOPIA. 97 by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the charac- ters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter," Then let it be decided for my son as you have suggested, sir. H. D. — Ditto. {Tea is brought in.) Guide. — I now take the opportunity during tea-time of making a few introductory remarks concerning the object for which we have come here. Miss D. — Do so, sir, and we shall most attentively listen to you. Guide. — According to our last decennial census, the total num- ber of all children and young persons from five to twenty years old amounted to four million individuals, the whole of whom are taught, fed, clothed, and lodged in 400 educational establishments, accommodating each about 10,000 scholars, which, on account of the large number, may more properly be called colonies. Each of these colonies contain, not only a great number of scholars, but likewise all the requisite buildings for their housing, education, and training. You will therefore find in this place numerous school-houses, schoolrooms, colleges, and even a uni- versity building. The girls' and young women's educational colonies are situated in other parts of the country, at some dis- tance from the boys' schools. Mrs. D. — Then we shall no more hear : " Clirls and boys, come out to play." Miss D. — Please, mother, do not interrupt the serious atten- tion we pay to all that concerns education. Guide. — The girls' and young women's educational colonies also have college and university accommodation. Highly edu- cated and learned ladies are the teachers and professors. The young men leave their colonies at twenty, the women at eighteen. At these respective ages both sexes are permitted to marry. The scholars' development in bodily health, strength, and cleanliness is secured by gymnastic exercise and practice in swimming, by their participation in domestic, agricultural, and industrial labour, by frequent short walks into the surrounding districts, and occasional excursions further into the country. Mrs. D. — You said something, sir, of students doing servants' work. Excuse me thinking that they will not like this, and will therefore do it carelessly. Guide. — A\'hether they like it or not, tliey are compelled to do it, and to do it properly. They have to make their own beds, clean their shoes, brush their clothes, sweep their dormitories and schoolrooms; their monitors will see that their work is not done 98 LIFE IN UTOPIA. carelessly. Industrial training and apprenticeship in at least one of the skilled trades is compulsory for all scholars and students when thirteen years old, with some slight concessions to choice and liking for particular occupations. Mr. D. — 15 ut how can you thus secure the proper number of apprentices in all the various trades ? Guide. — It is managed in this way : — The board of a certain trade, for instance, requires a certain number of apprentices ; this requirement is communicated to the board of education, which issues an order to all the schools for an appeal to be made by the teachers to the pupils in order to induce some of them to enter this particular trade, telling them at the same time that all labour is necessary, useful, and honourable. And appealing thus to their good sense, there has never yet been any difficulty in obtaining the required number ; on the contrary, a greater number always present themselves than are required, and the admission of the necessary number has to be decided by drawing lots. Mr. D. — I certainly should prefer such a mode of obtaining apprentices to the one that prevails in our country, where appren- ticeship to one and the .same trade becomes almost hereditary, the son being invariably apprenticed to his father, whether he likes it or not. //. D. — I know of hereditary apprenticeship being secured to the coopers' trade, by artisans making a compact with their em- ployers which permits only the sons of coopers' journeymen to enter a cooper's yard as acceptable apprentices. Guide. — In those two cases which you and your father have cited, there is certainly no choice on the part of those who are apprenticed, Bj.it we leave them a tolerably large range of volun- tary entry into any particular trade. Then, in order to evoke genius and special aptitudes, the rudiments and first principles of all arts and sciences are taught at an early age in our schools. Artistic and scientific initiation begins with a pupil's eighth year, and the higher developments follow when aptitude and skill have been discovered in a pupil, by our artistic and scientific essay and training classes. We have found an astonishing number of great geniuses and talents, which in ante-Utopian times would have remained buried in ignorance. Mr. D. — I should think it a great insult to our English work- ing classes if any one maintained that all those of their rank who had not risen to great eminence and fame as engineers, mathe- maticians, chemists, painters, sculptors, actors, musicians, poets, etc., have remained in a humble and inferior station of life be- LI1I-: IN UTOPIA. 99 cause they have had no talents or aptitudes whatever. I think the contrary to be the case, and sincerely regret that amongst a number of 300,000 English miners, many a great genius would have come forth had they enjoyed the Utopian system of educa- tion and initiation in arts and sciences. Miss D.—\ recollect a short piece of poetry which just fits the subject our guide has mentioned. It was written by an iMiglish artisan, and runs thus : — "Whatever can l)y man be known, Common as grass-seed should be sown ; Oh, stint not ! let it fall Free, free — for all, for all." Guide. — Our great universities are not only seats of learning and mental culture, but they are, moreover, generous patrons and energetic promoters of art. Mrs. D. — Dancing being an art must consequently be incor- porated in the curriculum of your universities, sir ? Guide. — So it is, madam. In learning it in our schools, boys ■dance with boys, and girls with girls ; but having learned it, and attained man and womanhood, and leaving school in a marriage- .able condition, the sexes dance freely but modestly with each marrying kinsfolk. Guide. — Utopia also refuses permission for marriage to those afilicted with incurable and infectious diseases, such as consump- tion, scrofula, cancer, and other such complaints. Mr. D. — And what results have you obtained by your marriage- laws and arrangements ? H. M. — By our easy wa\- of getting all men and women mar- ried when they are young, and by another easy way of permitting voluntary and mutual separation in all cases of unhappy unions, we have secured the greatest possible amount of happiness to our people. Murder and atrocious assaults by wives and husbands, arising from an unbearably irritating state of matrimonial alliances, have now been unknown in Utopia since the time we enacted our humane marriage laws. Mr. D. — You merit the envy and admiration of the whole world. Mrs. D. — And what have you done against that great fiend, drunkenne.ss, that destroys so many hajjpy marriages in my own countr\- ? I08 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Guide. — As intoxicating drinks are neither made nor served in Utopia, that destroyer of happiness and health has entirely fled from our country. Guide {addressing Head- mistress). — I have now a strange but most important request to make to you, Head-mistress of this insti- tution. It is on behalf of Mr. Douty'sson and daughter. Both of them wisli to become resident inhabitants of Utopia, and as they are both in the bloom of youth, and have attained the marriageable age fixed by our laws, I have suggested to Miss Uouty that she should marry my son. Miss D. — Which I wish to do from my heart. Guide. — We put Miss Douty's portrait and (jualifications up in the great hall of the metropolis, where the portraits of all other marriageable women are exhibited for the inspection and informa- tion of suitors. My son has there seen her portrait and qualifica- tions, and being highly pleased with them, immediately sent his own portrait and qualifications to this establishment, where you will find it in the celebrated matrimonial engagement-urn, from which young hearts hope to draw love's young representative. H. M. — Then we must permit ]\[iss Douty to take a place on the representation benches amongst our other marriageable women. Miss D. — I thank you very much for assigning such a favour- able place to me. Guide. — Mr. Douty, junior, also has seen the women's por- traits in the metropolitan hall, and has, I think, made a proposal to one of them, who is under your charge. To which one he has directed and discharged an arrow from his heart is not known to me, but you will see when you draw his portrait from the matri- monial urn. Mrs. D. — If both my son and daughter meet with suitable partners, they can have their weddings together, H. M. — All that is now required is Mr. Douty's son's with- drawal from the presentation ceremony, and Miss Douty's taking lier seat amongst our young women on the presentation benches. The magic urn containing the portraits and marriage proposals of suitors has just arrived, and is now being carried into the presen- tation hall, heading a procession of about twenty young women. ^Vill you now go into the hall to witness this interesting proces- sion? In its rear come some of the young women's parents, and next to them follow the whole of our teaching staff and the public. LIFE IN UTOPIA. IO9 CHAPTER XVII. { The parents bciit^ arcoiuiiiodatcd luilh seats on the platform of the hall, and behind them the teachini:; staff, the twenty youns; 'lOomen, with Miss Donty amoni:;st them, kavint:^ mounted the platform and taken their seats on two semi- cireiilar benches to the right and left of the presidential chair, a female atteitdant places the presentation-urn, -uith uplifted arms, on a little round table that faces the presidential chair. The faces of the youn;^ 'women bri;^hten 'with joyful smiles, and one can almost see the palpitation of their hearts by the accelerated hea-ring of their bosoms, and the deep sighs that rise from them. A solemn silence reigns throughout the hall, tnnu -well filled with the public, when the Head-mistress tahes the presidential chair, and delivers the following culdress to the young -women. ) H. M. — My dear young friends and graduated students of this time-honoured educational institute. Having now completed your education in science and art, and having each learned a trade or two, and being thus enabled to earn your living, our dear and beloved country permits you at the age you have now attained to enter the state of matrimony, and to choose or accept a man who shall be a lifelong friend, lover, companion, comforter, and protector to you. The matrimonial state is as old as the world. Marriage became a sanctified institution the moment Clod placed Adam and Eve in Paradise, and said, It is not good for man to be alone ; and that the Creator likewise intended it to be a state of happiness we infer from His putting them into a garden of bliss, or earthly heaven. The same state of happiness and bliss matrimony is able to secure to you and make your life a paradise, if you can find a man whose character, temper, tastes, and likings agree closely with yours. Utopia, your kind, generous, and solicitous mother, will assist you as much as is in her power, to secure the most acceptable partakers of your life's enjoyments and cares. We have made arrangements that each of you shall to-day receive proposals for marriage by young men of about the same age as yourselves. These proposals you can accept or reject. Your decision in this matter will not, however, remain an impenetrable secret, but become known to us here assembled, your teachers, parents, and suitors, to whom you will have to communicate your decision, be it acceptance or refusal. We warn you at the same time not to correspond with any other suitors but your own. In all cases of a favourable acceptance the State arranges the introduction by means of public amusements, balls, concerts, excursions, or private interviews in the presence of your or the suitor's parents. Appointments to this purpose you will to-day receive attached to the proposals. AN'hen you have ([ 10 LIFE IN UTOPIA. thus been introduced to your suitor, you may enter into a friendly intercourse with him, which we call courtship. We expect that you will immediately, on entering courtship, notify it in the uValio>ial Gazrttc, and this for two reasons : first, because court- ship can legally only last for three months ; and secondly, as a warning to those who might intrude themselves into the sacred ])recincts of budding love. Courtship maybe voluntarily dissolved either by mutual consent, or by one of the parties ; but when not ing the first proposal from the matrimonial urn, the Head- mistress reads it aloud : it is tvorded thus :) " I, Edward Cooper, of Garrick University, propose marriage to Jessy Evans, of Hemans University. I am 20 years old, stand 5 feet 4 inches high, and enjoy perfect health (certified by medical testimony). My hair is black and curly, my eyes are dark, and what my features are my photographic likeness will tell. I am by profession an actor, having gained first honours in dramatic acting. By trade I am a scene-painter and stage-carpenter, and by religion an independent Protestant. I make this sincere and ardent proposal to Jessy Evans, not only being highly pleased with her l)ersonal appearance as seen in her life-sized photograph exhibited in the presentation hall of the metropolis, but more by reading in her qualifications that she is an accomplished actress, and already a member of the academy of dramatic art. I therefore think that we should be well suited to act together the drama of our life on the world's stage." H. M. — Miss Evans, what answer will you give to this pro- posal ? LIFE IN UTOPIA. II3 Miss Evans. — I am exceedingly pleased with it, and shall accept it without the least hesitation. The man's features please nie; but more so his accomplishment in dramatic acting. If he should become my husband, we could act to perfection Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet ; and I, being an expert dressmaker, could devise and make the costumes for the actors. iMiss D. — I wish that you may j^erform your parts together as harmoniously and successfully as our English actors Henry Irving and Ellen Terry. Air. Z>. — We congratulate you upon the happy proposal you have received, and upon the unreserved reply you have given to it. {The H. M., draiving another proposal from the tirn, reads :) " I, Harold Eaton, of Turner University, propose marriage to Maria Goddard, of Hemans University. I am twenty-two years old, I stand five feet high, have a fair complexion, a pair of hazel eyes, and am of sound health (certified by medical report). My photograph will give you a better outline of my features than I. could descriptively write of them. I am an artist engraver on steel, brass, and wood, and belong by trade to the pattern designers ; by religion I am a simple and true Calvinist. I selected Miss Maria Goddard for my intended wife on account of learning from the list of qualifications and accomplishments that she is a first-rate painter; and I thought that it would highly please her if I engraved on steel or wood the pictures and por- traits she paints, and that by this means I might hope to endur- ingly engrave and agreeably impress my love and admiration on her heart." //. jM. — i^Iiss Goddard, what do you say to this sensible pro- posal ? Miss Goddard. — I simply say, "Joyfully accepted." Afrs. D. {to Hcad-inistress). — I wish you could settle as easily and quickly all the proposals yet to be drawn from that magic urn. H. M. — There may, perhaps, arise some difficulty with some of them ; but I think that on the whole the proposals will be cheerfully accepted, as the young women are all anxious to get engaged. {Draiviiig another photograph and proposal from the iirn^ she reads :) " I, Robert Harvey, from Beethoven University, take the liberty of proposing marriage to Jane Kempe, of Hemans Uni- versity. I am twenty-one years old, five feet high, and in perfect health (medically certified). I am of light complexion, my eyes are blue, and my moustache assumes quite a manly appearance. I 114 LTFE IN UTOPfA. My pliotograi)h-may, in some degree, flatter my features ; but I must humbly permit it to tell an unvarnished truth. I am by profession a pianist, having frequently and successfully performed before our University audiences. I am a pianoforte-maker by trade, and am a Catholic by religion. I selected INIiss Jane Kempe from amongst several hundred who have sent their like- nesses to the presentation hall in the metropolis, not so much for her attractive features, as for her high accomplishment in music, she being already at her young age a most celebrated violinist. We should doubly enjoy our lives by playing together Beethoven's, Mozart's, and Schubert's famous duos for piano and violin, and our tastes and enjoyment agreeing in our devotion to music, the harmony of our married life would flow the sweeter and smoother." H. M. — Miss Jane Kempe, is this proposal acceptable to you.? Miss Kcnipe. — Certainl}'^, my revered mistress ; for I know nothing more soothing and tranquillising than the performance of highly classical music in duo, trio, and quartetts, and in all ■ these the pianist, my future husband, could join me. Mr. D. — We sincerely congratulate you on the acceptance of the proposal ; and I can state to your satisfaction that in Europe double marriages of artists have taken place to the greatest happi- ness of the parties so united, and to the wonderful advancement of the musical art itself. I need only mention Schuman, the celebrated musical composer, who married Clara Wieck ; Sir Charles Halle, the great pianist, who married Neruda, a great lady-violinist ; and the famous poet Browning, who married the eminent poetess Elizabeth Barrett. (//. J/., drawing another pioposal, reads .•) " I, John Rradly, of Brunei University, make the present pro- posal of marriage to Miss Sarah Clifford, of Hemans University. I am twenty years old, stand six feet high, have brown hair and brown eyes ; and as to my features, the accompanying photo will best tell of them. I am by profession an engineer, by trade a mathematical instrument maker, and am an atheist. {Sensation manifested by all present.) I make this proposal to Miss Sarah Clititbrd, not merely for the fine features she displays in her photo- graph, but more for her accomplishments in mathematics, she having carried off high honours in her university." Air. D. — A mathematician would certainly be a most useful [lielpmate to an engineer. H. M. — Miss Clifford, what is your reply to this proposal ? Mrs. D. — Mind, girl, what you say ; the man is an atheist. Miss Clifford. — I accept him in spite of that ; I shall try to convert him. LIFE IN UTOPIA. II5 Mrs. D. — I pity you, for in trying to convert him you will most likely make him your enemy. Mr. D. — Most atheists have been converted by marrying. {H. M., dra-iiiing another proposal., reads:) " I, David Lewis, of Newton University, venture to propose marriage, love, and friendship to Miss Clara Pain, of Hemans University. I am of dark complexion, stand five feet three inches high, and am in sound health {vide certificate). I am a mathe- matician by profession, a watchmaker by trade, and a Congrega- tionalist. I appeal to Miss Pain for a favourable answer to my proposal, and have only to add that her photographic likeness and her musical accomplishment testify highly in her favour. H. M. — I don't think mathematics and music are suitable com- panions in married life, music being a noisy element which would soon greatly disturb a man engaged in some obtuse problem of mathematical calculation. We would, therefore, advise you not to accept this proposal. Miss Fain {in a ioic tone). — Perhaps they are not. Mrs. D. — But where and when shall the woman get a husband ? Guide. — She will immediately after leaving this school take up her abode in the single women's quarters of the associated home; and as there are single and unmarried men in the home, she will soon receive new and acceptable proposals. Miss Pain. — I hope so. {H. M., taking out another proposal fro>n the urn, reads thus :) " I, Arthur Harris, a former graduate of Turner University, now president of the academy of pamting, sue for the favour of Miss Laura Lyne, now at Hemans University. I am of fair com- plexion, with a fine head of hair, light beard, and blue eyes. Though I am forty-five years old, I could yet love a woman with the same ardour and even cherish her more than if I were still in my twenties. My office as president of the academy exacts of me every year one or more works of art. Being by profession a painter and sculptor, and having lately been commissioned by our nation to model and cast in bronze the colossal statue of Utopia to be erected in one of our great plains that it may be seen far and wide, I was looking for a well-defined classical female head amongst the photographic portraits of young marriageable women now exhibited in the presentation hall of the metropolis, when I saw yours, Miss, and found that it presented the exact Grecian profile I was anxious to obtain as a model for the statue which I am commissioned to execute. Consequently, if you condescend to become my wife, you shall be the model for the colossal statue of Utopia, and your features will then be handed down to future Il6 LIFE IN UTOPIA. ages and be admired by generations to come if my chisel can pre- sent them in their classical beauty. Would you thus become immortalized? Then accept my proposal." H. M. — What say you to this splendid offer, Miss Lyne ? Miss Lyne. — Let me consider for a little while. Miss D. — I would accept it without further consideration. Miss Lyne. — On the advice of our foreign lady friend, I will accept it at once. {H. M., draiving again a proposal, which reads-) " I, Isaac Jacobs, graduate of Heine University, which I have just left, propose marriage to Miss Angelina Swift. I am twenty years old, enjoy perfect health, have a splendid head of coal- black hair, dark eyes, and black, woolly moustache. I am by profession a musician, by trade a tailor, and by religion a Jew. I am very much inclined to marry a Christian woman, lor they seem to me less addicted to a vain show of jewellery and gewgaws than the Jewesses. Mrs. D. — A sensible man this Jew ! IL. M. — What have you to say, Miss Swift ? Miss Swift. — I will marry him, and convert him to Christianity. H. M. — It will be easier to convert an atheist than a Jew. Mr. D. — It is for this reason that our English society for the conversion of the Jews has made so little progress, in spite of the great sums of money they have spent, and from which it is even questionable whether the Jews have reaped any benefit. {H. M. d razes another proposal, and reads :) " I, Charles Austin, of Byron University, propose marriage to Miss Mary Ann Douty, who is now staying as a visitor in Hemans University, of whom I know that she is well read in English literature. As she is solicitous of becoming an Utopian woman by being naturalised, by uniting her life with that of one of our countrymen, I hope that I may be fortunate enough to obtain her consent to such a union. I am twenty-four years old, of dark complexion, black hair, and black moustache, which is just assuming a manly shape. I am a musician by profession, being proficient in several instruments, and therefore much engaged in leading orchestras, bands, choirs, and concerts. By trade I am a turner, and by religion a High Churchman." Airs. D. — I am much pleased with his belonging to the same church as ourselves. They can then go to church, read, pray, and sing in church, commune, and return from church together. IL. M. — What is your answer. Miss Douty, to Charles Austin's proposal ? Miss D. — I accept him with the most sincere and earnest LIFE IN UTOPIA. II7 hopes that he will make me the happiest woman in Utopia, my new mother country. {H. J/, drawing another proposal from the matrimonial urn, reads .•) " I, Joiin Jones, of Knox University, propose marriage to Ethel Hardy, of Hemans University. I am twenty-four years old, stand nearly six feet higli in my socks, enjoy good health, have a fair complexion, speckled face, red hair and beard. I am by pro- fession a doctor of divinity, hold High Church principles, am author of several works on ecclesiastical subjects, and having taken in hand another literary task of the same kind, my time is completely taken up by it. I saw Miss Hardy's portrait and her qualifications for literary compositions. If she would kindly assist me as a wife in writing my Sunday sermons, I could then devote all my time to my literary pursuits, which I consider to be of far greater importance than my Sunday sermons." H. Af. — Miss Hardy, what is your answer to this offer? Miss Hardy. — I accept it most joyfully, for to be the wife of a doctor of divinity and a great author besides, is acquiring a dignity and respect in the eyes of other people to which itw women are destined to aspire. Mrs. D. — Miss Hardy, I think you are showing a little pardon- able pride in this. Mr. D. — \x\. our country the man need not have asked his wife to write his sermons for him, as he could have purchased them legibly written on foolscap paper. {H. J/., draunng another proposal, reads ;) " I, Henry Forbes, of Kingsley University, propose matrimonial union to Miss Nellie Heath, of Hemans University. I am the tallest man in Utopia, measuring six feet five inches from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head ; and Miss Heath, being nearly as tall, we should form a pair of giants that would attract the envy and admiration of the whole world." Mr. D. {aside). — A married couple of giatjts ! What a boon for Barnum's great show. Mrs. D. {aside to her Husband). — And what a lot of money they would fetch ! {H. M. continues reading f/ont the proposal :) " I am by profession a gymnastic and athletic performer, by trade a smith, and by religion a Catholic ; and Miss Heath being also a Catholic, I think we should at least always agree in matters of our creed." H. M. — What is your intention, Miss Heath? Miss Heath. — I heartily and joyfully accept the man's proposal. Il8 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Mrs. D. — I always heard it said that big men like little women and little women big men. H. M. — We in Utopia do not encourage them in their liking, and think that men of Henry Forbes and Nellie Heath's stature would inevitably generate a race of giants. Airs. D. — Surely you don't intend to bring Utopia back to the age of the Samsons and Goliaths? Mr. D. — There are many instances showing that tall men like to associate with tall men. I knew an officer in our Life Guards, who, being six feet two inches high, selected for his servant a soldier who was only two inches less in height than himself. {H. M. draws again from the urn, arid reads .■) " I, Herbert Neye, of Darwin University, propose marriage to Kathleen Norris, of Hemans University. I am twenty-four years old, five feet six inches high, of excellent health {vide certificate). I am an author by profession, a printer and compositor by trade, and a Freethinker by conviction. I selected Miss Norris for my future wife, partly on account of her prepossessing appearance, but more because she is a well-known authoress, who could become very useful to me in correcting and copying my manuscripts and revising my printer's proof-sheets." If. M. — What is your answer, Miss Norris, to this selfish pro- posal ? Miss Norris. — I detest the man who would make an authoress, aspiring to fame, his serviceable amanuensis. Let him knock at some one else's door. Mr. D. — Quite right, my young woman ; selfish men make the worst husbands. {H. M. draws again from the urn, and reads ■) " I, Samuel Stephens, of Turner University, make an offer of marriage to Maud Ellison, of Hemans University. I am twenty-five years old, of middle-sized stature, sound health, dark complexion, dark eyes, and have a long black beard. I have not graduated at my university for any profession, but am an experienced tanner and skinner, in which trades I have been repeatedly foreman. I know Miss Ellison's attractions and accomplishments to be very great, and perhaps not altogether suitable for a simple working- man, but I nevertheless hope to receive a favourable reply to my proposal." H. J/. — What is your intention concerning this man's proposal, Miss Ellison ? Miss Ellison. — I shall accept it, and in so doing, I shall deservedly honour and reward with my love that which is in highest estimation in Utopia — labour. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 119 Mr. D. — A brave and honest woman is she wlio makes such a generous and high-minded resolution. Mrs. D. — I should have thought she would have rejected him because of the abominable odour all tanners and skinners carry about with them. {H. M. draws the followiin:!; proposal ■) " I, Andrew Fisher, of Thorwaldson University, address this proposal for marriage to Miss Minnie Hart, of Henians University. I am of fair complexion, with curly, light hair, blue eyes, and light beard. I am twenty-eight years old, five feet high, and in good health (as certified). I am by profession a sculptor, by trade a stone- mason, and by religion a staunch Protestant. I have a particular reason for proposing to Miss Hart, because she would make a splendid model for my studio, having finely cast classical features and a finely figured posture, as seen in her life-sized photo- graph exhibited in the metropolitan presentation hall. H. J/.— What will you say to this proposal. Miss Hart ? Miss Hart. — I shall accept it, for it may be a means of keeping other models out of his studio. M}-s. D. — Woman, you seem to be jealous of your husband before you have seen him. {H. M. dratvs and ixads this proposal •) " I, Harry Douty, a stranger and visitor in this country, who wishes to become a citizen of Utopia, and who thinks that he can best naturalize himself for such an honourable title by marrying a woman of this happy land, make a sincere and disinterested pro- posal of marriage to Miss Emma Allan, of Hemans University. I am twenty-five years old, of fair complexion, light hair and beard, and blue eyes. I cannot pretend to belong to any scientific or artis- tic profession, though I know a little drawing and painting, which I hope, however, soon to take up again in this country, and to bring to some perfection by Utopia's generous and well-regulated art-training schools. I was always very fond of amateur carpen- tering, and my father had actually put up a joiner's bench in our house for my own use. I should, therefore, not feel altogether strange in entering a carpenter's workshop in this country. Hav- ing been in my own country destined for a commercial life, and as buying and selling is no longer in use in Utopia, I can offer no immediate service to this country except it were by being appointed one of its accredited agents for foreign commerce, to which I might be found qualified by my commercial and linguistic knowledge. If Miss Emma Allan should favourably accept my proposal, I shall do all that lies in my power to make her a happy wife." 120 LIFE IN UTOriA. H. M. — What is your answer, Emma, to this stranger's interest- ing proposal ? Emtna. — Madam, I heartily and joyfully accept it. (^Afiother p7-oposal dra7vn and read by the H. M. :) "I, Charles Gould, propose marriage to Miss Augusta Haines. I am a widower, thirty years old, with two little children, aged two and three years respectively. My wife died young, having met with a fatal accident. I am of light complexion, have red hair and a similar coloured beard, and stand five feet high. I am by profession a dentist, by trade a bookbinder, and by religion an undenominational Christian." H. M. — Miss Haines, will you accept this young widower.? Miss Haines. — With all my heart, for he has hal some experi- ence of married life, and will therefore treat a new wife with more considerate tact than an inexperienced young man. Besides, I pity his little children, who by my acceptance of his proposal will become mine ; and even should our marriage prove childless, I should still be a happy mother with children to love me, (ZT, M., drawing another proposal, reads :) " I, Thomas Morris, graduate of Manning University, propose marriage to Sophia White. I am of dark complexion, black eyes, and black beard. I am twenty-four years old, above middle stature, enjoy the best of health by God's mercy, I am by pro- fession a Roman Catholic priest, and by trade a stock-keeper, Jf Miss White will marry me, I should not in the least interfere with her religious views, and should endeavour to make her happy and contented in every respect." iT", J/. — What is your reply. Miss White? Jl/iss JFhite. — I will marry the priest, and qualify myself to become a priestess, as females are now permitted to occupy re- ligious offices and dignities in all churches. Jfrs. D. — We shall soon see a female pope in the chair of Saint Peter. Mr. D. — The Pope already wears gowns, {^Another proposal issues from the urn, ivhich reads thus •) " I, William Willis, of Proctor University, sue by this proposal Miss Nina Lenox as a partner for life. I am twenty-six years old, of dark complexion, rather diminutive stature, measuring less than four feet, dark eyes, but am still waiting for my beard to grow. I am by profession a teacher of languages, knowing per- fectly well most of the ancient and modern tongues. By trade I am a tailor, and by religion I am a Quaker, I selected Miss Lenox as my future wife because of her being of the same per- suasion as myself. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 121 H. M. — Miss Lenox, does this suitor please you? Miss Lenox. — I think I cannot do better than accept him, for Qualcers are everywhere considered very respectable people (and I am sure this man will prove no exception). JMr. D. — They are very much respected in England. Being once somewhat doubtful of a Quaker grocer's honesty, I asked him what profit a Quaker's conscience would allow him to take in his trade, to which he replied, he could take any profit, provided his weights and measures were just. H. M. — I call such a principle rather disquieting to a man's conscience. (//. JSf. draws this p?-oposal from the urn:) "I, John Bowly, of Luihcr University, propose hereby a firm union in wedlock to Fanny Cowly, of Hemans Schools. I am of middle stature, have a round face, stout and sound in body. My hair is of a sandy colour, my eyes people call gooseberry ; but Miss Cowly will see from my photograph that I am a fairly good-look- ing man. I have seen her portrait and qualificat'ons in town, and think we woald make an agreeable i)air in wedlock. 1 am a staunch Lutheran ; but when I was in Luther's University I could never graduate in any branch of science or art, but learned three useful trades for the benefit of our country." Miss Cowly. — Please, mistress, let me see his likeness. {H. M. hands it to her.) Miss Cowly {contimdng). — It was the same with me ; I could never learn anything but handiwork, and to that I will stick. I see from his portrait that he has a rare determined face and a pair of fat hands ; and I being rather stout, with large bones, think we might not make a bad-looking pair, therefore I'll have him. U. M. — 'I he last proposal reads thus : — "I, Edward Gordon, of Dore University, propose by this, mar- riage to Flora Flowers, of Hemans University. I am twenty years old, five feet high, of fair complexion, flaxen hair, and hazel eyes. I am by profession an engineer, by trade a wire- drawer, and by religion a Wesleyan. I have been much pleased by seeing Miss Flora's portrait and reading her qualifications, and I should feel most happy if she would give me a favourable reply." H. M. — Miss Flowers, what is your reply ? Miss Floivers. — I shall tell him that he must wait three years before he can have me, for I have made a resolution to attend hospital service for that term. H. M. — We all honour you for that resolution, and are con- vinced that Edward Gordon will gladly wait for you three long 122 LIFE IN UTOPIA. years, when he learns of your intended work for the relief and consolation of suffering humanity. H. M. {rising). — Now we bid you all farewell, and wish you a happy journey to the metropolis, where you will meet your pro- spective husbands in the great and magnificent presentation ball at the central town hall. {All ?'ise and leave the place.) CHAPTER XIX. (A discussion on the Religion of Humanity, as now practised in Utopia, at ■which are present ami take part Mr. and Mrs. Doiity, the Guide, Miss Douty and Mr. Austin (betrothed), ami Miss Allan and Harry Douty {betrothed).) Guide. — My honoured and revered friends, I have yet to in- troduce to you, for serious consideration, one most important and, at the same time, highly interesting subject ; and that is the re- ligious institution which belongs exclusively to Utopia and which regulates and elevates the life of her people. Mrs. D. — You told us, sir, some time ago, when we first went through the principal streets of the metropolis, that there are numerous religious establishments in Utopia — Protestants, Roman Catholics, Wesleyans, Congregationalists, Quakers, Presbyterians, Unitarians, and even Jews, and that you tolerate any denomina- tion, except Mormons and Mahometans; why should you yet have need of another? Guide. — The very multiplicity of these creeds, with their sub- division into numerous sects, gave us the very reason for con- ceiving and establishing another religious system, not so much for the sake of superseding them, as for the purpose of peacefully engrafting it on every existing belief and sect. Mrs. D. — And what name do you give to this new religious graft ? Guide. — We call it the religion of humanity. Mr. D. — A name not altogether unknown to us, for Mons. Le Comte, a French philosopher and author of Positivism, likewise conceived and elaborated a religious system which he called " La Religion de I'Humanite." Guide. — The Utopian religion of humanity is in its principle and practice essentially different from Le Comte's religious con- ception, for it adds to the love of humanity the development, cultivation, and elevation of all the human affections, and creates thus a new religious evolution which may be engrafted on and incorporated with any other creed, whilst Le Comte's religion of LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 23 humanity excludes and tends to supersede all other religious systems. H. D. — Then do you include a general and fervid love for humanity amongst the most ardent human affections? Guide. — We do, and consider a sensible and discreet love for humanity or mankind at large a human affection capable of a high degree of cultivation. Mr. D. — Then you don't take such an inhuman view of the love of mankind as our English Q.C. Fitzjames Stephen, who says : " It would want the clearest of all imaginable revelations to make me try to love a considerable number of people whom it is un- necessary to mention or affect to care about, masses of men with whom I have nothing to do." 6^^.'/^'^'.— The Utopians may be profoundly thankful for never having had an apostle of inhumanity in the person of Fitzjames Stephen preaching to them. I therefore turn with delight to the more humane and elevated views of some wise and good men, both amongst the ancients and moderns. Euripides says : " The man who melts with social sympathy, though not allied in blood, is worth more than a thousand kinsmen." Miss D. — How sublimely elevated Euripides' view seems to stand by the side of Stephen's, which bestows love only on those known to us by acquaintance and relationship ! Guide. — Pittacus said : " Love thy neighbour ; " a maxim that by Christ's sublime injunction was raised to a higher degree of ethics in the words : " Love thy neighbour as thyself." Mr. D. — I know a striking incident in the life of Aristotle, which clearly proves that wise men at his time could be actuated by an elevated sentiment of humanity ; for when he was censured for giving alms to a bad man, he retorted : " I did not give to the man, but to humanity." Guide. — In confirmation of a desirable and universal cultiva- tion of love to mankind, I cite further a remarkable passage from the writings of Feltham in these words : "Nature says, love thy- self alone ; domestic education says, love your family (as Fitz- james Stephen would say) ; the national sentiment says, love your country ; but religion says, love all mankind without excep- tion ! " Mrs. D. — I can improve upon Feltham by citing Christ, who even said : " Love your enemies." Guide — Madam, you hit our point hard, but in the right direc- tion, for Christ's injunction amounts in reality to this : if all men were against you, consider them still worth your friendly humane sympathy, and I think that this teaching of Christ has, in after- 124 LIFE IN UTOPIA. times, been a great influence in slopping the cruel murdering of prisoners of war. Mr. Austin. — I feel inclined to quote an opinion of a modern sage, no less a person than the celebrated Alexander von Hum- boldt, who says in his Cosmos: "if we would indicate which throughout the whole course of history has ever more and more widely extended its empire, it is the establishing our common humanity, of striving to remove the barriers which prejudice our limited views, and to treat all mankind without reference to religion, nation, or colour, as one fraternity, one great community. Thus deeply rooted in the innermost nature of man, and even enjoined u{)on him by his highest tendencies, the recognition of the bond of humanity becomes one of the noblest leading prin- ciples in the history of mankind." Guide. — I think that we have now by references to the sayings of the sages of both ancient and modern times sufficiently estab- lished tlie principle of a highly desirable sympathy or sympathetic regard, that may even be called a love for mankind at large. Tiiis general love for mankind, as enjoined by the Utopian re- ligion of humanity, embraces, however, not only the whole human family of now living human beings, but includes in its widest bearing all past and future generations of men. H. D. — But surely there must have been, and always will be, many men, and perhaps even generations of men, who are not worth our remembrance, and for whom we cannot entertain the least love or sympathetic regard, as they never did any good, but often harm to their fellow-men. Qjiide. — Such men we have consigned and will always relegate to oblivion ; but we hold in grateful remembrance and lasting veneration the names of all great men who, either in past ages or in our time, have become generators and promoters of human progress by their teaching, examjile, and noble actions. Air. D. — And this veneration, I suppose, we can best show by following and imitating their example, the value and influence of which has been pointedly indicated by an English moralist, who says : " The heroic example of other days is in great pare the source of the courage of each generation ; and men walk up composedly to the most perilous enterprises, beckoned onwards by the shades of the brave that were." Mrs. D. — This is as clear as sunlight ; for had the Christian martyrs not stood their ground at the cruel persecutions by the Roman emperors, our Protestant converts would have probably recanted before being burned at the stake in Sniithfield Market, and elsewhere. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 12$ Guide. — This sympathetic regard for the past and future is likewise forcibly pointed out to all men of sense and feeling, by the celebrated Dr. Samuel Johnson, uho says : " Whatever with- draws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me and far from my friends be such frigid -philosophy as may conduct us indiffer- ent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plains of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona." Mr. Austin. — The Utopian religion of humanity takes into consideration only the great and good men of all ages, past and present, and conforms in this respect to the elevated view Maz- zini takes of them when he says : " Great men are the landmarks of humanity ; they measure its course along the past, and point out the path of the future. Their words are frequently unin- telligible to their contemporaries. Their thought appears at times to vanish, submerged beneath the waves of the present ; but God watches its passage beneath the abyss until it again emerges in new splendour, fertile of benefit to posterity." Miss D. — What Mazzini says in beautiful prose, Baily, an English poet, sings in poetry, which for sublimity of expression will for ever remain a monument of genius. These remarkable lines are : — " Men, whom we build our love round like an arch Of triumph, as they pass us on their way To glory and to immortality ; Men, whose thoughts possess us like a passion Through every limb and the whole heart ; whose words liauni us as eagics hauiu ilic inounuiin air ; Thoughts which command all coming times and seasons, As from a tower and warden, fix themselves Deep in the heart, as meteor- stone in earth Dropped from some higher sphere : . . . . . who shed great thoughts As easily as an oak looseneth its golden leaves In a kindly largess to the soil it grew on ; Whose rich dark thoughts, sunn'd o'er with love, Flourish around the deathless stems of their names ; Whose names are ever on the world's broad tongue, Like sound upon the falling of a force ; Whose words, if winged, are with angels' wings, Who play upon the heart as on a harp, And make our eyes bright as we speak of them ; Whose hearts have a look southwards, and are open To the whole noon of nature." Mr. D. — Our great English biographer, Smiles, follows Maz- 126 LIFE IN UTOPIA. zini's and Baily's views in close and striking context, for he says : " The career of a great man remains an enduring monument of human energy. The man dies, and disappears ; but his thoughts and acts survive, and leave an indelible stamp upon his race. And thus the spirit of his life is prolonged and perpetuated, moulding the thoughts and will of the future. It is the men that advance in the highest and best direction who are the true beacons of human progress. They are as lights set upon a hill, illuminating the moral atmosphere around them, and the light of their spirit continues to shine upon all succeeding generations." Guide. — The relation between the past, present, and future of humanity, and how we can serve mankind, is most beautifully stated by Joseph Parker, an English D.D., who says: " Let us imitate the past example of great men, serve the living, and through them the coming ages." And again: "We are greatly indebted to those who built our temples, invented our machinery, made discoveries in science, wrote our literature. Their works bind us to the past. The past is our patient and gracious credi- tor, and our obligations can only be paid to the future. We may all do this. Some can throw open kingdoms of thoughts, others can carry the prophet's mantle ; some can head the advancing army, and others can lift up the wounded and weary." Having now considered in general outhnes what is to be understood by humanity in the Utopian sense, we will now more particularly look at its three phases — the past, present, and future. Its past phase is illuminated, and gloriously radiant with the shining lights of the genius, honour, and merit of great men. Of these the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher says : " The great men of earth are the shadowy men, who, having lived and died, now live again, and for ever, through their undying thoughts. Thus living, though their footfalls are heard no more, their voices are louder than the thunder, and unceasing as the flow of tides and air." Miss £>. — I know a few lines of poetry by Longfellow, express- ing the same truth. They are these : — " Lives of great men all remind us We can make our lives sublime ; And, departing, leave behind us Footprints on the sand of time, — Footprints that, perhaps another, Sailing o'er life's solemn main, A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother, Seeing, shall take heart again." Mr. Austin. — And permit me, dear, to add, " He being dead yet speaketh ; " and again, " Their works follow them." LIFE IN UTOPIA. I27 Guide. — I can quote two more authorities who express exactly the same grateful regard for the ])ast of humanity. The one is Stopford A. Brooke, who says, "The voiceful dead continuously speak to men. Dead, they live ; buried, they rise again. And they speak with more power after death than during life, for jealousy and envy no longer dog their footsteps, and their faults are seen through the veil of charity which justice weaves." The other is James Martineau, who says : "We have a deep concern in jireserving from destruction the thoughts of the past, the lead- ing conceptions of all remarkable forms of civilization ; the achievements of genius, of virtue, and of high faith. And in this nothing can disappoint us ; for though these things may be individually forgotten, collectively they survive, and are in action still." Mr. Austhi. — A dutiful regard for the past of humanity is also expressed by a poetic effusion from the pen of William Morris, which includes in its sympathetic remembrance of the dead, not only men of great names, but also numerous nameless ones. Listen ! " He that dies sh.ill not die lonely, many a one has gone before ; He that lives shall bear no burden heavier than the lilt they bore. IMourn not therefore, nor lament it, that the world outlives their life ; Voice and vision yet they give us, making strong our hands for strife. Some had names, and fame, and honour, learned they were, and wise, and strong ; Some were nameless, poor, unlettered, weak in all but grief and wrong. Named and nameless, all live in us ; one and all they lead us yet Every pain to count for nothing, every sorrow to forget." Guide. — A very similar sentiment has been expressed in remote antiquity by Callimachus in an epitaph, which reads thus : — " Here Dicon's son, Acanthian Saon, lies In sacred sleep : say not, a good man dies." Mr. D. — Permit me, sir, to adduce another quotation from James Martineau in confirmation of the principle of love for the past of humanity. This able writer says: " Have the great and good any nobler office than to touch the human heart with deep veneration for greatness and goodness? — to kindle in the under- standing the light of more glorious conceptions, and in the con- science'the fires of a holier virtue? And that we grieve for their departure, and invoke their names, is proof that they are per- forming such sacred oflice still." Miss D. — This quotation, containing a beautiful allusion to the blessed influence of the departed ones over the living, can, I think, 128 LIFE IN UTOPIA. in no way be more strikingly supplemented than by a recital of Longfellow's beautiful poem entitled " Footsteps of Angels," which I have not yet forgotten, though I learned it by heart when I was but a child. Guide. — We pray you to recite it for our principles' sake. Miss D. — These are the beautiful lines : — " When the hours of Day are numbered, And the voices of the Night Wake the better soul, that skimbered, To a holy, calm delight ; Ere the evening lamps are lighted, And, like phantoms grim and tall, Shadows from the fitful fire-light Dance upon the parlour wall ; Then the forms of the departed Enter at the open door ; The beloved, the true-hearted Come to visit me once more ; He, the young and strong, who cherished Noble longings for the strife, By the roadside fell and perished. Weary with the march of life ! They, the holy ones and weakly. Who the cross of suffering bore, Folded their pale hands so meekly, Spake with us on earth no more ! And with them the Being Beauteous, Who unto my youth was given More than all things else to love me. And is now a saint in heaven. With a slow and noiseless footstep Comes that messenger divine. Takes the vacant chair beside me, Lays her gentle hand in mine. And she sits and gazes at me With those deep and tender eyes, Like the stars, so still and saint-like, Looking downward from the skies. Uttered not, yet comprehended, Is the spirit's voiceless prayer. Soft rebukes, in blessings ended. Breathing from her lips of air. Oh, though oft depressed and lonely. All my fears are laid aside, If I but remember only Such as these have lived and died ! " LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 29 Miss A. — I know two little pieces of poetry by the same poet whose "Footsteps of Angels" has just been so impressively re- cited by my future sister-in-law. I learned them when I was quite young, and they will serve to illustrate the same mysterious re- lation of the dead to the living as depicted in the recitation we have just heard. The first of them is in memory of Robert Burns, and runs thus : — " Even now he haunts his native land, As an immortal youth ; his hand Guides every plouj^h : He sits beside each ingle-nook His voice is in each rushing brook; Each rustling bough. His presence haunts this room to-night, A form of mingled mist and light, From that far coast. Welcome, beneath this room of mine ! Welcome, this vacant chair is thine ! Dear guest and ghost." The second commemorates Raphael in these words : — " Raphael is not dead ; He doth but sleep ; for how can he be dead Who lives immortal in the hearts of men ? I have but words of admiration For his great genius, and the world is fairer That he lived in it." Guide. — The lesson we draw from the past of humanity must, however, not merely consist in the admiration and veneration of those great men whom we now regard as the benefactors and civilizers of mankind, but we must by all the means that lie in our power endeavour to imitate them in their great efforts to ad- vance and to benefit humanity. Mrs. D. — It is all very well to say, imitate the great and noble; but I consider such advice ill-adapted to the common capacity of men, and I should rather feel inclined to assert that you could sooner make flowers blow and plants grow in mere moonshine than your advice would produce one single Raphael, Shakespeare, or Mozart amongst millions of men. Mr. D. — My dear wife, I can most satisfactorily remove your honest doubt concerning the possibility of imitating the examples of great men by reminding you of what the Rev. Samuel Coley said on this subject. These are his words: "I should not like you to be hero-worshippers, but hero-followers. I do not believe in inimitable men; I believe that what men have done, men may do K 130 LIFE IN UTOPIA. again. Now, a biography which tries to put before us inimitable men puts a great giant before us ; but he was not born a giant, and I want to know how he grew ; and that is one of the uses of biography — it puts a man at the top of a pyramid ; now he was not born up there, but down here, and I want to know how he got up there." Guide. — Your quotation, sir, gives me a welcome opportunity to state, that in all our schools the reading of biography is an im- portant branch of education. In how far the reading of other instructive books may become beneficial to mankind is beautifully said in the following lines of poetry by F. Bennock : — " I love my books ! they are companions dear, Sterling in worth, in friendship most sincere; Here talk I with the wise in ages gone, And with the nobly gifted of my own." The following lines by Lewis Morris are pregnant with the saaae sentiment : — " For youth a fair poetic page is spread, Of the great living and the greater dead." Mr. D. — But have you not devised any other means for a sympathetic intercommunication with the past of humanity than books and biographies, which any man can procure for himself in my own country ? Guide. — One great feature in our religious ceremonies is the grand festival or jubilee of humanity, which is celebrated every fifty years, and for which extensive preparations are always made by our board of religious ceremonies. Mrs. D. — What ! a board of religious ceremonies, like the Chinese have ? Guide. — Wait, madam, a little, and my account of the jubilee arrangements will show you what function is assigned in them to our board of religious ceremonies. Our great festival in honour of the past of humanity consists chiefly in a great and imposing procession. Mrs. D. — I always looked upon processions as being mere fools' play, devoid of meaning and picturesqueness. Guide. — Madam, you would find our jubilee procession, could you see it, full of meaning and beauty, for every banner in it will carry the image of some good, great, and wise man, with an impressive saying of his, conveying wisdom, truth, or wholesome advice. H. D. — I certainly liked, even at our Hyde Park processions, LIFE IN UTOPIA. I3I rather to look on the banners, with their various inscriptions and images, than on the men who followed them, with their ordinary faces such as you can meet every day in hundreds and thousands in our London streets. Guide. — The images and portraits of great, good, and wise men have at all times been looked upon with reverent curiosity ; and, moreover, you would see on our banners also those of our con- temporary celebrities, and also the statues of those who have died since the last jubilee. The portraits on the banners of our jubilee procession i)resent every celebrity in life-sized busts and in the costume of his or her age, and every banner is followed by a dozen of male or female processionists attired in the costume of the age shown by the respective statues. Mrs.D. — Butwhat has your board ofceremony to do with all this? Guide. — A great deal, madam. As the procession has to pass through the principal streets, a boarded way several miles long is laid in the middle of the road, and over it a red cloth is tightly drawn for the processions to walk on. This is done under the direction of the board of religious ceremony, Mr. D. — The laying of a red cloth on a boarded way for your jubilee procession puts me in mind of a similar arrangement being made at the coronation of the Emperor of Germany at Frankfort, where the red cloth was laid down from the Romer to the Dom. Miss D. — Father, I also read that the cloth over which the einperor walked was, after his return, given over to the populace, every one being allowed to cut a piece from it, so that in this manner it was very quickly taken up. Guide. — We would never permit such a foolish thing to be done. Our red cloth spread for the procession is afterwards carefully brushed, cleaned, and rolled up to be ready for the next jubilee. And so are the square boards taken up and put aside for other processions, of which there are many more besides that of the jubilee. B^. D. — Then we shall have plenty of sightseeing if we remain in Utopia ? Guide. — Many an elevating, inspiring, and instructive one. Mrs. D. — Your board of ceremonies will have very little to do if it has only to lay the boarded way and the red cloth over it Has it nothing else to do ? Guide. — Much more, madam; it has also to provide new ban- ners and portraits, and new costumes for processionists, to make up a suitable representation of the titty years since the last jubilee with the celebrities that adorned this half-century. It 132 LIFE IN UTOriA. likewise selects appropriate mottos drawn from their writings and sayings. iMiss D. — We should feel very much indebted to you if you could give us a detailed description of the march of the last jubilee procession. Guide. — Yi)u may call it the march of humanity. It started from the Temple of Humanity in the following order : — First came tlie banners bearing the images and mottos of the five great leligious teachers of Asia. Mrs. D. — I don't like your religious ceremonies beginning with the introduction of pagan teachers and heathen philosophers. Guide. — Madam, permit me to remove your dislike for these ancient Asiatic teachers by an extract from Sir Edwin Arnold's '■ The Light of Asia," a work of which Oliver Wendell Holmes says that there is nothing with which to compare it but the New Testament. In an introduction to his great work, Sir Edwin Arnold says : — "The Buddhist faith of Asia has existed during twenty-four centuries, and surj)asses at this time in the number of its followers and the area of its prevalence any other form of creed. More than a third of mankind owe their moral and religious ideas to the illustrious Buddha, whose personality cannot but appear the higliest, holiest, gentlest, and most beneficent, with One Exception, in the history of Thought." Mr. D. — If our great English writers begin to extol, and I might almost say, to worship Asiatic pagans, Utopia must certainly be excused in opening her great religious festival with an exhibi- tion of their images and sayings. Guide. — We are very far from adopting the total of their creeds, but only their wise sayings and moral maxuns as lar as they are compatible with sound reason ; and their condition we take into account when we are assigning banners, images, and mottos to any celebrated men or women. At the last jubilee procession the ancient founders and teachers of religion in Asia had the following five banners and mottos assigned to them : — Banner i. Zoroaster. " Let fiery hope sustain you in the pursuit of what is good." Banner 2. Lao-Tsze. " Anticipate the difficult by managing the easy." Banner 3. Confucius. " Silence is a friend that will never betray." LIFE IN UTOPIA. 133 IJanner 4. Buddha, " Love not life for itself, but for the good it may do to others." Banner 5. Saadi. " God gives sleep to the bad, in order that the good may not be disturbed." Mrs. D. — I shotild certainly not make the least objection to any of these sayings. Mr. D. — I admire especially Buddha's saying, for it counsels altruism in our modern conception of the love we owe to humanity. Guide. — Then came a long procession of the great, wise, and renowned men of ancient Greece, with their respective banners, mottos, and processionists in Greek costume. If. D. — I should certainly pay more respect to these Greek sages, for they were essentially Europeans, and were cooler and calmer than the fiery Asiatics, ancient and modern. Mr. D. — You are right, son, to some extent. There is indeea one fact that seems to secure to ancient Greece the lasting admiration of mankind, and that is the great advance she had made in those remote times in science, art, literature, and civil government. Therefore, let us hear what her sages had to say at your jubilee procession. Guide. — As their banners passed by, we read the following sayings, written in golden letters on the purple cloth of the ban- ners, and over the heads of their images : — Banner 6. Homer. " Like summer foliage is the race of men." Mr. D. — Like summer foliage falls, and is trodden under foot, so races of men, like even the Greeks themselves, become extinct. Banner 7. Solon. " No man may be both accuser and judge." Miss Z).— Had this Athenian law obtained in England at the time of Henry VIIL, Anne Boleyn's life might probably have been saved. Banner 8. Thales. " Know thyself." Mr. D. — And I would add : and thou wilt learn how little thou art worth. 134 I'IFE IN UTOPIA. Banner 9. Sappho. (IVho sings pi-ophetically of herself :) " Long, long ages hence, They shall not my name forget ; Though the world be old, And the heart be cold, They shall talk of Sappho yet." Miss D. — In a very highly civilized state of mankind like that which ancient Greece had attained, women can approacli men very closely in sciences, and especially in art. Sappho won even a prize in poetry, having triinni)hantly wrested it from ^schylus in a contest at Olympia. Banner 10. Pythagoras. "There is nothing so fearful as a bad conscience." Airs. D. — As all bad men must have experienced. Banner ii. Sophocles. " Call no man happy before he dies." H. D. — Because misfortune may befall him any moment. Banner 12. Euripides. "The just man is born for his neighbour." Mr. D. — If Euripides lived now, he would be called a Comtist, professing altruism. Banner 13. Socrates. " Hope is the mainspring of life." AIiss A. — Give up hope, and you sink into despair. Banner 14. Xenophon. " The gods give nothing really good and beautiful without labour." Mr. Austin.— \V'\\.\\o\\\. labour no Utopian can obtain the com- forts and pleasures of life. Banner 15. Hypatia. " Reserved knowledge is always reserved strength." Guide. — Greece, like Utopia, had her wise, chaste, and illustri- ous women. Banner 16. Plato. " Light is but the shadow of God." H. Z>. — Having seen the shadow, he was not far from the body. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 35 Mr. D. — Say, Plato was not far from perceiving the essence and reality of God. Banner 17. Epictetus. " All philosophy lies in two words — ' sustain ' and ' abstain.' " Miss D. — I should prefer to say : Total abstinence is the most powerful sustainer of life. Banner 18, Demosthenes. " By persistent labour a man may attain to all excellence." Miss A. — Another sage that prizes labour above everything. So do we Utopians. Guide. — Then, after the banners of the Greek sages ha. — How beautifully Luther inculcates gentleness to the teachers of the young ! Banner 42. Latimer. " We may not be weaklings because we have a strong enemy." H. D. — Latimer rather suffered death at the stake than yield to his enemies. Banner 43. Cervantes. " Love levels all." Mrs. D. — True ; for in our country a very rich man often marries a poor girl, and makes her his equal. Banner 44. Ben Jonson. " We all stand for freedom." Mr. D. — An early call for freedoin, and England has stood up gallantly for it ever since. Banner 45. John Knox. " The truth I speak, impugn it whoso lists." Mrs. D. — A fearless and convinced man, to be sure. LIFE IN UTOPIA. I39 Banner 46. Lord Bacon. " Knowledge is power." H. D. — Eminently foreshadowing the benefits we have derived from the advancement of science, discovery, and invention. Banner 47. .Sir Philip Sidney. " Fear is far more painful to cowardice than death to true courage." Mr. D. — The fool lives in ceaseless fear of death, the wise man in fearless composure. Banner 48. Raleigh. " God worketh all things amongst us mediately by secondary means." Miss D. — Though we see not His hand, yet are we conscious of His works. Banner 49. Calvin. " We are never more like God than when we are doing good " Miss D. — Or in shorter words : Doing good is godlike. Banner 50. Shakespeare. " Eveiy fault is condemned ere it is done." H. D. — You might have inscribed on this banner some more of Shakespeare's celebrated aphorisms and terse sayings. Guide. — The aphorisms, maxims, and mottos of all the banners are changed at every jubilee, so that gradually all the best sayings of great men come under the eyes of the public. Mr. D. — A very sagacious arrangement. Banner 51. Spenser. " Idleness is the nurse of sin." Guide — Idleness is a punishable offence in Utopia. Banner 52. Addison. " Providence, for the most part, sets us on a level." Mr. D. — I agree with Addison, if he means that all men are born alike. Banner 53. Isaac Newton. " I account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy." Mr. D. — Another proof that the most learned men are generally most profoundly religious. Banner 54. John Locke. "Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues." Miss D. — If you waver, you will miss your virtuous aims and intentions. I40 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Banner 55. John Milton. " Live well : how long or short permit Heaven." Mr. D. — Sound philosophy, which tends to dispel the fear of death. Banner 56. W. Penn. " Love labour, for if thou doest not want it for food, thou mayest for physic." Guide. — In Utopia every man works for the sustenance, health, and comfort of his body. Banner 57. Dryden. " Mighty things often grow from small beginnings." H. D. — A few English trading vessels landed not so very long ago on the shores of India, and the Queen of England is now Empress of India, ruHng over three hundred million inhabitants of that beautiful peninsula. Guide. — The banners in the march of humanity had now reached the 18th and 19th century, and as we are all intimately acquainted with the lives of the great and illustrious characters that adorn this period in the history of mankind, their representa- tive banners and sayings may pass by in quick remembrance without delaying time by any commentaries. The iSth century was thus represented. Banner 58. Samuel Johnson. " All skill ought to be exerted for universal good." Banner 59. Wordsworth. " Love betters what is best." Banner 60. Robert Burns. " .\n honest man's the noblest work of God." Banner 61, Cowper. " God made the country, and man made the town." Banner 62. Laplace. " What we know is little ; the unknown is immense." Banner 63. Young. "Men may live fools ; but fools they cannot die." Banner 64. Keats. " A thing of beauty is a joy for ever." Banner 65. Goethe. " Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together." Banner 66. Jean Paul Richter. " Man's grand fault is and remains — that he has so many little ones." LIFE IN UTOPIA. I4I Banner 67. Goldsmith. " Handsome is that handsome does." Banner 68. Shei.ley. " Man who man would be, must rule the empire of himself." Banner 69. Byron. "Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow." Banner 70. Carlyle. " Some chivalry of labour, some noble humanity and practical divineness of labour, will yet be realized on this earth." Guide. — All Utopians regard this saying of Carlyle as a most remarkable prediction of their own organization of labour. Banner 71. Ward Beecher. " Defeat is a school in which truth always grows strong." Banner 72. Victor Hugo. "Conscience is the highest of all courts." Banner 73. Garibaldi. " The highest ideal of greatness and goodness is entire self-devotion to the good of others." Banner 74. Nathaniel Hawthorne. " Woman's place is at man's side." Banner 75. George Macdonald. "The earth teems with love that is unloved." Banner 76. R. Browning. " Renounce joy for my fellow's sake ! that's joy beyond joy." Banner 77. Emerson. " He who despiseth small things will perish little by little." Bannkr 7S. John Ruskin. " Nothing can atone for want of truth." Banner 79. Tennyson. " Many men forge life-long troubles for themselves." Banner 80. Mazzini. " Labour is the Divine law of our existence." Banner 81. Talmage. " Nearly all God's jewels are set in crystallized tears." Banner 82. J. R. Lowell. " The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinion." Mrs. D. — I cannot refrain from making one short observation on the sayings and mottos uttered by the great thinkers and writers of the iSih and 19th century. They surpass in sublimity 142 LIFE IN UTOPIA. and depth of thought anything the great sages of antiquity ever said. What stupendous progress ! Guide. — You will be amazed in a still higher degree by the wonderful array of illustrious women which the last two centuries have marshalled up at the jubilee procession. These were their banners, and follow their sayings with the attention they deserve. Banner 83. Mrs. IIemans. " There yet are souls which tower As landmarks to mankind." Banner 84. Lady Blessington. "Prejudices are the chains forged by ignorance to keep men apart." Banner 85. Madame de Stael. " I see that time divided is never long, and that regularity abridges all things." Banner 86. Mrs. Sigourney. "There must be some mixture of happiness in everything but sin." Banner 87. E. B. Browning. " Thou shalt be served thyself by every act of service which thou renderest." Banner 88. Mrs. Stowe. " The beautiful things that God makes are His gifts to all alike." Banner 89. Charlotte Bronte. " Nothing refines like affection.' Banner 90. Rosa Bonheur. "The radiancy of hope sometimes shines through the tear of anxiety. " Banner 91. Queen of Roumania. " Patience is not passive ; on the contrary, it is active, it is concentrated strength." Banner 92. George Eliot. " * As you like ' — is a bad fingerpost." Banner 93. George Sand. " The day will come when the labourer may be also an artist." Miss D. — Carlyle was the prophet and George Sand the phophetess of Utopian labour and art arrangements. Banner 94. Mme. de Girardin. " Hope is one waking dream." Banner 95. Harriet Martineau. " Hark to the footfall ! "^ On, on, for ever." H. D. — Indicating continuous progress. LIFE IN UTOPIA. I43 Miss D. — And let us promote it. Guide. — Tlien, wlien the procession had reached thus far, it was taken up by the banners of famous patriots, celebrated artists ancient and modern, painters, sculptors, musicians, re- iiowned scientists, astronomers, discoverers, and inventors, which added quite another hundred banners to the procession. Though these additional banners bore no inscriptions, they were neverthe- less beautifully adorned with the life-sized busts of the celebrities they represented. This second part of the procession was especially distinguished by the great number of processionists who followed the various banners of those whose representatives they were devoted admirers. On its return from a march of over two hours, the procession entered again the Temple of Humanity, and when the processionists were all comfortably and decorously seated, and the banners being displayed along the walls of the temple, with their images looking down upon the assembly, the reading of memorial verses in honour of great men and women, written for the occasion by living celebrities, began. Our con- temporary poets showed the greatest enthusiasm in the composition of memorial verses, especially on those who had recently joined the humanity of the past. The following four, read amongst a number of others, are still favourites for recitation amongst the Utopians. The first of them was written by E. B. Browning in remem- brance of George Sand, and reads thus : — " Thou larj^e-brained woman and large-hearted man, Self-called George Sand ! whose soul amid the lions Of the tumultuous senses means defiance, And answers roar for roar, as spirits can : I would that thou to woman's claim And man's might'st join beside the angel's grace Of a pure genius sanctified from blame, Till child and maiden pressed to thine embrace To kiss upon thy lips a stainless fame." The second one was addressed by Whittier to John Milton in these words : — " The new world honours thee, whose lofty plea For England's freedom made her own more sure. Thy page immortal as its theme, shall be Their common freehold, while the worlds endure." The third one was by Longfellow in remembrance of Albrecht Diirer, and reads thus : — " Here, when art was still religion, With a simple and revered heart, 144 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Lived antl laboured Albrecht Durer, The Evangelist of Art. Hence in silence and in sorrow, Toiling still with busy hand, Like an emigrant he wandered, Seeking for the better land. Emigrant is the inscription On the tombstone where he lies ; Dead he is not — but departed — For the artist never dies." The fourth was by Matthew Arnold on Goethe in these words : — " He took the suffering human race. He read each wound, each weakness clear — And struck his finger on the place, And said : ' Thou ailest here and here.' He look'd on Europe's dying hour Of fitful dream and feverish power ; His eye plunged down the weltering strife. The turmoil of expiring life ; He said : ' The end is everywhere ; Art still has truth — take refuge there.' And he was happy, if to know Causes of things, and far below His feet to see the lurid flow Of terror, of insane distress, And headlong fate, be happiness." When all the memorial verses were read, then the whole assembly rose and repaired to the Campo Santo, v.'hich is situated in the immediate vicinity of the Temple of Humanity, in which rest the remains of all the great men of Utopia. To have there a place of interment assigned to the remains of any Utopian is considered a posthumous honour of which all the relatives and friends of the departed are justly proud. Our Campo Santo is a burial-place of several acres in extent, exactly square in shape, surrounded by walls on all its four sides, along which runs an arcaded and roofed passage, twelve feet wide. Against the wall and on it are placed the monuments, busts, statues, and pictorial representations of the great dead. But there are also numerous monuments in the square of the Campo. Air. D. — The arrangement of Utopia's Campo Santo reminds me very strikingly of the square enclosed by the cloisters of West- minster Abbey, where we see similar arcaded passages and monu- ments on the walls. H. D. — But, father, you must allow me to call Westminster Abbey itself the English Campo Santo, for in it are interred, and LIFE IN UTOPIA. I45 justly honoured with exquisite monuments, the remains of many of the greatest men and worthies of England. Mr. D. — You are right, son, it is our Campo Santo, and there is none otl-.er in the whole world to equal it in the number of great men who lie buried there; but it grieves me much to say that the Abbey will soon get too small for all those, and there will always be a great number of them who deserve to be honoured with a last resting-place in its sacred precincts. England will therefore have to construct a new and spacious Campo Santo large enough for ages to come. Guide. — In visiting the Campo Santo on the day of the jubilee of humanity, our people bring with them wreaths, crowns, gar- lands, tlags (for the tombs of the patriots), and show their grateful remembrance and admiration for the past of humanity by adorn- ing with their floral offerings and flags the monuments, busts, statues, and portrait-paintings of the Great Departed and honoured ones. H. D. — Many sensible men keep the busts and portraits of celebrated men in their private dwellings and adorn them oc- casionally, like the celebrated Dr. Dollinger used to garland a bust of Dante at every birthday of the great Italian poet. Guide. — The visit to the Campo Santo closed the day of the jubilee of humanity, and at night the whole metropolis and every provincial town was sjjlendidly illuminated. AFrs. D. — The description of the jubilee procession you have given us, although highly interesting and instructive, is in my opinion almost exclusively dealing with pagan and heathen cele- brities and their worldly wisdom, and has entirely ignored all great Biblical and Christian characters, and even Christ Himself. What excuse can you make for this omission ? Guide. — Madam, a very satisfactory one. Utopia having granted religious toleration to every Christian denomination and sect, has. likewise given them permission to represent Biblical history by a grand procession; and they have for this purpose united in one body and have even endeavoured to surpass our jubilee festival by the grandeur of their procession and the representation of Biblical characters, not on banners, but by living men and women wearing the costume, and presenting the aspect and features (in masks) so artificially imitative of their appearance, as Angelo and R.aphael conceived, pictured, and sculptured them. Thus there are marched in the Biblical jubilee procession the patriarchs ; Moses, Aaron, Samuel, Samson, Job, Daniel, all the kings of Judah and Israel, David, Solomon, the Prophets, Jesus Christ with outspread arms leading a number of little children ; and then L 146 LIFE IN UTOPIA. this grand and imposing procession closes with the passing by of the great reformers, \\'ycHfif, Luther, John Knox, ivlelanchthon, Calvin, John Huss, Erasmus, and others. Mrs. D. — I should certainly have liked to look on such a pro- cession with great piety. Will there be soon one again ? GV/^t'. — This Christian procession is also a jubilee one, and the next will take place about ten years hence. Mrs. D. — I hope my life will be spared till that great religious ceremony is again performed. Guide. — I almost forgot to mention that our board of ceremony lays the boarded way and spreads the red cloth over it exactly in the same manner as it does for the procession of the march of humanity. Mrs. D. — I am now entirely satisfied with all the information you have given us on these processions. CHAPTER XX. Mr. D. — Sir, you told us some time ago that the Utopians honour humanity, not only as represented by the great dead, but that you extend your universal love of mankind to all living and even future generations. Are there likewise any religious cere- monies held for this sentiment ? Guide. — There are, sir. We honour the present of humanity with three days of grand festivities. On the first day we celebrate the festival of universal brotherhood and of the fraternity of nations. Mr. Austin. — Our religion teaches us that all men are brethren, and their mutual love is especially and beautifully indicated in a passage by Feltham in these words : " Nature says, love thyself alone ; domestic education says, love your family ; the patriot says, love your country ; but religion says, love all mankind with- out exception." Miss A.- — And the poet Shelley expresses the same comprehen- sive idea of the universal brotherhood of mankind, saying : — • " Man, one harmonious soul of many a soul \Vhose nature is its own divine control, ^Yhel■e all things flow to all, as rivers to the sea ; Familiar acts arc heaulirul through lovs. I^abour, and pain, and grief, in life's green grove Sport like tame beasts ; none knew how gentle they could be." Guide. — Madam, I thank you very much for the quotation of this ideal conception of humanity, for it expresses exactly the LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 47 liumane, social, and sympathetic co-operation of mankind as it is practised in Utopia, wliere the fruits of labour flow to all through mutual love, and where labour, and even pain and grief, gently disport themselves. I think, then, that these expressions by Feltham and Shelley eminently fortify the Utopian sentiment of a common human brotherhood and a fraternity of all living nations and races of men. H. D. — And what ceremonial expression do you give to this sublime ideal? Guide. — We celebrate three festivals on three succeeding days in honour of it : on the first, the festival of universal brotherhood and the fraternity of nations and races of men ; on the second, the festival of merit; and on the third, the festival of friendship. All these festivals are celebrated in the Temple of Humanity. The first day's ceremony consists chiefly of a grand festive procession, consisting of people of all ages and conditions of men, but more ])articularly of those of the various religious sects, showing by iheir taking part in tliis procession that all men belong to one and the same brotherhood. A greater and more important con- tingent to this procession is, however, furnished by the deputa- tions from the islands of the Utopian archipelagos, consisting of representatives of twenty nationalities and various races of men, and who, by joining the procession, show their adhesion to the fraternity of nations. Mr. D. — Had such a religion of humanity existed in America some fifty years ago, slavery would have become extinct without a sanguinary war. Guide. — In the evening of the first day a festive banquet is given to the foreign delegates, to which also representatives of the various religious denominations are invited. Mr. D. — I call such banquets peace-offerings to mankind, and am glad to state that a religious equality breakfast took place in London on March 4th, 1890. Guide. — The second day opens with a festive procession, start- ing from the Temple of Humanity, in which only those are to walk who have been decorated with the gold medal or brilliant star of merit. Mrs. D. — I have almost forgotten what Utopians are entitled to wear these decorations. Guide. — The gold medal is worn by all those who have un- interruptedly and blamelessly worked in the service of humanity by having been engaged in useful and productive work up to their forty-fifth year ; and the brilliant star of honour decorates the breast of those who by their great exertion have advanced human 148 LIFE IN UTOriA. progress in discoveries, inventions, and improvements, and is also worn by those who have saved the Hves of others by exposinLj their own to imminent danger. Mrs. D. — I can now well recollect that you told us this before. Guide. — The most solemn and impressive act of this second day's festivity takes place in the Temple of Humanity after the procession has returned, when new decorations are awarded to those who have recently left the ranks of labour with honourable claims to the gold medal of merit, and when the brilliant star of merit will be distributed to those who have rescued people from drowning or perishing in fires. Discoverers, inventors, and the great promoters of art and science will on this occasion likewise be decorated with the riband of merit. JSfiss D. — Amongst those who this day are decorated with the star in brilliants, there would always be a good number from the life-boat crews and from the fire brigades. Mr. D. — All honour and praise to them ! Guide. — The third day of the festival of humanity is devoted to the celebration of citizenship. On this day every town and country district in Utopia shows in a grand procession all those who have deserved the title of citizen. On this day are also granted new titles of civic honour to those who have merited the gratitude and admiration of their fellow-citizens by distinguished acts of merit for the public good. Miss A. — That there is a great and beneficent principle in- volved in citizenship which is well worthy of an elevated individual and public cultivation, is beautifully and convincingly shown by the poetess, Hannah More, in the following greatly admired lines : — " Our country is a. wliolc, my Publius, Of which we all are parts, nor should a citizen Regard his interest as distinct from hers : No hopes or fears should touch his patriot soul, But what affect her honour or her shame. E'en when in hostile fields he bleeds to save her, 'Tis not his blood he loses, 'tis his country's ; He only pays her back a debt he owes. To her he's bound for birth, and education ; Her laws secure him from domestic feuds, And from the foreign foe her arms protect him. She lends him honour, dignity, and rank, His wrongs revenges, and his merits pays ; And, like a tender and indulgent mother. Loads him with comforts, and would make his state As bless'd as Nature and the gods designed it." LIFE IN UTOPIA. I49 Guide. — The Utopians celebrate, moreover, some minor festivi- ties suggestive of the l^rotherhood of men, the most prominent of them being one celebrated in every associated home by all its inmates taking their meals in common on a fixed day in the year, Air. Austin. — You know that we permit all the married people to dine in their private apartments, which seems certainly to favour exclusiveness ; but a general and intimate sympathy with and love for one's fellow-men finds so large a circle of activity and communication amongst the inhabitants of the associated home, that the separate living of married families is thereby most beneficially and effectively counteracted. Guide. — To this category of humanitarian festivals belongs also that of friendship. The Utopians regard the finding, contracting, and maintaining of friendship a religious duty, being strengthened and fortified in their eftbrts in effectually practising it, according 10 the views, precepts, and examples of the sages of both ancient and modern times. As some of you are not yet fully conversant with the ideas we Utopians entertain on the subject, I will in- troduce them to you by references to the great writers who have paid serious and profound attention to the subject of friend- ship. As to the nature and influence of friendship, Roscommon says : " Friendship comprises two souls in one." An old English l^roverb says : "A father is a treasure, a brother a comfort, but a friend is both." Seneca gives friendship a wide and varied nature, saying : " A true friend is an eye, a heart, a tongue, a hand, at all distances." The necessity of friendship is sublimely advocated by Cicero, who says: "If any one were to ascend unto heaven, and behold clearly the nature of the universe and the beauty of the constellations, it would not be agreeable unless he had another to whom he might narrate what he had seen." H. D. — No wonder that this great Roman found a friend in Atticus. All great men have had friends. Miss D. — '■ David had his Jonathan, and Christ His John," as G. Herbert says. Guide. — Dr. Arnot surrounds friendship with an almost sacred halo, saying, " The countenance of a friend, with all that is in it, is a wonderful work of God ; it is a work as great and good as the sun in the heavens." Lady Jane Grey says: "Without a friend the world is but a wilderness." Charles Kingsley describes the action and service of a true friend in these words : " A blessed tiling it is for any man or woman to have a friend, one human soul whom we can trust utterly, who knows the best and the worst of us, and who loves us in spite of all our faults ; who will speak the honest truth to us, while the world flatters us to our ISO LIFE IN UTOPIA. faces and laughs at us behind our back ; who will give us counsel and reproof in the day of prosperity and self-conceit ; but who, again, will comfort and encourage us in the day of difficulty and sorrow, when the world leaves us alone to fight our own battle as Ave can. If we have had the good fortune to win such a friend, let us do everything rather than lose him." In how far we ought to share with our friends all our good things and all tliat gives us pleasure is beautifully enforced by a precept in the Koran, which says : " When a man receives a present, his friends must share it with him," Mr. Austin. — Friendship in Utopia has no material interests to serve, but is purely intellectual and sympatlietic. Parasites and obsequious flatterers find therefore no means on which to prey. Miss A. — False friends are therefore rare amongst us. Guide. — And w'hen the Utopians have contracted a sincere and true friendship, they are not so foolish a^ to throw it care- lessly away ; but would rather exclaim with Metastasio : " Leave a friend I So base I am not. I followed him in his prosperity, when the skies were clear and shining, and will not leave him when storms begin to rise."' Mr. Austin. — Friendship in Utopia is mostly won and kept ui) by intercourse in the associated home ; but a great deal of friend- ship and the nobler and more intimate is carried on by corre- spondence ; and those who thus cultivate friendship, closely follow the experience of Emerson, who says : " To my friend I write a letter, and from him I receive a letter. It suffices me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give, and of me to receive ; it pro- fanes nobody." Guide. — When any one has proved a true and constant friend, his name is, on application of the person to whom he has been such a friend, entered into the book of friendship, which is kept in the Temple of Humanity ; and a friend thus honoured will not easily dishonour himself by forsaking him to whom he swore friendship. My dear friends, we have till now but considered friendship as it ought to exist between man and man, woman and woman ; but there are other combinations of friendships besides these. Sydney Smith says : " Friendship should be formed with persons of all ages and conditions, and with both sexes." Ac- cording to the meaning of these words, an old man may have a youth, or even a child, as a friend. It is well known that youths often show an ardent attachment to, and sincere confidence in old men. Mrs. D. — And so do young maidens to elderly matrons. Guide. — Such friendships are very common in Utopia, and LIFE IN UTOPIA. I5I ])ass almost unnoticed as every-day occurrences. But it is quite different with the friendships formed between men and women, be they married or single, which always excite the curiosity of other people. Mrs. D. — I should rather say, their suspicion. Mr. Austin. — We Utopians entertain not the least suspicion about our men's and women's mutual friendships. The subject is a too elevated and delicate one to be dragged into the slough of suspicion. Guide. — ^And as only highly refined and gentle souls take a fancy to such a friendship, and as it is moreover chiefly carried on by correspondence, they are not in the least exposed to sus- picious regards. Mr. Austin said just now that woman's friend- ship is of a very elevated nature, and this I can also testify by adducing the words of several great writers on the subject. Coleridge says : " A woman's friendship borders more closely on love than man's. Men affect each other in the reflection of noble and friendly acts ; whilst women ask fewer proofs and more signs and expressions of attachment." W. G. Wills says poetically ; — " A woman's fiieudsliip has in it a balm, Such sweet beguiling solace in its ways, I do not tliink there is a taintless thing Matched with a woman's friendship." After giving extracts and making comments on the correspond- ence carried on between J. Ruskin and his lady-friend Susie, a leading article in the Daily Neivs of September aSth, 1887, con- cludes with the following lines : " Most of the great literary lives have been cheered by friendships like these. The feminine quality of soul in men of genius seems to refjuire such solace and such communion. They are always beautiful things to witness. They seem to prefigure a time when friendship will play a far greater part in the relations between the sexes — ^when, in fact, what is called love will largely give place to a sentiment which, with much of the fervour and sweetness of that divine passion, is less exposed to the risk of change. The truest and finest women are eminently fitted for such spiritual companionship ; and when they find it, they are seldom disposed to grieve for any other loss." ^[rs. D. — Sir, the concluding sentence of this extract from the Daily Neivs seems to say, that women, having formed spiritual companionships, would not grieve to lose a husband or child. Miss D. — Mother, I don't think it permits this interpretation. To me its meaning seems to be that such friendly correspondence would certainly exercise a soothing eftect on every grief that might befall either correspondent. 152 LIFE IN UTOPIA. CHAPTER XXI. Guide. — I must now introduce to this debating circle the subject of how Utopia sympathises with, and acts beneficially upon, the future of humanity. The practical aims and rules our country follows in this respect were long ago suggested by some great and well-known writers and preachers. Stopford A. Brooke says : " Every man who is of the great temper of genius is as the focus of a lens, receiving and concen- trating in himself all the rays of thought and feeling which stream from the distant past of mankind, and sending forth from himself the same rays, with his own light added to them, to radiate over an infinite future. He is at one with all the great spirits of the past, and at one with all the listening spirits of the future." Dr. Parker says shortly : " Let us imitate the past example of all great men, serve the living, and through them coming ages." He gives, however, more ample instructions, how to serve the future of mankind, when he says : " We are greatly indebted to those who built our temples, invented our machinery, made dis- coveries in science, wrote our literature. Their works bind us to the past. The past is our patient and gracious creditor, and our obligations can only be paid to the future. Let us serve the living, and through them the coming ages. We may all do this." Dr. Johnson says : " Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses, whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.'' H. D. — Dr. Johnson's words seem to contradict Dr. Parker's, who maintains that by our present actions alone we can serve the future of mankind. Guide. — I don't think, sir, they do ; for Johnson's words dis- tinctly advise our withdrawal from sensuality, so that it may not interrupt our efforts of searching the past and penetrating the future. Being calmly asleep and undisturbed by present cares for the satisfaction of his senses, Bellamy felt himself transported into the future, and saw a regenerated state of society that bears a striking similarity to our present Utopian organization. Mr. Smiles says: "It is the men that advance in the highest and best direction who are the true beacons of human progress. They are as lights set upon a hill, illuminating the moral atmosphere around them ; and the light of their spirit continues to shine upon all succeeding generations." Mr. Austin. — The Utopians make the most strenuous efforts in literature in order to throw light, information, and instruction into LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 53 the ages that succeed their own times, and are in this res},ect mindful of the following striking sentence by T. Sinclair : " 'I'he publication of a true book, hot from the soul, is a far greater event than the taking of the greatest city." Miss D. — I remember a few lines by Keats which will bear out this remark : — " Bards of patience and of mirth, ^'e have left your souls on earth ! Have ye souls in heaven, too, Double-lived in regions new ? '' Guide. — The Utopians do a great deal more than make laud- able efforts in literature for advancing the progress of coming ages ; they materially secure comfort and happiness to future generations by constructing their houses on solid foundations and of durable and fireproof material ; they make new roads and level old ones ; they cut isthmuses through, and dig inland ship-canals, and raise seawalls and dams wherever it is necessary, and spare, in fact, no effort by which the burden of labour and other discomforts may in future become greatly diminished if not altogether re- nioved. Mr. D. — I wish our English forefathers had thus cared for us, instead of burdening us with an immense and almost unbearable national debt. Guide. — Do as we did in Utopia : abolish money, and your national debt will at once become extinct. CHAPTER XXII. Guide. — I am now going to introduce for our consideration a subject of the greatest importance, not only for every person individually, but for humanity at large; and this important, in- teresting, and lovely subject is womanhood. It becomes the more important for our serious consideration, as the adoration of women has been constituted an essential part of the religion of humanity. Mrs. D. — If the Utopians do anything of the kind, they are rank idolaters. Guide. — IMadam, by adoring their women the Utopians do not worship them, as the Roman Catholics worship the Virgin Mary, or the ancient Greeks and Romans adored their gods and goddesses ; but by adoring women they merely mean revering, reverencing, and esteeming them on account of their lovely and divine nature. H. D. — We are anxious to liear, sir, wliat you have to say 154 Lli'E IX L'TOriA. about woman's nature, wliich I consider to be the same as man's, consisting of a body and a soul. Mr. D. — My opinion is that men and women souls are alike, though their bodies are different. Guide. — Your opinion, sir, has been challenged by an assertion the celebrated Coleridge makes to the contrary, who says : " Can it be true, what is so constantly affirmed, that there is no sex in souls? I doubt it — I doubt it exceedingly." Mrs. D. — ]f there were male and female souls ascending into heaven, they would soon intermarry ; but Christ said distinctly, that in heaven they neither marry nor are given in marriage. Mr. D. — If there were any marriages in heaven, they would probably be happier than those on earth. Guide. — Whatever woman's soul may be in the other world, the Utopians leave undecided ; but they hold it a positive truth, that the nature of women's souls, as long as they are united with their human bodies, is entirely different from that possessed by men ; it is more sensitive, more delicate, more gentle, more affectionate, more forgiving, more charitable, or in one word, exquisitely lovable and worthy of adoration. Mr. Austin. — Father, let me confirm your delineation of woman's nature by a few lines from the Scottish poet Robert Burns, who says : " Women are of the blood-royal of life : let there be slight degrees of precedency among them — but let them be all sacred." Miss D. — And I ask, is it not permitted to adore the sacred? Guide. — The important and beneficial influence of women on humanity and civilization is especially beautifully set forth by Emerson, who says : " Women are by their conversation and their special influence the civilizers of mankind." And asking himself the question : " What is civilization ? " he answers : " The power of good women." H. J). — I can give a few words by Pulsford, who says the same : "Woman is the fountain of humanity and the mother of the world." Guide. — But there is something nobler in woman's nature than to be the motherly generator and preserver of mankind. Her character is destined and admirably constituted to complete that of the man. Dr. Carpenter says on this relation between the sexes : "Woman's whole character, physical as well as corporeal, is beautifully adapted to supply what is deficient in man, and to elevate and refine these powers which might otherwise be dedi- cated to low and selfish objects." Mr. Austin.— ]o\\\\ Ruskin's words on the beneficent influence LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 55 of Avoir.nn are still more impressive, for he says : " No man ever lived a right life who had not been chastened by a woman's lovf, strengthened by her courage, and guided by her discretion." jMiss A. — I know a few beautiful lines from Longfellow, \w which he gives a striking simile of the united natures of man and woman : — '* As unto the bow the cord is, So unto llie man is woman : Though slie bends him, she obeys him ; Thougli she draws him, yet slie follows ; I'seless each without the other." Mrs. D. — The poet might have added the arrow and Cupid the archer to it, and the simile of man and woman united in love would have been still more striking. Mr. D. — Will you permit me to recite what Plato said on the nature of women ? Guide. — Do so, sir; we are all attention. ]\f?\ D. — He says : "Women are the same as men in facult)-, only less in degree." ^ Guide. — In saying this, Plato could only have had in view woman's intellectual faculty; and if I am right in giving thi> meaning to his words, the Utopians acted in accordance with this sage's saying by adopting elementary education and artistic-scien- tific instruction alike for both sexes, and have by this means greatly reduced the intellectual difterences between men and women. Mr. Austin. — Utopia's progress in the intellectual position of women w^as niaiiy years ago foretold by Emerson in these words : " The times are marked by the new attitude of woman, urging, by argument and association, her right of all kinds — in short to one half of the world, as the right to education, to avenues of emi)loyment, to equal rights in marriage, to the exercise of the professions, and of the suffrage." Guide. — All these rights and privileges they now enjoy in Utopia. Of womanhood's ministration to the happiness of man- kind. Ward Beecher gives the following glowing description : " From the lips of woman every infant hears the first accents of affection and receives the lesson of tenderness and love. For the approbation of woman the grown-up youth will undertake the boldest enterprise, and brave every difficulty of study, danger, and even death itself. To the happiness of woman the man of mature ^ Even this " less in degree '" has become doubtful since the University of Cambridge had lately to confer the highest degree of honour on three ladies : on Miss Fawcett for mathematics, and to Misses Ramsay and Alford for classics. 156 LIFE IN UTOriA. years will devote the best energies of his m'nd ; from the affec- tionate regard of woman, the man who has become venerable in years derives his chief consolation in life's decline." That a kind of beneficent and progressive evolution takes place in the character of woman during her life-long ministration to man is most beautifully and truly set forth in the following lines by Tennyson, one of the many great poets England has the honour to be proud of. He says this : — " For woman is not undeveloped man, But diverse : could we make her as the man, Sweel love were slain ; his dearest bond is thi?, Not like to like, but like in difference. Yet in the long years liker must they grow ; The man be more of woman, she of man ; He gain in sweetness and in moral height, Kor lose the wrestling thews that throw the worhl ; She mental breadth, nor fail in childward care, Nor lose the childlike in the larger mind ; Till at last she set herself to man, Like perfect music unto nol)le words ; And so these twain, upon the skirts of Time, Sit side by side, fullsumm'd in ail their powers. Dispensing harvest, so\^'ing the To-be ; Self- reverent each and reverencing each. Distinct in individualities. But like each other e'en as those who love. Tlien comes the statelier Eden back to men ; Then reign the world's great bridals chaste and calm ; Then springs the crowning race of humankind. May these things be I " Airs. D. — Sir, thinking that you have quite exhausted your poetical vocabulary in extolling woman to the skies and declaring her worthy of adoration, I feel greatly inclined to ask you what religious ceremony you have devised in her honour, and if there will be any more sight-seeing in the shape of processions ? Guide. — The grand and brilliant pageant which Utopia has , my sweet l);ibies, A soft .Tiul Making slumber. Sleep, my dnrlings, l6o LIFE IN UTOl'IA. Two ba)tliers 'lear ; be your night-Iiours safe guarded — liapi^y your slumber be, and your waking happy." Mrs. D. — But if there be, as there generally is, only one baby to be lulled to sleep, the nurse cannot sing to two. Guide. — In such a case, Alcmena's lullaby would run thus : — " Sleep, my sweet baby, A soft and waking slumber. Sleep, my darling, A brother (sister) dear ; be thy niglit-hours safe guarded — Happy thy slumber be, and thy waking happy," Miss A. — Babyhood and childhood fonning the beginning of the four ages of men, and the latter now coming under our con- sideration, I cannot omit giving the former anotlier endearing, regard in the words of the poet Swinburn : — " Only a baby small dropt from the skies ; Only a loving face, two sunny eyes ; Only two cherry lijis, one chubby nose ; Only two little hands, ten little toes ; Only a golden head, curly and soft ; Only a tongue that wags loudly and oft ; Only a little head troubled with nought ; Only a tender flower sent us to rear ; Only a life to love while we are here." Guide. — My friends, we will now dismiss from our minds the temporary and imaginary presence in the nursery, and take again a view of the family procession, and of the order in which eacn flimily passes by. The first members that present themselves if each family to our dearest admiration are the two children o tender age, lovely and true representatives of the first age of man or childhood, of which the poet Longfellow always thinks with emotion, saying : — "Sweetly, as I recall it, tears do fall, And therefore I recall it with delight." Miss D. — I am sure many spectators will be similarly moved to tears by the joyous adoration of the innocence displayed by the part the children take in the procession. Mr. D. — Others being moved by a similar emotion whenever a pair of these tender and lovely representatives of early child- hood pass by, exclaim with Gesenius : — " Children seem spirits from above descended, To whom still cleaves heaven's atmosphere serene ; Their very wildnesses with truth are blended ; Fresh from their skyey mould, they cannot be amended." LIFE IN UTOPIA. l6l Mr. Austin. — And others again, seeing these children, will in- voluntarily experience the same feeling as Southey, which he expressed in these words : " Of all the sights which can soften and humanise the heart of men, there is none that ought to reach it so surely as that of innocent children enjoying the happiness which is their ]">roper and natural portion." Guide. — And others of our spectators express in Lewis Morris' words a suggestion relating to their own duty to these little ones, saying with him : — "And little lives are mine to keep unstained, .Strange, mystic growths, which day by day expand Like the flowers they are, and set me in a fair, Perpetual wonderland." Miss A. — And others, again, say prophetically with Milton : — '* The child shows the man, As morning shows the day." Guide. — And elderly spectators, when looking on the children's procession, may feel the soothing truth of Lord Lytton's saying : " The happy smiles of the young are the sunshine of the old." Mr. Austin. — Father, let me conclude the charming considera- tion of the golden age of childhood by citing the definition of the word child as given by a great American writer, who says : " Child, — the ever-renewed hope of the world, God's problem waiting man's solution." Guide. — When the youth and maiden pass by in each family group, there is an audible and significant hush amongst the spectators, and all eyes are involuntarily and almost instantly fixed on the young maiden, and all the people join in Gautama's eulogy addressed to her : " Who is she that winneth the heart of man? that subdueth him to love? and reigneth in his breast? Lo ! yonder she walketh in maiden-sweetness, with innocence in her mind, and modesty on her cheek." AFr. Austin. — And there is scarcely a poet of ancient and modern times who has not sung her praise. Of the many, let me recite to you the one addressed by Longfellow to a maiden : — " Maiden ! with the meek, brown eyes, In whose orbs a shadow lies, Like the dusk in evening skies ! Standing with reluctant feet, Where the brook and river meet. Womanhood and childhood fleet ! M l52 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Bear a lily in thy hand ; Gates of brass cannot withstand One touch of that magic wand. Bear through sorrow, wrong, and ruth, In thy heart the dew of youth, On thy lips the smile of truth. And that smile like sunshine dart Into many a sunless heart, For a smile of God thou art. " Guide. — Nor is there less regard shown to the youth, thougli yet a striphng, bearing proudly and steadily the family banner, with coat of arms and the family motto inscribed on it. He is especially an object of admiration for the female section of the spectators ; but the men also pay him his due share of kindly regard, thinking at the same time of the sentiment with \vhich Dr. Cunningham Geikie was filled when blooming youth pre- sented itself to his view, and which he expressed in these words : — " Everything young is happy ; God gives all nature so many days' grace belore its troubles begin. There is a universal morn- ing gladness before the heat of the day. We spend boyhood and youth in an enchanted world, with fountains of joy scattering rainbows. It is a delight simply to live in those years." Then when the heads of the family come to pass by, all looks are at once instinctively directed to the mother, and there is not one man or woman who does not consider and declare her to be on this day the happiest creature on earth. Her love to her children and to her husband is natural, and her pride in them is legitimate, and becomes greatly enhanced by the show of it to the multitudes of admiring spectators. She knows that " the mother of to-day rules the world of to-morrow," and hence the legitimate pride in her offspring. J/r. Austin. — But a mother's natural love of her children is at all times stronger than her pride in them. Herder describes it beautifully in these words : — " Last amongst the characteristics of woman is that sweet, motherly love with which nature has gifted her ; it is almost inde- pendent of cold reason, and wholly removed from all selfish hope of reward. Not because it is lovely does the mother love her child, but because it is a living part of herself, the child of her heart, a fraction of her own nature." And Washington Irving says the same in these words : — " Oh ! there is an endearing tenderness in the love of a mother to a son that transcends all other afiections of the heart. It is LIFE IN UTOPIA. 163 neither to be chilled by selfishness, nor daunted by danger, nor weakened by worthlessness, nor stifled by ingratitude. She will sacrifice every comfort to his convenience ; she will surrender every pleasure to his enjoyment ; she will glory in his fame, and exalt in his prosperity ; and if adversity overtake him, he will be the dearer to her by misfortune ; and if disgrace settle upon his name, she will still love and cherish him ; and if all the world beside cast him off, she will be all the world to him." Guide. — The father, walking in the procession by the side of the mother, shows by the very place he thus occupies that he is the legitimate participator in all her joys and pride, and that his love for his children and for herself is as intense as hers for them and him, H. D. — I should say that the spectators, moreover, look at him as the noble representative of manhood in the four ages of man. Guide. — That is so, sir. Most of our men, and especially the fathers of families, nobly represent that true manhood of which Shelley says : — • " Man who man would be Must rule the empire of himself ; in it Must be sujireme, establishing his throne On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy Of hopes and fears, being himself alone." Mrs. D. — You just said, sir, that the man walks at the side of his wife in the procession. That does not agree with Shelley's concluding words, that man should be himself alone. Guide. — When Shelley says that man who man would be must be so himself alone, he intends to cpialify a true man as one who is not swayed by others, either men or women. Mr. D. — Though the men walking in this procession are noble representatives of manhood, intellectually as well as physically, I yet think that the real and most noteworthy character in which they appear is that of fathers, having enjoyed for many years the joyous company of their children, especially that of the younger one. Of these paternal joys, Jeremy Taylor says : — " No man can tell but he that loves his children how many delicious accents make a man's heart dance in the pretty conver- sation of those dear pledges ; their childishness, their stammering, their little angers, their innocence, their imperfections, their necessities, are as many emanations of joy and comfort to him, that delights in their persons and society." Guide. — When the noble and stately heads of the family — father and mother — have passed, and when the venerable repre- 1 64 LIFE IN UTOPIA. sentatives of old age — grandfather and grandmother— come in sight, all men amongst the spectators take their hats off, and every voice is hushed, and every heart sunk in deep reflection. Some are calling to their minds the words of Bion, a sage of ancient Greece, who said : " Let us honour old age, since it is what we all tend to." Mr. D. — And others are sure to remember some impressive thoughts expressed by the Rev. Thomas Binney in the following sentences : " A hoary head is a crown of glory ; " and again : "A green and hardy old age is beautiful to the eye, and all its affec- tions, and even its fancies, venerable and sacred." Gtiidc. — The grandfather has now passed, and of him Talmage says : " He is almost through with his journey, but he has an interest in those who are starting. The racket is almost too much for the old man's head, but he says nothing. The granddaughter, half-grown, stands behind the chair, and runs her hands through his locks. As grandfather stoops to kiss the children good-night, it is sunset embracing sunrise ; it is the spring crocuses around about the edge of the snow bank; it is the white locks beautify the domestic circle." H. D. — And what about grandmother, who walks at the side of that stately old man with the hoary head ? Mrs. £>. — Let us hear something about granny, for I shall I)robably be one in no distant time. Guide. — The Utopians look upon all grandmothers with the greatest veneration, knowing that in them the love of children becomes doubly, and sometimes even trebly, intensified, includ- ing love for their own issues, and for their grandchildren, and perhaps for their great-grandchildren. Miss D.—\\\wn my grandmother smiled, I could almost have worshipped her. Mr. Austin. — So sings Eliza Cook in her touching song "The Old Arm-chair." Guide. — You have now been introduced to all the members of each family, and you likewise see that the procession is now moving towards the Temple of Humanity. When all the pro- cessionists and a great number of the spectators have entered that sacred edifice, a presentation of addresses and keepsakes, mostly in the shape of portraits, paintings, or photos, takes place. Such addresses and gifts are presented by children to their parents and grandparents, by brothers to sisters, by the fathers or husbands to the mothers or wives. ~ Mr. Austin. — I vividly recollect the following tender words addressed by a husband and father to a wife and mother at one LIFE IN UTOPIA. l6$ ot our family representations in the Temple of Humanity. It was this : — "Though I see smiling at thy feet Five sons and a fair ciaiiglUer sweet, AikI time, and care, and birth-time woes Have dimmed tiiine eye and touched thy rose, To thee, and thouglits of thee, belong All that charms me of tale or song." Guide. — In the evening of th's representation-day there is a festive repast in every family, and the whole town is brilliantly illuminated. CHAPTER XXIV. Guide. — My dear friends, I will now introduce, for a final con- sideration of tlie religion of humanity and for the conclusion of our discussion thereon, a subject to all men and women the most enchanting and fascinating, though at the same time the most momentous for themselves, the State, and mankind at large. Airs. D. — And what may this charming subject be ? Guide. — Madam, it is a subject under whose charms, fi\scina- tion, happiness, and may be caprices, you and your husband have lived till now. Mrs. D. — I guess what it is — wedlock. Guide. — Madam, it is something more ; it is love and marriage, and this double subject the Utopians celebrate by their marriage festivities, consisting of a nocturnal bridal procession, the brides carrying torch-lights in their hands, and the whole of the festivity ending with the marriage ceremonial in the Temple of Humanity. j\[r. D. — You spoke, sir, of a bridal procession; but you cannot have many brides together on one occasion to form an imposing l)rocession. Guide. — Sir, there is no lack of them, for our bridal festivities are only celebrated every quarter of the year, and follow the betrothal or time when the young men and women have left their educational training-schools after each quarterly term. We obtain in this manner for every marriage festivity a large number of brides, and can thus form an imposing and most charming proces- sion, in which our lovely processionists appear in their beautiful bridal dresses, with torch-lights in their hands, shining diamonds encircling their heads, necks, and arms, tiie torch-lights giving brilliancy to the flashing adornments. H. D. — In what sense is love celebrated by this bridal proces- sion ? 1 66 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Guide. —When we open our religious marriage ceremonial by a grand and charming bridal procession, we mean to indicate by it that love is the immediate, and ought to be the never-wanting precursor of marriage; and it is for the expression of this meaning that we head the procession by a banner, on which the following words are inscribed in golden letters : — "Hail, holy love, thou word that sums all bliss, Gives and receives all bliss, fullest when most Thou givest ! spring-head of all felicity, Deepest when most is drawn ! emblem of God ! Mysterious, infinite, exhaustless love ! " y]//-. Austin. — And as no material interests come into play in our Utopian marriage engagements, love is never wanting as a charming precursor during a three-months' courtship and betrothal. Guide. — The only prescription we give to our young people when they make a love match or betrothal is Shakespeare's : — "Oh ! learn to love, the lesson is but plain, And once made perfect, never lost again." Mr. Austin. — And to suitors who have passed out of the charming circle of youth, we say with Emerson : " Whoever loves is in no condition old." Miss A. — For suitors puffed up with pride and self-esteem, we counsel marriage in the words of Wordsworth : — " Love was given, Lncouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for this end. That self might be annulled." Miss D. — And those who regard both love and marriage a sacred thing, and worthy of a religious celebration, we address in the words of John Ruskin : — "I.ove, when true, faithful, and well-found, is eminently the sanctifying element of human life ; without it the soul cannot reach its fullest height of holiness." ]\[rs. D. — And where do the brides start from? Guide. — They start at night-time from each associated home in small grouj)s of a dozen or two, with their torches lighted, con- forming themselves, by so doing, to the description of the Greek custom given by Homer, who says : — " From the chambers came the brides in joyful throngs, by light of festal torches." Miss D. — I know, sir, where these words occur in Homer. It is in his description of the shield presented to Achilles by the goddess Athena. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 167 Guide. — The procession, being formed, starts from the Temple of Humanity, with the banner of love ahead, passes through the ])rincipal streets of the metropolis, and returns again to the sacred edifice from which it issued. Mrs. D. — But where are the bridegrooms, best-men, and bride- Jiiaids ? Guide. — They join the brides at the entrance of the Temple of Humanity at the return of the procession, and having with them advanced to the altar upon which stands the marble statue of Humanity, chiselled by one of our greatest sculptors, who is de- servedly called the modern Phidias, the marriage ritual is gone through. Airs. D. — Your marriage ceremonial, sir, will last all the night through, in marrying so many couples by officiating separately for each of them: Guide. — This difficulty, madam, we avoid by reading a short address to those who have presented themselves for union in wedlock ; and when the last word of this address has dropped, every couple present is considered to be legitimately married. H. D. — Pray, sir, tell us this address, for I and my sister shall soon stand under the charm of its spell. Guide. — It is this : — " We'll live together, like two neighbour vines, Circling our souls and loves in one another ; We'll spring together, and we'll bear one fruit ; One joy shall make us smile, and one grief mourn ; One age go with us." To which the clerk answers : — " Then shall we sit like doves whose nest has been For many summers on the self-same bough." Miss D. — I know, sir, by wliom the words of tlic address are. They are by Beaumont and Fletcher. Mr. Austin. — And those in response to them are by Francis Reynolds. Guide. — Immediately after the reading of the address and the response thereto, the wedding-bells begin chiming in the rhythmical beauty so happily described by the poet Poe in these strains : — " Hear the mellow wedding bells — Golden bells ! What a world of happiness their harmony foretells ; Through the balmy air of night How they ring out their delight I From the molten golden notes, And all in tune, l68 LIFE IN UTOPIA. What a liquid ditty floats To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats On the moon ! Oh, from out the sounding cells. What a gush of euphony voluminously wells ! How it swells ! How it dwells On the Future ! how it tells Of the rapture that impels To the swinging and the ringing Of the bells, bells, bells, bells, Bells, bells, bells— To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells ! " In leaving the Temple of Humanity, each married couple is presented with five leaflets, each of them containing one of the following wise sayings on marriage ; — 1. A wife is a gift bestowed upon a man to reconcile him to the loss of Paradise. — Goethe. 2. A complete marriage is a large and sweet fruit, that needs a very long summer to ripen, and then a long winter to mellow and season it. — Theodore Parker. 3. Marriage is the mother of the world, preserving kingdoms, filling cities, churches, and heaven itself. 4. Marriage has in it the labour of love, and the delicacies of friendshii), and the blessing of society, and the union of hands and hearts. —yivv/;// Taylor, 5. A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoy- ments of sense and reason, and, indeed, all the sweets of life. — Coleridge. CHAPTER XXV. Guide. — Having now brought our long discussion of the Utopian religion of humanity to a close, we might very fittingly enter upon a shcrt exposition and consideration of Utopia's civil and criminal law, and how she administers it. A/r. D. — We are most anxious to hear and to learn something on this all-important subject, and how it is dealt with in Utopia. Guide. — I will first give you a rough outline of it, and then introduce you into one of our criminal law-courts, where you will see and hear its practical application. Mrs. D.—l hope to hear something very interesting there. A/r. Austin. — And perhaps something instructive too. Guide. — My general survey of our laws and their administration includes roughly the following points : — I. Utopia has a code of civil and criminal law, and of the mode of its administration, which was elaborated many years ago, LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 69 by a body of forty eminent lawyers, on i)rinciples previously laid down by Parliament. Mr. D. — England is yet anxiously waiting for the codification of her laws. Guide. — 2. The mode of punishment for every sort of crime is published at decennial periods. Crimes decreasing or increasing during the ten years are followed in tlie next decennial period by a corresponding diminution or augmentation of penalty. //. D. — "When in my country certain crimes become too out- rageous, we merely api)ly the cat-o'-nine-tails with increased ferocity, though I must also say that we have quite abandoned the barbarous custom of inflicting corporeal punishments on any criminal before he sutTers the penalty of death. Mr. D. — Should there occur an increase of capital offences, how could it, according to your custom, be followed by an in- crease of punishment, as the death penalty is the heaviest that can be inflicted on a criminal ? C/z/^/t'.— There is no death penalty in Utopia, and any other punishment is capable of being either increased or diminished, according to the increase or diminution of capital offences. 3. Every Utopian who has been in the service of the State for five years, and has been admitted to the citizenship of his country, is eligible for the jury. Afr. D. — If we had manhood suffrage in England, it would certainly become a legitimate qualification for a man to sit on a jury. Mrs. D. — And if women obtained the elective franchise and citizenship, would they not likewise be entitled to sit on ihe jury ? Mr. D. — They might now, even in England, where they al- ready sit in city councils and school boards. Guide. — Women sit frequently in our jury-boxes, and are, be- sides, admitted to practise in all branches of the legal profession, and rise to any of its dignities except to that of a judge. Miss D. — If you admit them to the judicial bencli, you would by doing so complete the entire emancipation of woman. Guide. — We expect to make this last and crowning effort for her final emancipation at the next people's meeting for legislation in their fractional parliaments, whose constitution and mode of proceeding I shall further exi)lain to you when I shall have described our political and governmental organization. Mrs. D. — I should have little confidence in women sitting as judges in a criminal court of law, for they would very likely judge male prisoners more leniently than female ones. 170 LIFE IN UTOPIA. Guide. — Madam, I and many Utopians apprehend no such partiality from their judgment, but are rather afraid that they would judge both sexes too leniently. Air. Austin. — Justice ought always to be tempered with mercy. Excessive leniency, but strict impartiality, we may expect from women when sitting in a judgment seat. Guide. — 4. In Utopia every jury consists of twenty-five mem- bers, who give their verdicts by simple majority, and in secret ballot. Mr. D. — I should consider a jury's decision by secret ballot, which keeps their names hidden from themselves, from the accused, and from the public, an excellent safeguard against ill- feeling, animosity, and even revenge against such of the jury as have convicted a criminal. H. D. — Our English twelve-men jury is an institution urgently requiring reforms in the Utopian sense ; for the frequent failure of the twelve in arriving at a unanimous verdict, and their being locked up when they cannot agree, are evils that cannot longer be tolerated. Guide. — 5. There are three judges assigned for every trial, of whom the senior one is the presiding judge. They serve only for one year at a time, at the expiration of which they are replaced by others, taken in rotation from the list of qualified judges, which is kept by our board of judicial administration. Mrs. D. — But if three judges are sitting in every law-court, from whence do you get them all ? Guide. — Madam, we have never any difficulty in replacing them annually, for quite one-tenth of our adult population are versed and learned in the law ; and as many of them have prac- tised in the law-courts, they furnish an eligible and numerous contingent for the judicial bench. Besides, our universities send out hosts of graduated lawyers and doctors of law, of whom a great number choose to practise subsequently in the legal pro- fession. Doctors of the law are by their title and proved know- ledge of the law qualified for judgeships. H. D. — Our English, Scotch, and Irish universities also turn out a great number of lawyers, but thousands of briefless barristers are the sad proofs that the supply is greater than the demand. Guide. — Utopia fears no such overcrowding of her legal pro- fession, as by her rotation system of employment, which even controls the lawyers' work, all get in turn employed. H. D. — I wish the same could be done, not only for our briefless barristers, but for the surplus men in all other occupa- tions. LIFE IN UTOPIA. I71 Guide. — 6. The sentence passed on the accused by the judges may either be one in which all the three judges concur, or in which they differ. In cases of difference the dissenting judge or judges propose separate sentences. In both instances of either concurrence or disagreement in the sentence by the judges, it must be submitted to the jury for theii- final selection, rejection, mitigation, augmentation, or adoption and confirmation. Mr. D. — By the great privilege you give to your juries of adopting, rejecting, and even correcting sentences passed by the judges, as also by the augmented number of those who sit in judgment on the judicial bench and in the jury box, a greater amount of justice is secured than by our system of advising, and thereby influencing the decision of the jury by the judges. Guide. — The sentence adopted by the jury is finally to be passed on the accused by the judge-president. Mrs. D. — Then your judges are merely the mouthpieces of the juries. Mr. Austin. — We prefer that to your juries, who are but too often the echoing mouthpieces of the judges. In any case it is always safer that three men act by the advice of twenty-five, than twenty-five by the counsel of three. H. D. — What is done when the jury reject all and every sen- tence the judges have proposed ? Gjiide. — A negative decision of this kind is regarded as a ver- dict of not guilty, and the accused is at once acquitted. 7. Every civil or criminal process of some importance lies, in Utopia, under the management of the following legal powers : one public prosecutor, three judges, twenty-five jurymen, a senior and junior counsel on both sides, and one people's advocate on each side. Counsel for the defence may be engaged by the accused's friends, but the public prosecution selects its own counsel. H. D. — Why are the counsel both for the prosecution and defence divided into two classes, senior and junior? Guide. — We do it for this reason. When senior counsel have pleaded in our law-courts for ten years, at the rate of a dozen pleadings every year, they are entitled to a judgeship ; and when the junior ones have done legal practice for five years, they are admitted to the ranks of senior. This arrangement keeps them all usefully and hopefully employed when they have once entered the legal profession. Mrs. D. — And whom do you call the people's advocate ? Guide. — Any man or woman from the ranks of the common people, without being graduated in law. As such, he or she is 1/2 LIFE IN UTOPIA. permitted to address a court of justice, for or against an accused person, after the junior and senior counsel have finished their pleadings. Mrs. D. — If you permit all this array of accusers and defenders to plead at one and the same criminal i)roceeding, it must be a most tedious, unnecessary, and unprofitable aftair; a mere waste of time, I should call it. Guide. — The Utopians have plenty of time to spare for their protracted legal processes ; and besides, they never have a long list of crime to deal with, as crime has almost become a rarity in Utopia. Mr, D. — Would we could say that of England ! Guide. — 8. When a course of criminal prosecution is decided upon, and the court has been declared open for it, the proceed- ings take place in the following order: (i) Indictment by the public prosecutor. (2) Examination of the witnesses for the accusation and for the defence by senior and junior counsel. (3) Cross-examination of the same. (4) Examination of the accused by the judges. (5) Pleading of the counsels on both sides. (6) Speech by the people's advocates. (7) Summing up by one or more of the judges. (8) Sentence or sentences proposed by the judges. (9) Adoption, correction, or rejection of the pro- posed sentence or sentences by the jury. We will presently visit a law-court, where you will see these arrangements practically carried out. Mr. D. — Have you never had any miscarriage of justice in Utopia? Guide. — We have, sir ; they were cases of sentence inflicted on innocence through witnesses who gave false evidence, or what you call perjured themselves. H. D. — Having no money in Utopia, how can you compensate any one for being innocently punished and degraded by perjury and its consequent miscarriage of justice? Guide. — Utopia is not without means of giving ample and satis- factory compensation in such cases, though she has not a penny of money in her possession. Mrs. D. — I am exceedingly curious to know what you can do in such a case. Has not my son's question on this subject driven you into a corner? Guide. — From which I can come forth triumphantly ; for I need only to state that for all terms of innocent imprisonment up to five years' duration, suffered by a person in Utopia, an equiva- lent term is taken off from the time of his dispensation from labour ; for imprisonment of from five to ten years, double the LIFE IN UTOPIA. I73 time is deducted ; and for imprisonment of ten years and above, he is totally freed from his obligation to work. Mr. D. — I find this an ample, just, and highly satisfactory compensation. Mrs. D. — But if his wrongful imprisonment occurred after his dispensation from labour, how can he then be compensated ? Guide. — He will in such a case enjoy tlie privilege and satis- faction of conferring his compensation on a member of his family or on a friend. CHAPTER XXVI. Guide. — Let us now enter the hall of justice ; the hour for the opening of the law-'court has struck, and if there are any important or interesting cases coming on, the hall will become inconveniently crowded, and only the first comers will be able to secure seats for themselves. {Ilaviug e?itered, ihey take seats on the front benches., and those for the legal p?vfessioti being well filled., the judges efiter, and, being seated, the clerk of arraign calls out his tinie-honoiired " Oyez ! oyez 1 oyez I " and says .•) — This court is declared open for the administration of justice and equity. The Judge-president to the Clerk. — Please hand us over the list of cases that will come before us this session. Clerk {handing the list over). — Here it is, my lord. Mrs. D. {to 6^//zV/^).— What ! he calls the judge a lord. I thought there was no such title in the whole of Utopia. Guide. — Our judges alone have the privilege to be addressed by this title, and that only when they sit in judgment. They are, however, generally addressed as " Your worship." Mrs. D. — That is a still more objectionable epithet, as there cannot be anything worshijjful in a judge, who is just as liable to error and failings as any other man. Guide. — We call him by this appellation merely to indicate that he has to administer justice, the most sacred and worshipful thing in the world. ( 7 he Judges havifig perused the list of cases, the Senior Judge addresses the court in these words :) — I must again congratulate our beloved country that the calendar for this session is an almost empty one, containing, as it does, but three cases, and these light offences, and none of a serious criminality ; and this is the more satisfactory as it continues the almost uninterrupted decrease of crime which for vears has been going on in the whole 174 LIFE IN UTOPIA, country. Let the first prisoner be put into the dock. {Prisoner is brought in.) Public Prosecutor. — My lords and gentlemen of the jury : — I bring this prisoner before you for the offence of feigning when an important and necessary work ought to have been executed by him. He was first appealed to to come forward as a volunteer ; and when the appeal failed, imperatively called upon by the decision of the ballot to take part in a diving operation for the examination of a passenger steamer that had suddenly sunk in our harbour, and from which many dead bodies had }et to be re- covered almost exclusively by divers. \Vhen the decision was made known to him, he said that the night before it reached him he was struck with paralysis on the right side of the body, and that not only his right leg and arm, but also his right eye, had since become deprived of their power of motion, and could not be used, and that, being subject to this infirmity, he could not take part in the diving operation. I have witnesses here to prove that he was merely feigning, and by so doing committed an in- dictable offence by the non-performance of his duty to the com- munity ; and I hope that this court of justice will deal with him accordmg to his deserts. Senior Judge. — What witnesses can you bring forth, sir, in sup- port of your accusation ? Pros. — There are four witnesses, my lord, whose testimony runs directly and clearly against the accused. Judge. — Who are they ? Pros. — The principal witness is a doctor from the Metropolitan Hospital; the second and third are a clerk and messenger from the board of labour; and the fourth is a policeman from the general lock-up. Judge. — Let these four witnesses be examined and cross- examined, and let us then hear the pleadings. Pros. — I sha-U first put the clerk of the board of labour into the witness-box, and have him examined by my senior counsel. Sen. Counsel. — What is your name, witness ? IVitness. — My name is Francis Cooper. C. — What is your trade and profession ? IV. — I am by trade a mason, and by profession an architect. C. — How old are you ? JV. — I have just entered my forty-eighth year. C. — Then you have discharged the whole of your duty as an artisan ? W. — I was dismissed from all labour three years ago. C. — And what are you doing now? LIFE IN UTOriA. I75 IF. — I was chosen to a clerksliip in the board of labour, which I accepted voluntarily. C. — For what qualification of yours were you elected ? JV, — It was my knowledge of architecture that recommended me to this post. Sc'co/id Judge. — You need scarcely go into all this. C. — I did it in order to establish the witness's trustworthiness, but will now follow your lordship's advice, and put questions to the witness directly bearing upon the case in court. {To IVihiess.) When and how did you acquaint the accused with the decision of the board of labour concerning his duty of taking part in the diving operations ? IV. — We acquainted him of it a fortnight ago by a messenger late at night. He took the order, but said nothing of being lame. C. — My lords, we have the messenger here to testify what the witness has said. Third Judge. — Let him be put into the witness-box, for we could not accept from the clerk of the board of works evidence ad- duced on hearsay. {Messenger sie/>s uito the 7(.'itness-l>ox, and is examined by the Junior Counsel.) C. — What did the accused say when you gave him the order? W. — He said, "All right, my lad"j and when I bade him good- night, he bade the same to me. C. — Did he not tell you that he felt unwell, and could not walk ? W. — He did not mention anything of the kind ; all he said was, " All right " and " Good-night." Pros. — These are all the questions my counsels had to address to these two witnesses. Second Judge. — Then let them be cross-examined. Pros. — My lords, the counsel for the defence forego cross- e.xamining them. Sen. Judge. — Who is your next witness, sir? Pros. — A policeman from the general lock-up. Judge. — Let him be examined. SeTi. C. — Did you arrest the accused ? W. — Yes, sir, on a warrant by the public prosecutor. C. — What did the accused say when you presented the warrai t to him ? W. — He said : " You will have a great deal of trouble to take me to the lock-up, for I am quite lame on one leg, and the other is not much better." 176 LIFE IN UTOriA. C. — What did you say to him upon this remark ? ]V. — I said : " I shall support you in walking along." C— Did he appear to go quite willingly with you ? W. — Yes, sir, quite willingly, dragging his lame leg painfully along. But when we were about halfway to the lock-up, he said he could walk no further, and begged to be carried. C. — What did you do then } IV. — I sent a bystander to the station for an ambulance and another policeman, and we carried the accused to the lock-up. C. — What happened when you had got him there ? jy. — He was at once seen by the prison doctor, who ordered him to be put to bed in a comfortable cell and prescribed some stimulant medicine. I took the prescription to the prison chemist, who made it up, and I took it to the cell in which the accused had been put to bed. C. — What did you see when you arrived at the cell? IF. — I looked through the little grated opening in the door, and saw that the prisoner had got out of his bed, and was com- fortably, and without any hindrance from his foot, walking to and fro in his cell. When I saw this, I thought the man was a cheat. Sen. Jnd^^e. — You mean, one who intended to cheat justice ? W. — So I thought, my lord, and went at once to communicate my thoughts to the doctor. C. — What did the doctor do then ? W. — He examined the accused again, and ordered him to be taken to the Metropolitan Hospital for effective treatment. Pros. — This concludes our examination of this witness, who will, however, be cross-examined by the junior counsel for the defence. Junior CoJinsel. — Are you quite sure of having seen the whole stature of the man and his lower extremities in looking through the little grated window in the door? IV. — I am quite certain that I saw him actually moving about with his legs, and he did so undisturbed by me, as he could not even see my eye through the grating, nor hear me approach the door of his cell, as we always wear india-rubber shoes when doing service in the lock-up. C. — Was it daylight, dawn, or dusk when you saw him through the grating? IV. — It was clear daylight, and the sun had cast a few rays of light upon the wall of the cell. Pros. — Our next witness, my lords, is the doctor from the Metropolitan Hospital. He is our principal witness, and will therefore be duly examined and cross-examined. LIFE IN UTOPIA. 177 Sen. Judge. — Let the witness be accommodated with a chair. Sen. C. — How long, sir, have you served as doctor in the Metropolitan Hospital ? IV. — I have been on its medical staff three times in twelve years, each time for two years. Mr. D. {to Guide). — I should think that uninterrupted medical practice makes better doctors than periodical service. Guide. — But besiiies being a member of the medical pro- fession, Utopia expects him also to do his duty as an artisan, and lie might even direct his fancy to a branch of art. Mr. D. — Then you will be periodically deprived of the best medical practitioners ? Guide. — Should there be a very popular and eminent medical man whose service is considered inestimable to the community, other people will voluntarily perform his share of physical and manual labour. C. {to Witness). — Doctor, what treatment did you adopt for the cure of the accused's illness ? \V. — Having found, on examination, that the seemingly para- lysed right side of his body showed everywhere, and especially on the right leg and arm, the same temperature as the left, and that the pupil of the right eye manifesteil the same power of contrac- tion and expansion as that of the left eye, I came at once to the conclusion that the patient was feigning, and I determined to apply to his limbs a powerful electric shock twice daily. C. — How did he behave during this treatment ? W. — When he had endured about a dozen electric shocks, he told me that he could move his leg and arm to some extent, and hoped to have their use completely restored after a few more. These we applied, and after a fortnight's stay he was dis- missed and walked out ol the hospital witnouc the least indication of lameness. C. — Do you think, doctor, that the application of electric shocks was a means of removing the paralysis your patient said he was suffering from ? W. — It could never have cured paralysis, but was a very effective means of removing the patient's supposed ailment. Pros. — This terminates this witness's examination, who will now be cross-examined by a counsel for the defence. Sen. C. — Doctor, what do you generally ascribe as the cause of paralysis ? IV. — We ascribe it generally to the exudation of blood on the brain, and have sometimes been fortunate enough to remove the blood thus exuded by trepanning the cranium. When the I/S LIFE IN UTOPI^ left side of the body is paralysed we trepan on the right side of the crown of the head, and opposite it when the right side is paralysed. The exuded blood having been removed, the para- lysis ceases. C. — If no trepanning is resorted to, how long will the paralysis last ? iV. — It will gradually but very imperceptibly decrease ; it will, however, never totally disappear, as the exuded blood can never become entirely absorbed. C. — But you believe in the gradual absorption of the exuded blood ? W.—l do, sir. C. — But you cannot say that such absorption may not some- times take place in a short time? ]]\ — I should not venture to assert the contrary, but I have never heard of such a case. Set}. Judge {to the Accused). — Prisoner at the bar, should you like to put any questions to the witnesses.? Prisoner. — No, your worship. Judge. — I have a question or two to ask you ; will you answer me? Fris. — With pleasure, my lord. Judge. — What was the reason that induced you to absent your- self from the performance of an important duty in the service of the State, when authoritatively called upon to do so? Prisoner. — Your lordships, my legs felt so very queer and weak, and I was altogether quite broken down in health and spirit; and being suddenly arrested on a warrant, my mind gave way, and I felt quite helpless, and imagined this prostration to be paralysis. Judge. — Did you ever tell any one you were lame before you were arrested ? Pris. — No one, my lord, except the policeman. Judge. — Counsels, you may now begin your pleadings. Pros. — Your lordships, there will be three pleadings in all : one for and one against conviction, and one by the people's advocate. The Judge-President. — We wish that both counsel and the people's advocate will strictly base their pleading on the evidence given by the witnesses or adduced from their depositions, and will avoid all unnecessary display of forensic oratory. Sen. Counsel for the Prosectitiou. — Your lordships and gentle- men of the jury : — I think the prosecution has proved beyond any shadow of doubt that the accused is guilty of having absented himself wrongfully from the performance of a dangerous and dis- agreeable task, of labour, and felt no compunction at compelling LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 79 l)y his absence, some one else to take his place at the diving operations, well knowing that in Utopia heavy and dangerous labour must be shared by all. The absenting from his duty would, by itself alone, constitute an indictable offence according to our laws ; but he aggravated his guilt, moreover, by the de- testable practice of shamming. That he absented himself is clearly l)roved by the clerk of the board of labour, whose appeal and order to present himself at the work he left unheeded. The absence of paralysis is evident from the doctor's and prison warder's depositions, and I contend therefore that his offence is amply proved in all its reprehensible, and I will even say punish- able, culpability. If there are anv extenuating reasons to be adduced in fovour of the accused, I leave that to my friend, the counsel for the defence, but it will be a hard task to find them. Counsel for the Defence. — 'Sly lords and gentlemen of the jury : — I find the evidence advanced in support of the prosecution is not altogether free from doubt. The depositions of the clerk of the board of labour, I admit, are doubtless true ; but the doctor's theory of the absor[)tion of exuded and coagulated blood on the brain, and of the time such absorption may require, is not such firm evidence as one might wish to see advanced in a court of law. His theory might prove interesting to the students in a surgical lecture-room where trepanning was to be explained. Legal evidence admits no theory, but certainty; and as such certainty has not been established by the doctor's evidence, I plead the benefit of doubt for the accused. Sen. /uJs^v. — ls there any one amongst the audience of the court who will speak as the people's advocate ? J^ros. — There is, my lord. Jtidge. — Then let him come forward. Peoples Advocate. — I heartily endorse the opinion expressed by the last pleader, and ask on the same ground that the accused should receive the benefit of the doubt whether he was really guilty of malingering or not. If he was not, then you must dis- charge him ; and if he were, I should even then plead for his acquittal for this reason — that he has already been sufficiently punished by the infliction of the electric shocks, to which lashes by the cat-o'-nine-tails are as mere flea-bites. And I hope that his first experience of a possible and effective cure for trickery will prove a valuable preventive of all future offences of the same kind. l80 LIFE IN UTOPIA. THE SENIOR JUDGE'S SUMMING-UP. Judge. — Gentlemen of the jury : — I wish you to follow my summing-up with due and close attention, and as the final decision of the prisoner's guilt or innocence, punishment or discharge, lies with you, a clear conception of the case brought before you is imperatively required. But let your decision neither be influenced by sympathy for nor ill-feeling against the accused. Follow solely the dictates of reason and justice. The prisoner at the bar has been found guilty, on the clearest of all evidences, of a most heinous offence against our labour laws — an offence which, if practised by man)', would endanger the very existence of our population ; for if many shirked work, they would have nothing to subsist upon ; and if all abstained from work, we should all have to jjerish. Such would be the disastrous consequences of shirking duty, which, found in a solitary case only, seems to be a slight, pardonable, and ridiculous evasion of labour. But as in an army the slightest declination from duty may bring about a defeat, so it might be in our industrial army, which would become demoralised as soon as its members lost discipline, and industry, and labour becoming disarranged, the dissolution of society and the fall of Utopia as a model state and nation would be the disastrous result. Gentlemen of the jury : — The offence of the prisoner is really of so grave a character that I am almost inclined to call it an attempt to undermine and upset the State, and with it society, and with society, humanity itself If you can find any mitigating circumstances in the evidence that has been stated in defence of the prisoner, I congratulate you in the name of the accused ; but I must confess that 1 can find none. I shall therefore sentence the prisoner to three months' imprisonment with hard labour. Second Judge. — I concur with our presiding judge. Ihird Judge. — I dissent to some extent from my brother judges, not in any way from the view they take of the seriousness and danger of the offence committed by the accused, but rather in the punishment they intend to inflict. I have been very forcibly impressed with the remarkable speech made by the people's advocate, and following his suggestion I shall propose a sentence of acquittal on the ground that the prisoner has already been sufficiently punished by undergoing the fearful torture of the electric treatment. Senior Judge. —Gentlemen of the jury ; there are now two sentences before you. Which of them 1 shall pass on the accused you must decide by a majority found in secret ballot. LIFE IN UTOPIA. l8l Foreman of the Jury. — My lords, we are unanimously agreed i.i passing the sentence proposed by the third judge. Senior Judge. — -Then, prisoner, you are acquitted. Prisoner. — Thank you, my lords, gentlemen of the jury, and kind counsel, who have so ably and impartially defended me. The i)eople's advocate I shall keep in thankful remembrance as long as 1 live. {Gi/iJe a/id Visitors retire to tJie refreshment-room of the law- courty where the following conversation takes place during luncheon.) CHAPTER XXVII. Mr. D. {to Guide). — Sir, we have not yet heard from your lips one single word about the government that is presently ruling Utopia. You told us of various industrial, educational, and administrative boards ; but these, though exercising great influence on the life and well-being of the yieople, cannot by any means possess all the legislative, executive, and administrative power of a regular and well-ordered government. Guide. — We certainly have a regular legislative government in Utopia. It is our po])ular parliament, which meets at decennial periods for a few months only. //. D. — How can your parliament discuss in so short a time all the estimates for the civil service and for everything that is related to revenue and expenditure ? Guide. — Estimates for the civil and military service and for the so-called budget of revenue and expenditure our parliament need not make, as Utopia has neither money nor military. Con- sequently our parliamentary sessions are generally of very limited duration. ^frs. Z>.— When you first showed us the sjilendid palatial buildings, churches, museums, and law-courts of this metropolis, we rather felt disappointed at not having been shown the Utopian ])arliament house, which we thought would certainly present to our view as grand a sight as that in England. Guide. — Madam, we have no parliament house at all, for we need none. Mrs. D. — Then does your parliament meet on a village green, in the open air } Guide.— ^o, madam. It meets under roof and within walls and doors. If you will call to your mind all the rooms, offices, and premises which you saw when I first conducted you through one of the associated homes, you will recollect that I showed you l82 LIFE IN UTOPIA. a moderately sized hall on the ground floor, which I called the parliamentary discussion and assembly room. Mrs. D. — I recollect that now. Guide. — There are several thousands of these meeting-rooms ill the whole of Utopia, and these constitute our houses of par- liament. They are open to the whole adult population of Utopia, both male and female, and any one of them entering such a meeting-room when the chairman or president has taken the chair, becomes by his mere entry and presence a member of parliament. H. D. — This is certainly a very easy and inexpensive mode of securing a seat in parliament. Then you have no election, no nomination, nor polling for i)arliamentary honours in Utopia? Guide. — None whatever ; for our parliament is not a represen- tative one, but one whose power emanates directly from the people, is exercised by the people and for the people. //. D. — Then you will have confusion worst confounded. We have but one House of Commons in England, and even this becomes sometimes quite unmanageable. Air. D. — The reason, my son, is, because it has too many matters to discuss, debate, and decide, in the session of a few months. H. D. — Our English parliament has two defects : its session is too short for fruition, and its recess is rampant in sterility. Guide. — -Our Utopian legislature's parliamentary activity is just the contrary of yours. We do most of our work during the recess, and a mere trifle during the real session. Mrs. D. — I should like to know how the Utopian members of parliament can do a great deal of work during the recess, and how it comes that they do almost nothing during the session when they ought to be busiest. Guide. — Madam, they are busy for ten years, and then confirm and close authoritatively the work done by voting for its parlia- mentary enactment. During the long time of recess, important questions and proposals of laws are fully discussed in a thousand parliamentary meeting-rooms, and are, as you English debaters say, thoroughly thrashed out. And when the time of the parlia- mentary session arrives, all the fractional parliaments vote in their own rooms and without any further discussion the adoption or reje ction of the proposed enactments. This they generally do in one day, or even in an hour or two. Mrs. D. — How can you collect the results of the votes of so many fractional parliaments in so short a time ? Guide. — Utopia's numerous sectional parliaments are all con- LIFE IN UTOPIA. 1 83 nected together by a network of electric telegraphs and tele- phones, so that they can instantly be apprised of the result of their conjoint votes on a certain cpiestion. H. D. — When will the next voiing session take place? Guide. — In five years. We have now passed the first half of the recess. Mr. D. — What questions are there now being discussed and debated during the present recess ? Guide. — They are the following six : — 1. Shall the decennial meeting of our legislature be made a vigintiennial ? 2. Shall the two-third majority now required for the legal enactment of laws by parliamentary votes be changed to a three- fourth one ? 3. Shall the number of jurymen be increased from twenty-five to forty-nine ? 4. Shall the dispensation from labour take place three years sooner than it does now? 5. Is it advisable to confer judgeships on women? 6. Can the impressions we receive from the lovely and beauti- ful in nature be made the basis of a religious sentiment, making men's lives happier, and by what means ? USTE^Tv^ BOOEIS. Fcap. 8vo, 214 pp., bound in parchment, v- (>f- A BOOK OF VAGROM MEN AND VAGRANT THOUGHTS. By Alfred T. Storv, Auihor of " Fifine," " Only Half a Hero," etc. " I'he author can fairly claim for these essays that they are original, and not the gleanings from libraries which fill up a considerable portion of so many modern collections of essays. The pretry volume contains many happily conceived ideas." — Morning Pos!. Crown 8vo, 224 pp., cloth, gilt, is. 6i{. AFTER SHIPWRECK. By J. A. Owen, Author of " Candalaria," Editor of " Woodland, Moor, and Stream," etc. " We have not for a long time seen a book which is so pervaded with evangelical religion, and in which nevertheless that religion seems so unobtrusive." — SJ>cctator. Crown 8vo, 192 pp., cloth, gilt, is. 6J. THE EDUCATION OF MAN AND OTHER ESSAYS. By John Georgk Sfeed. " Unmistakably prove that he is a man of independent and reflective mind, who has read widely, meditated much, and has a considerable gift of expressing his ideas. iSIr. Speed says a great many things that are worth remembering, and contrives to present each of his subjects in a light which is at least relatively new." — .'icoitish LeaJcr. Crown 8vo, 240 pp., cloth, gilt, 2?. 6lS/L ZE'uf^.OTOH.Tr. WOOL. If you want a renllv gdotl ALL-WOOL SCkTCH T\VEKr>, at Maker's Prices, in Worsted. Saxonv. rr Cheviot, WJilTE yoK I'ATTERXS. All our own Manufacture. Any length cut. Splendid '•lection. Tailors supi'licd with bunclies of Pattern?. I'lirtios' own Wool made into Cloth. Heavy Tweeds, Is. 9d. per yard ; Light Tweeds, Is. 2d. jier yard : Blankets, Kuffs, Winceys, J^'laiinol. &c. Carriage of Wool paid, and Patterns sent free. Tmpoktant Note. — All Wodls sent to be made into Heavy Tweeds, P.lankets. Criimbcloths, ft*'. ic. are made from two-ply yarns. This makes the Cloth finer and wear much longer than when it u dune in the ordinary way. A. COLQUHOUN, Manufactarer, Eildon Mills, Galashiels, ScotlaDd. 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