Chapter: And now again I was busy looking about me, for we were quite clear of
Piccadilly Market, and were in a region of elegantly-built much
ornamented houses, which I should have called villas if they had been
ugly and pretentious, which was very far from being the case.  Each house
stood in a garden carefully cultivated, and running over with flowers.
The blackbirds were singing their best amidst the garden-trees, which,
except for a bay here and there, and occasional groups of limes, seemed
to be all fruit-trees: there were a great many cherry-trees, now all
laden with fruit; and several times as we passed by a garden we were
offered baskets of fine fruit by children and young girls.  Amidst all
these gardens and houses it was of course impossible to trace the sites
of the old streets: but it seemed to me that the main roadways were the
same as of old.

We came presently into a large open space, sloping somewhat toward the
south, the sunny site of which had been taken advantage of for planting
an orchard, mainly, as I could see, of apricot-trees, in the midst of
which was a pretty gay little structure of wood, painted and gilded, that
looked like a refreshment-stall.  From the southern side of the said
orchard ran a long road, chequered over with the shadow of tall old pear
trees, at the end of which showed the high tower of the Parliament House,
or Dung Market.

A strange sensation came over me; I shut my eyes to keep out the sight of
the sun glittering on this fair abode of gardens, and for a moment there
passed before them a phantasmagoria of another day.  A great space
surrounded by tall ugly houses, with an ugly church at the corner and a
nondescript ugly cupolaed building at my back; the roadway thronged with
a sweltering and excited crowd, dominated by omnibuses crowded with
spectators.  In the midst a paved be-fountained square, populated only by
a few men dressed in blue, and a good many singularly ugly bronze images
(one on the top of a tall column).  The said square guarded up to the
edge of the roadway by a four-fold line of big men clad in blue, and
across the southern roadway the helmets of a band of horse-soldiers, dead
white in the greyness of the chilly November afternoon--I opened my eyes
to the sunlight again and looked round me, and cried out among the
whispering trees and odorous blossoms, "Trafalgar Square!"

"Yes," said Dick, who had drawn rein again, "so it is.  I don't wonder at
your finding the name ridiculous: but after all, it was nobody's business
to alter it, since the name of a dead folly doesn't bite.  Yet sometimes
I think we might have given it a name which would have commemorated the
great battle which was fought on the spot itself in 1952,--that was
important enough, if the historians don't lie."

"Which they generally do, or at least did," said the old man.  "For
instance, what can you make of this, neighbours?  I have read a muddled
account in a book--O a stupid book--called James' Social Democratic
History, of a fight which took place here in or about the year 1887 (I am
bad at dates).  Some people, says this story, were going to hold a ward-
mote here, or some such thing, and the Government of London, or the
Council, or the Commission, or what not other barbarous half-hatched body
of fools, fell upon these citizens (as they were then called) with the
armed hand.  That seems too ridiculous to be true; but according to this
version of the story, nothing much came of it, which certainly _is_ too
ridiculous to be true."

"Well," quoth I, "but after all your Mr. James is right so far, and it
_is_ true; except that there was no fighting, merely unarmed and
peaceable people attacked by ruffians armed with bludgeons."

"And they put up with that?" said Dick, with the first unpleasant
expression I had seen on his good-tempered face.

Said I, reddening: "We _had_ to put up with it; we couldn't help it."

The old man looked at me keenly, and said: "You seem to know a great deal
about it, neighbour!  And is it really true that nothing came of it?"

"This came of it," said I, "that a good many people were sent to prison
because of it."

"What, of the bludgeoners?" said the old man.  "Poor devils!"

"No, no," said I, "of the bludgeoned."

Said the old man rather severely: "Friend, I expect that you have been
reading some rotten collection of lies, and have been taken in by it too
easily."

"I assure you," said I, "what I have been saying is true."

"Well, well, I am sure you think so, neighbour," said the old man, "but I
don't see why you should be so cocksure."

As I couldn't explain why, I held my tongue.  Meanwhile Dick, who had
been sitting with knit brows, cogitating, spoke at last, and said gently
and rather sadly:

"How strange to think that there have been men like ourselves, and living
in this beautiful and happy country, who I suppose had feelings and
affections like ourselves, who could yet do such dreadful things."

"Yes," said I, in a didactic tone; "yet after all, even those days were a
great improvement on the days that had gone before them.  Have you not
read of the Mediaeval period, and the ferocity of its criminal laws; and
how in those days men fairly seemed to have enjoyed tormenting their
fellow men?--nay, for the matter of that, they made their God a tormentor
and a jailer rather than anything else."

"Yes," said Dick, "there are good books on that period also, some of
which I have read.  But as to the great improvement of the nineteenth
century, I don't see it.  After all, the Mediaeval folk acted after their
conscience, as your remark about their God (which is true) shows, and
they were ready to bear what they inflicted on others; whereas the
nineteenth century ones were hypocrites, and pretended to be humane, and
yet went on tormenting those whom they dared to treat so by shutting them
up in prison, for no reason at all, except that they were what they
themselves, the prison-masters, had forced them to be.  O, it's horrible
to think of!"

"But perhaps," said I, "they did not know what the prisons were like."

Dick seemed roused, and even angry.  "More shame for them," said he,
"when you and I know it all these years afterwards.  Look you, neighbour,
they couldn't fail to know what a disgrace a prison is to the
Commonwealth at the best, and that their prisons were a good step on
towards being at the worst."

Quoth I: "But have you no prisons at all now?"

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I felt that I had made a
mistake, for Dick flushed red and frowned, and the old man looked
surprised and pained; and presently Dick said angrily, yet as if
restraining himself somewhat--

"Man alive! how can you ask such a question?  Have I not told you that we
know what a prison means by the undoubted evidence of really trustworthy
books, helped out by our own imaginations?  And haven't you specially
called me to notice that the people about the roads and streets look
happy? and how could they look happy if they knew that their neighbours
were shut up in prison, while they bore such things quietly?  And if
there were people in prison, you couldn't hide it from folk, like you may
an occasional man-slaying; because that isn't done of set purpose, with a
lot of people backing up the slayer in cold blood, as this prison
business is.  Prisons, indeed!  O no, no, no!"

He stopped, and began to cool down, and said in a kind voice: "But
forgive me!  I needn't be so hot about it, since there are _not_ any
prisons: I'm afraid you will think the worse of me for losing my temper.
Of course, you, coming from the outlands, cannot be expected to know
about these things.  And now I'm afraid I have made you feel
uncomfortable."

In a way he had; but he was so generous in his heat, that I liked him the
better for it, and I said:

"No, really 'tis all my fault for being so stupid.  Let me change the
subject, and ask you what the stately building is on our left just
showing at the end of that grove of plane-trees?"

"Ah," he said, "that is an old building built before the middle of the
twentieth century, and as you see, in a queer fantastic style not over
beautiful; but there are some fine things inside it, too, mostly
pictures, some very old.  It is called the National Gallery; I have
sometimes puzzled as to what the name means: anyhow, nowadays wherever
there is a place where pictures are kept as curiosities permanently it is
called a National Gallery, perhaps after this one.  Of course there are a
good many of them up and down the country."

I didn't try to enlighten him, feeling the task too heavy; but I pulled
out my magnificent pipe and fell a-smoking, and the old horse jogged on
again.  As we went, I said:

"This pipe is a very elaborate toy, and you seem so reasonable in this
country, and your architecture is so good, that I rather wonder at your
turning out such trivialities."

It struck me as I spoke that this was rather ungrateful of me, after
having received such a fine present; but Dick didn't seem to notice my
bad manners, but said:

"Well, I don't know; it is a pretty thing, and since nobody need make
such things unless they like, I don't see why they shouldn't make them,
if they like.  Of course, if carvers were scarce they would all be busy
on the architecture, as you call it, and then these 'toys' (a good word)
would not be made; but since there are plenty of people who can carve--in
fact, almost everybody, and as work is somewhat scarce, or we are afraid
it may be, folk do not discourage this kind of petty work."

He mused a little, and seemed somewhat perturbed; but presently his face
cleared, and he said: "After all, you must admit that the pipe is a very
pretty thing, with the little people under the trees all cut so clean and
sweet;--too elaborate for a pipe, perhaps, but--well, it is very pretty."

"Too valuable for its use, perhaps," said I.

"What's that?" said he; "I don't understand."

I was just going in a helpless way to try to make him understand, when we
came by the gates of a big rambling building, in which work of some sort
seemed going on.  "What building is that?" said I, eagerly; for it was a
pleasure amidst all these strange things to see something a little like
what I was used to: "it seems to be a factory."

"Yes," he said, "I think I know what you mean, and that's what it is; but
we don't call them factories now, but Banded-workshops: that is, places
where people collect who want to work together."

"I suppose," said I, "power of some sort is used there?"

"No, no," said he.  "Why should people collect together to use power,
when they can have it at the places where they live, or hard by, any two
or three of them; or any one, for the matter of that?  No; folk collect
in these Banded-workshops to do hand-work in which working together is
necessary or convenient; such work is often very pleasant.  In there, for
instance, they make pottery and glass,--there, you can see the tops of
the furnaces.  Well, of course it's handy to have fair-sized ovens and
kilns and glass-pots, and a good lot of things to use them for: though of
course there are a good many such places, as it would be ridiculous if a
man had a liking for pot-making or glass-blowing that he should have to
live in one place or be obliged to forego the work he liked."

"I see no smoke coming from the furnaces," said I.

"Smoke?" said Dick; "why should you see smoke?"

I held my tongue, and he went on: "It's a nice place inside, though as
plain as you see outside.  As to the crafts, throwing the clay must be
jolly work: the glass-blowing is rather a sweltering job; but some folk
like it very much indeed; and I don't much wonder: there is such a sense
of power, when you have got deft in it, in dealing with the hot metal.  It
makes a lot of pleasant work," said he, smiling, "for however much care
you take of such goods, break they will, one day or another, so there is
always plenty to do."

I held my tongue and pondered.

We came just here on a gang of men road-mending which delayed us a
little; but I was not sorry for it; for all I had seen hitherto seemed a
mere part of a summer holiday; and I wanted to see how this folk would
set to on a piece of real necessary work.  They had been resting, and had
only just begun work again as we came up; so that the rattle of the picks
was what woke me from my musing.  There were about a dozen of them,
strong young men, looking much like a boating party at Oxford would have
looked in the days I remembered, and not more troubled with their work:
their outer raiment lay on the road-side in an orderly pile under the
guardianship of a six-year-old boy, who had his arm thrown over the neck
of a big mastiff, who was as happily lazy as if the summer-day had been
made for him alone.  As I eyed the pile of clothes, I could see the gleam
of gold and silk embroidery on it, and judged that some of these workmen
had tastes akin to those of the Golden Dustman of Hammersmith.  Beside
them lay a good big basket that had hints about it of cold pie and wine:
a half dozen of young women stood by watching the work or the workers,
both of which were worth watching, for the latter smote great strokes and
were very deft in their labour, and as handsome clean-built fellows as
you might find a dozen of in a summer day.  They were laughing and
talking merrily with each other and the women, but presently their
foreman looked up and saw our way stopped.  So he stayed his pick and
sang out, "Spell ho, mates! here are neighbours want to get past."
Whereon the others stopped also, and, drawing around us, helped the old
horse by easing our wheels over the half undone road, and then, like men
with a pleasant task on hand, hurried back to their work, only stopping
to give us a smiling good-day; so that the sound of the picks broke out
again before Greylocks had taken to his jog-trot.  Dick looked back over
his shoulder at them and said:

"They are in luck to-day: it's right down good sport trying how much pick-
work one can get into an hour; and I can see those neighbours know their
business well.  It is not a mere matter of strength getting on quickly
with such work; is it, guest?"

"I should think not," said I, "but to tell you the truth, I have never
tried my hand at it."

"Really?" said he gravely, "that seems a pity; it is good work for
hardening the muscles, and I like it; though I admit it is pleasanter the
second week than the first.  Not that I am a good hand at it: the fellows
used to chaff me at one job where I was working, I remember, and sing out
to me, 'Well rowed, stroke!'  'Put your back into it, bow!'"

"Not much of a joke," quoth I.

"Well," said Dick, "everything seems like a joke when we have a pleasant
spell of work on, and good fellows merry about us; we feels so happy, you
know."  Again I pondered silently.





We now turned into a pleasant lane where the branches of great
plane-trees nearly met overhead, but behind them lay low houses standing
rather close together.

"This is Long Acre," quoth Dick; "so there must once have been a
cornfield here.  How curious it is that places change so, and yet keep
their old names!  Just look how thick the houses stand! and they are
still going on building, look you!"

"Yes," said the old man, "but I think the cornfields must have been built
over before the middle of the nineteenth century.  I have heard that
about here was one of the thickest parts of the town.  But I must get
down here, neighbours; I have got to call on a friend who lives in the
gardens behind this Long Acre.  Good-bye and good luck, Guest!"

And he jumped down and strode away vigorously, like a young man.

"How old should you say that neighbour will be?" said I to Dick as we
lost sight of him; for I saw that he was old, and yet he looked dry and
sturdy like a piece of old oak; a type of old man I was not used to
seeing.

"O, about ninety, I should say," said Dick.

"How long-lived your people must be!" said I.

"Yes," said Dick, "certainly we have beaten the threescore-and-ten of the
old Jewish proverb-book.  But then you see that was written of Syria, a
hot dry country, where people live faster than in our temperate climate.
However, I don't think it matters much, so long as a man is healthy and
happy while he _is_ alive.  But now, Guest, we are so near to my old
kinsman's dwelling-place that I think you had better keep all future
questions for him."

I nodded a yes; and therewith we turned to the left, and went down a
gentle slope through some beautiful rose-gardens, laid out on what I took
to be the site of Endell Street.  We passed on, and Dick drew rein an
instant as we came across a long straightish road with houses scantily
scattered up and down it.  He waved his hand right and left, and said,
"Holborn that side, Oxford Road that.  This was once a very important
part of the crowded city outside the ancient walls of the Roman and
Mediaeval burg: many of the feudal nobles of the Middle Ages, we are
told, had big houses on either side of Holborn.  I daresay you remember
that the Bishop of Ely's house is mentioned in Shakespeare's play of King
Richard III.; and there are some remains of that still left.  However,
this road is not of the same importance, now that the ancient city is
gone, walls and all."

He drove on again, while I smiled faintly to think how the nineteenth
century, of which such big words have been said, counted for nothing in
the memory of this man, who read Shakespeare and had not forgotten the
Middle Ages.

We crossed the road into a short narrow lane between the gardens, and
came out again into a wide road, on one side of which was a great and
long building, turning its gables away from the highway, which I saw at
once was another public group.  Opposite to it was a wide space of
greenery, without any wall or fence of any kind.  I looked through the
trees and saw beyond them a pillared portico quite familiar to me--no
less old a friend, in fact, than the British Museum.  It rather took my
breath away, amidst all the strange things I had seen; but I held my
tongue and let Dick speak.  Said he:

"Yonder is the British Museum, where my great-grandfather mostly lives;
so I won't say much about it.  The building on the left is the Museum
Market, and I think we had better turn in there for a minute or two; for
Greylocks will be wanting his rest and his oats; and I suppose you will
stay with my kinsman the greater part of the day; and to say the truth,
there may be some one there whom I particularly want to see, and perhaps
have a long talk with."

He blushed and sighed, not altogether with pleasure, I thought; so of
course I said nothing, and he turned the horse under an archway which
brought us into a very large paved quadrangle, with a big sycamore tree
in each corner and a plashing fountain in the midst.  Near the fountain
were a few market stalls, with awnings over them of gay striped linen
cloth, about which some people, mostly women and children, were moving
quietly, looking at the goods exposed there.  The ground floor of the
building round the quadrangle was occupied by a wide arcade or cloister,
whose fanciful but strong architecture I could not enough admire.  Here
also a few people were sauntering or sitting reading on the benches.

Dick said to me apologetically: "Here as elsewhere there is little doing
to-day; on a Friday you would see it thronged, and gay with people, and
in the afternoon there is generally music about the fountain.  However, I
daresay we shall have a pretty good gathering at our mid-day meal."

We drove through the quadrangle and by an archway, into a large handsome
stable on the other side, where we speedily stalled the old nag and made
him happy with horse-meat, and then turned and walked back again through
the market, Dick looking rather thoughtful, as it seemed to me.

I noticed that people couldn't help looking at me rather hard, and
considering my clothes and theirs, I didn't wonder; but whenever they
caught my eye they made me a very friendly sign of greeting.

We walked straight into the forecourt of the Museum, where, except that
the railings were gone, and the whispering boughs of the trees were all
about, nothing seemed changed; the very pigeons were wheeling about the
building and clinging to the ornaments of the pediment as I had seen them
of old.

Dick seemed grown a little absent, but he could not forbear giving me an
architectural note, and said:

"It is rather an ugly old building, isn't it?  Many people have wanted to
pull it down and rebuild it: and perhaps if work does really get scarce
we may yet do so.  But, as my great grandfather will tell you, it would
not be quite a straightforward job; for there are wonderful collections
in there of all kinds of antiquities, besides an enormous library with
many exceedingly beautiful books in it, and many most useful ones as
genuine records, texts of ancient works and the like; and the worry and
anxiety, and even risk, there would be in moving all this has saved the
buildings themselves.  Besides, as we said before, it is not a bad thing
to have some record of what our forefathers thought a handsome building.
For there is plenty of labour and material in it."

"I see there is," said I, "and I quite agree with you.  But now hadn't we
better make haste to see your great-grandfather?"

In fact, I could not help seeing that he was rather dallying with the
time.  He said, "Yes, we will go into the house in a minute.  My kinsman
is too old to do much work in the Museum, where he was a custodian of the
books for many years; but he still lives here a good deal; indeed I
think," said he, smiling, "that he looks upon himself as a part of the
books, or the books a part of him, I don't know which."

He hesitated a little longer, then flushing up, took my hand, and saying,
"Come along, then!" led me toward the door of one of the old official
dwellings.





"Your kinsman doesn't much care for beautiful building, then," said I, as
we entered the rather dreary classical house; which indeed was as bare as
need be, except for some big pots of the June flowers which stood about
here and there; though it was very clean and nicely whitewashed.

"O I don't know," said Dick, rather absently.  "He is getting old,
certainly, for he is over a hundred and five, and no doubt he doesn't
care about moving.  But of course he could live in a prettier house if he
liked: he is not obliged to live in one place any more than any one else.
This way, Guest."

And he led the way upstairs, and opening a door we went into a fair-sized
room of the old type, as plain as the rest of the house, with a few
necessary pieces of furniture, and those very simple and even rude, but
solid and with a good deal of carving about them, well designed but
rather crudely executed.  At the furthest corner of the room, at a desk
near the window, sat a little old man in a roomy oak chair, well
becushioned.  He was dressed in a sort of Norfolk jacket of blue serge
worn threadbare, with breeches of the same, and grey worsted stockings.
He jumped up from his chair, and cried out in a voice of considerable
volume for such an old man, "Welcome, Dick, my lad; Clara is here, and
will be more than glad to see you; so keep your heart up."

"Clara here?" quoth Dick; "if I had known, I would not have brought--At
least, I mean I would--"

He was stuttering and confused, clearly because he was anxious to say
nothing to make me feel one too many.  But the old man, who had not seen
me at first, helped him out by coming forward and saying to me in a kind
tone:

"Pray pardon me, for I did not notice that Dick, who is big enough to
hide anybody, you know, had brought a friend with him.  A most hearty
welcome to you!  All the more, as I almost hope that you are going to
amuse an old man by giving him news from over sea, for I can see that you
are come from over the water and far off countries."

He looked at me thoughtfully, almost anxiously, as he said in a changed
voice, "Might I ask you where you come from, as you are so clearly a
stranger?"

I said in an absent way: "I used to live in England, and now I am come
back again; and I slept last night at the Hammersmith Guest House."

He bowed gravely, but seemed, I thought, a little disappointed with my
answer.  As for me, I was now looking at him harder than good manners
allowed of; perhaps; for in truth his face, dried-apple-like as it was,
seemed strangely familiar to me; as if I had seen it before--in a looking-
glass it might be, said I to myself.

"Well," said the old man, "wherever you come from, you are come among
friends.  And I see my kinsman Richard Hammond has an air about him as if
he had brought you here for me to do something for you.  Is that so,
Dick?"

Dick, who was getting still more absent-minded and kept looking uneasily
at the door, managed to say, "Well, yes, kinsman: our guest finds things
much altered, and cannot understand it; nor can I; so I thought I would
bring him to you, since you know more of all that has happened within the
last two hundred years than any body else does.--What's that?"

And he turned toward the door again.  We heard footsteps outside; the
door opened, and in came a very beautiful young woman, who stopped short
on seeing Dick, and flushed as red as a rose, but faced him nevertheless.
Dick looked at her hard, and half reached out his hand toward her, and
his whole face quivered with emotion.

The old man did not leave them long in this shy discomfort, but said,
smiling with an old man's mirth:

"Dick, my lad, and you, my dear Clara, I rather think that we two
oldsters are in your way; for I think you will have plenty to say to each
other.  You had better go into Nelson's room up above; I know he has gone
out; and he has just been covering the walls all over with mediaeval
books, so it will be pretty enough even for you two and your renewed
pleasure."

The girl reached out her hand to Dick, and taking his led him out of the
room, looking straight before her; but it was easy to see that her
blushes came from happiness, not anger; as, indeed, love is far more self-
conscious than wrath.

When the door had shut on them the old man turned to me, still smiling,
and said:

"Frankly, my dear guest, you will do me a great service if you are come
to set my old tongue wagging.  My love of talk still abides with me, or
rather grows on me; and though it is pleasant enough to see these
youngsters moving about and playing together so seriously, as if the
whole world depended on their kisses (as indeed it does somewhat), yet I
don't think my tales of the past interest them much.  The last harvest,
the last baby, the last knot of carving in the market-place, is history
enough for them.  It was different, I think, when I was a lad, when we
were not so assured of peace and continuous plenty as we are now--Well,
well!  Without putting you to the question, let me ask you this: Am I to
consider you as an enquirer who knows a little of our modern ways of
life, or as one who comes from some place where the very foundations of
life are different from ours,--do you know anything or nothing about us?"

He looked at me keenly and with growing wonder in his eyes as he spoke;
and I answered in a low voice:

"I know only so much of your modern life as I could gather from using my
eyes on the way here from Hammersmith, and from asking some questions of
Richard Hammond, most of which he could hardly understand."

The old man smiled at this.  "Then," said he, "I am to speak to you as--"

"As if I were a being from another planet," said I.

The old man, whose name, by the bye, like his kinsman's, was Hammond,
smiled and nodded, and wheeling his seat round to me, bade me sit in a
heavy oak chair, and said, as he saw my eyes fix on its curious carving:

"Yes, I am much tied to the past, my past, you understand.  These very
pieces of furniture belong to a time before my early days; it was my
father who got them made; if they had been done within the last fifty
years they would have been much cleverer in execution; but I don't think
I should have liked them the better.  We were almost beginning again in
those days: and they were brisk, hot-headed times.  But you hear how
garrulous I am: ask me questions, ask me questions about anything, dear
guest; since I must talk, make my talk profitable to you."

I was silent for a minute, and then I said, somewhat nervously: "Excuse
me if I am rude; but I am so much interested in Richard, since he has
been so kind to me, a perfect stranger, that I should like to ask a
question about him."

"Well," said old Hammond, "if he were not 'kind', as you call it, to a
perfect stranger he would be thought a strange person, and people would
be apt to shun him.  But ask on, ask on! don't be shy of asking."

Said I: "That beautiful girl, is he going to be married to her?"

"Well," said he, "yes, he is.  He has been married to her once already,
and now I should say it is pretty clear that he will be married to her
again."

"Indeed," quoth I, wondering what that meant.

"Here is the whole tale," said old Hammond; "a short one enough; and now
I hope a happy one: they lived together two years the first time; were
both very young; and then she got it into her head that she was in love
with somebody else.  So she left poor Dick; I say _poor_ Dick, because he
had not found any one else.  But it did not last long, only about a year.
Then she came to me, as she was in the habit of bringing her troubles to
the old carle, and asked me how Dick was, and whether he was happy, and
all the rest of it.  So I saw how the land lay, and said that he was very
unhappy, and not at all well; which last at any rate was a lie.  There,
you can guess the rest.  Clara came to have a long talk with me to-day,
but Dick will serve her turn much better.  Indeed, if he hadn't chanced
in upon me to-day I should have had to have sent for him to-morrow."

"Dear me," said I.  "Have they any children?"

"Yes," said he, "two; they are staying with one of my daughters at
present, where, indeed, Clara has mostly been.  I wouldn't lose sight of
her, as I felt sure they would come together again: and Dick, who is the
best of good fellows, really took the matter to heart.  You see, he had
no other love to run to, as she had.  So I managed it all; as I have done
with such-like matters before."

"Ah," said I, "no doubt you wanted to keep them out of the Divorce Court:
but I suppose it often has to settle such matters."

"Then you suppose nonsense," said he.  "I know that there used to be such
lunatic affairs as divorce-courts: but just consider; all the cases that
came into them were matters of property quarrels: and I think, dear
guest," said he, smiling, "that though you do come from another planet,
you can see from the mere outside look of our world that quarrels about
private property could not go on amongst us in our days."

Indeed, my drive from Hammersmith to Bloomsbury, and all the quiet happy
life I had seen so many hints of; even apart from my shopping, would have
been enough to tell me that "the sacred rights of property," as we used
to think of them, were now no more.  So I sat silent while the old man
took up the thread of the discourse again, and said:

"Well, then, property quarrels being no longer possible, what remains in
these matters that a court of law could deal with?  Fancy a court for
enforcing a contract of passion or sentiment!  If such a thing were
needed as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the enforcement of contract, such a
folly would do that for us."

He was silent again a little, and then said: "You must understand once
for all that we have changed these matters; or rather, that our way of
looking at them has changed, as we have changed within the last two
hundred years.  We do not deceive ourselves, indeed, or believe that we
can get rid of all the trouble that besets the dealings between the
sexes.  We know that we must face the unhappiness that comes of man and
woman confusing the relations between natural passion, and sentiment, and
the friendship which, when things go well, softens the awakening from
passing illusions: but we are not so mad as to pile up degradation on
that unhappiness by engaging in sordid squabbles about livelihood and
position, and the power of tyrannising over the children who have been
the results of love or lust."

Again he paused awhile, and again went on: "Calf love, mistaken for a
heroism that shall be lifelong, yet early waning into disappointment; the
inexplicable desire that comes on a man of riper years to be the all-in-
all to some one woman, whose ordinary human kindness and human beauty he
has idealised into superhuman perfection, and made the one object of his
desire; or lastly the reasonable longing of a strong and thoughtful man
to become the most intimate friend of some beautiful and wise woman, the
very type of the beauty and glory of the world which we love so well,--as
we exult in all the pleasure and exaltation of spirit which goes with
these things, so we set ourselves to bear the sorrow which not unseldom
goes with them also; remembering those lines of the ancient poet (I quote
roughly from memory one of the many translations of the nineteenth
century):

   'For this the Gods have fashioned man's grief and evil day
   That still for man hereafter might be the tale and the lay.'

Well, well, 'tis little likely anyhow that all tales shall be lacking, or
all sorrow cured."

He was silent for some time, and I would not interrupt him.  At last he
began again: "But you must know that we of these generations are strong
and healthy of body, and live easily; we pass our lives in reasonable
strife with nature, exercising not one side of ourselves only, but all
sides, taking the keenest pleasure in all the life of the world.  So it
is a point of honour with us not to be self-centred; not to suppose that
the world must cease because one man is sorry; therefore we should think
it foolish, or if you will, criminal, to exaggerate these matters of
sentiment and sensibility: we are no more inclined to eke out our
sentimental sorrows than to cherish our bodily pains; and we recognise
that there are other pleasures besides love-making.  You must remember,
also, that we are long-lived, and that therefore beauty both in man and
woman is not so fleeting as it was in the days when we were burdened so
heavily by self-inflicted diseases.  So we shake off these griefs in a
way which perhaps the sentimentalists of other times would think
contemptible and unheroic, but which we think necessary and manlike.  As
on the other hand, therefore, we have ceased to be commercial in our love-
matters, so also we have ceased to be _artificially_ foolish.  The folly
which comes by nature, the unwisdom of the immature man, or the older man
caught in a trap, we must put up with that, nor are we much ashamed of
it; but to be conventionally sensitive or sentimental--my friend, I am
old and perhaps disappointed, but at least I think we have cast off
_some_ of the follies of the older world."

He paused, as if for some words of mine; but I held my peace: then he
went on: "At least, if we suffer from the tyranny and fickleness of
nature or our own want of experience, we neither grimace about it, nor
lie.  If there must be sundering betwixt those who meant never to sunder,
so it must be: but there need be no pretext of unity when the reality of
it is gone: nor do we drive those who well know that they are incapable
of it to profess an undying sentiment which they cannot really feel: thus
it is that as that monstrosity of venal lust is no longer possible, so
also it is no longer needed.  Don't misunderstand me.  You did not seemed
shocked when I told you that there were no law-courts to enforce
contracts of sentiment or passion; but so curiously are men made, that
perhaps you will be shocked when I tell you that there is no code of
public opinion which takes the place of such courts, and which might be
as tyrannical and unreasonable as they were.  I do not say that people
don't judge their neighbours' conduct, sometimes, doubtless, unfairly.
But I do say that there is no unvarying conventional set of rules by
which people are judged; no bed of Procrustes to stretch or cramp their
minds and lives; no hypocritical excommunication which people are
_forced_ to pronounce, either by unconsidered habit, or by the
unexpressed threat of the lesser interdict if they are lax in their
hypocrisy.  Are you shocked now?"

"N-o--no," said I, with some hesitation.  "It is all so different."

"At any rate," said he, "one thing I think I can answer for: whatever
sentiment there is, it is real--and general; it is not confined to people
very specially refined.  I am also pretty sure, as I hinted to you just
now, that there is not by a great way as much suffering involved in these
matters either to men or to women as there used to be.  But excuse me for
being so prolix on this question!  You know you asked to be treated like
a being from another planet."

"Indeed I thank you very much," said I.  "Now may I ask you about the
position of women in your society?"

He laughed very heartily for a man of his years, and said: "It is not
without reason that I have got a reputation as a careful student of
history.  I believe I really do understand 'the Emancipation of Women
movement' of the nineteenth century.  I doubt if any other man now alive
does."

"Well?" said I, a little bit nettled by his merriment.

"Well," said he, "of course you will see that all that is a dead
controversy now.  The men have no longer any opportunity of tyrannising
over the women, or the women over the men; both of which things took
place in those old times.  The women do what they can do best, and what
they like best, and the men are neither jealous of it or injured by it.
This is such a commonplace that I am almost ashamed to state it."

I said, "O; and legislation? do they take any part in that?"

Hammond smiled and said: "I think you may wait for an answer to that
question till we get on to the subject of legislation.  There may be
novelties to you in that subject also."

"Very well," I said; "but about this woman question?  I saw at the Guest
House that the women were waiting on the men: that seems a little like
reaction doesn't it?"

"Does it?" said the old man; "perhaps you think housekeeping an
unimportant occupation, not deserving of respect.  I believe that was the
opinion of the 'advanced' women of the nineteenth century, and their male
backers.  If it is yours, I recommend to your notice an old Norwegian
folk-lore tale called How the Man minded the House, or some such title;
the result of which minding was that, after various tribulations, the man
and the family cow balanced each other at the end of a rope, the man
hanging halfway up the chimney, the cow dangling from the roof, which,
after the fashion of the country, was of turf and sloping down low to the
ground.  Hard on the cow, _I_ think.  Of course no such mishap could
happen to such a superior person as yourself," he added, chuckling.

I sat somewhat uneasy under this dry gibe.  Indeed, his manner of
treating this latter part of the question seemed to me a little
disrespectful.

"Come, now, my friend," quoth he, "don't you know that it is a great
pleasure to a clever woman to manage a house skilfully, and to do it so
that all the house-mates about her look pleased, and are grateful to her?
And then, you know, everybody likes to be ordered about by a pretty
woman: why, it is one of the pleasantest forms of flirtation.  You are
not so old that you cannot remember that.  Why, I remember it well."

And the old fellow chuckled again, and at last fairly burst out laughing.

"Excuse me," said he, after a while; "I am not laughing at anything you
could be thinking of; but at that silly nineteenth-century fashion,
current amongst rich so-called cultivated people, of ignoring all the
steps by which their daily dinner was reached, as matters too low for
their lofty intelligence.  Useless idiots!  Come, now, I am a 'literary
man,' as we queer animals used to be called, yet I am a pretty good cook
myself."

"So am I," said I.

"Well, then," said he, "I really think you can understand me better than
you would seem to do, judging by your words and your silence."

Said I: "Perhaps that is so; but people putting in practice commonly this
sense of interest in the ordinary occupations of life rather startles me.
I will ask you a question or two presently about that.  But I want to
return to the position of women amongst you.  You have studied the
'emancipation of women' business of the nineteenth century: don't you
remember that some of the 'superior' women wanted to emancipate the more
intelligent part of their sex from the bearing of children?"

The old man grew quite serious again.  Said he: "I _do_ remember about
that strange piece of baseless folly, the result, like all other follies
of the period, of the hideous class tyranny which then obtained.  What do
we think of it now? you would say.  My friend, that is a question easy to
answer.  How could it possibly be but that maternity should be highly
honoured amongst us?  Surely it is a matter of course that the natural
and necessary pains which the mother must go through form a bond of union
between man and woman, an extra stimulus to love and affection between
them, and that this is universally recognised.  For the rest, remember
that all the _artificial_ burdens of motherhood are now done away with.  A
mother has no longer any mere sordid anxieties for the future of her
children.  They may indeed turn out better or worse; they may disappoint
her highest hopes; such anxieties as these are a part of the mingled
pleasure and pain which goes to make up the life of mankind.  But at
least she is spared the fear (it was most commonly the certainty) that
artificial disabilities would make her children something less than men
and women: she knows that they will live and act according to the measure
of their own faculties.  In times past, it is clear that the 'Society' of
the day helped its Judaic god, and the 'Man of Science' of the time, in
visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children.  How to reverse this
process, how to take the sting out of heredity, has for long been one of
the most constant cares of the thoughtful men amongst us.  So that, you
see, the ordinarily healthy woman (and almost all our women are both
healthy and at least comely), respected as a child-bearer and rearer of
children, desired as a woman, loved as a companion, unanxious for the
future of her children, has far more instinct for maternity than the poor
drudge and mother of drudges of past days could ever have had; or than
her sister of the upper classes, brought up in affected ignorance of
natural facts, reared in an atmosphere of mingled prudery and prurience."

"You speak warmly," I said, "but I can see that you are right."

"Yes," he said, "and I will point out to you a token of all the benefits
which we have gained by our freedom.  What did you think of the looks of
the people whom you have come across to-day?"

Said I: "I could hardly have believed that there could be so many good-
looking people in any civilised country."

He crowed a little, like the old bird he was.  "What! are we still
civilised?" said he.  "Well, as to our looks, the English and Jutish
blood, which on the whole is predominant here, used not to produce much
beauty.  But I think we have improved it.  I know a man who has a large
collection of portraits printed from photographs of the nineteenth
century, and going over those and comparing them with the everyday faces
in these times, puts the improvement in our good looks beyond a doubt.
Now, there are some people who think it not too fantastic to connect this
increase of beauty directly with our freedom and good sense in the
matters we have been speaking of: they believe that a child born from the
natural and healthy love between a man and a woman, even if that be
transient, is likely to turn out better in all ways, and especially in
bodily beauty, than the birth of the respectable commercial marriage bed,
or of the dull despair of the drudge of that system.  They say, Pleasure
begets pleasure.  What do you think?"

"I am much of that mind," said I.





"Well," said the old man, shifting in his chair, "you must get on with
your questions, Guest; I have been some time answering this first one."

Said I: "I want an extra word or two about your ideas of education;
although I gathered from Dick that you let your children run wild and
didn't teach them anything; and in short, that you have so refined your
education, that now you have none."

"Then you gathered left-handed," quoth he.  "But of course I understand
your point of view about education, which is that of times past, when
'the struggle for life,' as men used to phrase it (_i.e._, the struggle
for a slave's rations on one side, and for a bouncing share of the slave-
holders' privilege on the other), pinched 'education' for most people
into a niggardly dole of not very accurate information; something to be
swallowed by the beginner in the art of living whether he liked it or
not, and was hungry for it or not: and which had been chewed and digested
over and over again by people who didn't care about it in order to serve
it out to other people who didn't care about it."

I stopped the old man's rising wrath by a laugh, and said: "Well, _you_
were not taught that way, at any rate, so you may let your anger run off
you a little."

"True, true," said he, smiling.  "I thank you for correcting my
ill-temper: I always fancy myself as living in any period of which we may
be speaking.  But, however, to put it in a cooler way: you expected to
see children thrust into schools when they had reached an age
conventionally supposed to be the due age, whatever their varying
faculties and dispositions might be, and when there, with like disregard
to facts to be subjected to a certain conventional course of 'learning.'
My friend, can't you see that such a proceeding means ignoring the fact
of _growth_, bodily and mental?  No one could come out of such a mill
uninjured; and those only would avoid being crushed by it who would have
the spirit of rebellion strong in them.  Fortunately most children have
had that at all times, or I do not know that we should ever have reached
our present position.  Now you see what it all comes to.  In the old
times all this was the result of _poverty_.  In the nineteenth century,
society was so miserably poor, owing to the systematised robbery on which
it was founded, that real education was impossible for anybody.  The
whole theory of their so-called education was that it was necessary to
shove a little information into a child, even if it were by means of
torture, and accompanied by twaddle which it was well known was of no
use, or else he would lack information lifelong: the hurry of poverty
forbade anything else.  All that is past; we are no longer hurried, and
the information lies ready to each one's hand when his own inclinations
impel him to seek it.  In this as in other matters we have become
wealthy: we can afford to give ourselves time to grow."

"Yes," said I, "but suppose the child, youth, man, never wants the
information, never grows in the direction you might hope him to do:
suppose, for instance, he objects to learning arithmetic or mathematics;
you can't force him when he _is_ grown; can't you force him while he is
growing, and oughtn't you to do so?"

"Well," said he, "were you forced to learn arithmetic and mathematics?"

"A little," said I.

"And how old are you now?"

"Say fifty-six," said I.

"And how much arithmetic and mathematics do you know now?" quoth the old
man, smiling rather mockingly.

Said I: "None whatever, I am sorry to say."

Hammond laughed quietly, but made no other comment on my admission, and I
dropped the subject of education, perceiving him to be hopeless on that
side.

I thought a little, and said: "You were speaking just now of households:
that sounded to me a little like the customs of past times; I should have
thought you would have lived more in public."

"Phalangsteries, eh?" said he.  "Well, we live as we like, and we like to
live as a rule with certain house-mates that we have got used to.
Remember, again, that poverty is extinct, and that the Fourierist
phalangsteries and all their kind, as was but natural at the time,
implied nothing but a refuge from mere destitution.  Such a way of life
as that, could only have been conceived of by people surrounded by the
worst form of poverty.  But you must understand therewith, that though
separate households are the rule amongst us, and though they differ in
their habits more or less, yet no door is shut to any good-tempered
person who is content to live as the other house-mates do: only of course
it would be unreasonable for one man to drop into a household and bid the
folk of it to alter their habits to please him, since he can go elsewhere
and live as he pleases.  However, I need not say much about all this, as
you are going up the river with Dick, and will find out for yourself by
experience how these matters are managed."

After a pause, I said: "Your big towns, now; how about them?  London,
which--which I have read about as the modern Babylon of civilization,
seems to have disappeared."

"Well, well," said old Hammond, "perhaps after all it is more like
ancient Babylon now than the 'modern Babylon' of the nineteenth century
was.  But let that pass.  After all, there is a good deal of population
in places between here and Hammersmith; nor have you seen the most
populous part of the town yet."

"Tell me, then," said I, "how is it towards the east?"

Said he: "Time was when if you mounted a good horse and rode straight
away from my door here at a round trot for an hour and a half; you would
still be in the thick of London, and the greater part of that would be
'slums,' as they were called; that is to say, places of torture for
innocent men and women; or worse, stews for rearing and breeding men and
women in such degradation that that torture should seem to them mere
ordinary and natural life."

"I know, I know," I said, rather impatiently.  "That was what was; tell
me something of what is.  Is any of that left?"

"Not an inch," said he; "but some memory of it abides with us, and I am
glad of it.  Once a year, on May-day, we hold a solemn feast in those
easterly communes of London to commemorate The Clearing of Misery, as it
is called.  On that day we have music and dancing, and merry games and
happy feasting on the site of some of the worst of the old slums, the
traditional memory of which we have kept.  On that occasion the custom is
for the prettiest girls to sing some of the old revolutionary songs, and
those which were the groans of the discontent, once so hopeless, on the
very spots where those terrible crimes of class-murder were committed day
by day for so many years.  To a man like me, who have studied the past so
diligently, it is a curious and touching sight to see some beautiful
girl, daintily clad, and crowned with flowers from the neighbouring
meadows, standing amongst the happy people, on some mound where of old
time stood the wretched apology for a house, a den in which men and women
lived packed amongst the filth like pilchards in a cask; lived in such a
way that they could only have endured it, as I said just now, by being
degraded out of humanity--to hear the terrible words of threatening and
lamentation coming from her sweet and beautiful lips, and she unconscious
of their real meaning: to hear her, for instance, singing Hood's Song of
the Shirt, and to think that all the time she does not understand what it
is all about--a tragedy grown inconceivable to her and her listeners.
Think of that, if you can, and of how glorious life is grown!"

"Indeed," said I, "it is difficult for me to think of it."

And I sat watching how his eyes glittered, and how the fresh life seemed
to glow in his face, and I wondered how at his age he should think of the
happiness of the world, or indeed anything but his coming dinner.

"Tell me in detail," said I, "what lies east of Bloomsbury now?"

Said he: "There are but few houses between this and the outer part of the
old city; but in the city we have a thickly-dwelling population.  Our
forefathers, in the first clearing of the slums, were not in a hurry to
pull down the houses in what was called at the end of the nineteenth
century the business quarter of the town, and what later got to be known
as the Swindling Kens.  You see, these houses, though they stood
hideously thick on the ground, were roomy and fairly solid in building,
and clean, because they were not used for living in, but as mere gambling
booths; so the poor people from the cleared slums took them for lodgings
and dwelt there, till the folk of those days had time to think of
something better for them; so the buildings were pulled down so gradually
that people got used to living thicker on the ground there than in most
places; therefore it remains the most populous part of London, or perhaps
of all these islands.  But it is very pleasant there, partly because of
the splendour of the architecture, which goes further than what you will
see elsewhere.  However, this crowding, if it may be called so, does not
go further than a street called Aldgate, a name which perhaps you may
have heard of.  Beyond that the houses are scattered wide about the
meadows there, which are very beautiful, especially when you get on to
the lovely river Lea (where old Isaak Walton used to fish, you know)
about the places called Stratford and Old Ford, names which of course you
will not have heard of, though the Romans were busy there once upon a
time."

Not heard of them! thought I to myself.  How strange! that I who had seen
the very last remnant of the pleasantness of the meadows by the Lea
destroyed, should have heard them spoken of with pleasantness come back
to them in full measure.

Hammond went on: "When you get down to the Thames side you come on the
Docks, which are works of the nineteenth century, and are still in use,
although not so thronged as they once were, since we discourage
centralisation all we can, and we have long ago dropped the pretension to
be the market of the world.  About these Docks are a good few houses,
which, however, are not inhabited by many people permanently; I mean,
those who use them come and go a good deal, the place being too low and
marshy for pleasant dwelling.  Past the Docks eastward and landward it is
all flat pasture, once marsh, except for a few gardens, and there are
very few permanent dwellings there: scarcely anything but a few sheds,
and cots for the men who come to look after the great herds of cattle
pasturing there.  But however, what with the beasts and the men, and the
scattered red-tiled roofs and the big hayricks, it does not make a bad
holiday to get a quiet pony and ride about there on a sunny afternoon of
autumn, and look over the river and the craft passing up and down, and on
to Shooters' Hill and the Kentish uplands, and then turn round to the
wide green sea of the Essex marsh-land, with the great domed line of the
sky, and the sun shining down in one flood of peaceful light over the
long distance.  There is a place called Canning's Town, and further out,
Silvertown, where the pleasant meadows are at their pleasantest:
doubtless they were once slums, and wretched enough."

The names grated on my ear, but I could not explain why to him.  So I
said: "And south of the river, what is it like?"

He said: "You would find it much the same as the land about Hammersmith.
North, again, the land runs up high, and there is an agreeable and well-
built town called Hampstead, which fitly ends London on that side.  It
looks down on the north-western end of the forest you passed through."

I smiled.  "So much for what was once London," said I.  "Now tell me
about the other towns of the country."

He said: "As to the big murky places which were once, as we know, the
centres of manufacture, they have, like the brick and mortar desert of
London, disappeared; only, since they were centres of nothing but
'manufacture,' and served no purpose but that of the gambling market,
they have left less signs of their existence than London.  Of course, the
great change in the use of mechanical force made this an easy matter, and
some approach to their break-up as centres would probably have taken
place, even if we had not changed our habits so much: but they being such
as they were, no sacrifice would have seemed too great a price to pay for
getting rid of the 'manufacturing districts,' as they used to be called.
For the rest, whatever coal or mineral we need is brought to grass and
sent whither it is needed with as little as possible of dirt, confusion,
and the distressing of quiet people's lives.  One is tempted to believe
from what one has read of the condition of those districts in the
nineteenth century, that those who had them under their power worried,
befouled, and degraded men out of malice prepense: but it was not so;
like the mis-education of which we were talking just now, it came of
their dreadful poverty.  They were obliged to put up with everything, and
even pretend that they liked it; whereas we can now deal with things
reasonably, and refuse to be saddled with what we do not want."

I confess I was not sorry to cut short with a question his glorifications
of the age he lived in.  Said I: "How about the smaller towns?  I suppose
you have swept those away entirely?"

"No, no," said he, "it hasn't gone that way.  On the contrary, there has
been but little clearance, though much rebuilding, in the smaller towns.
Their suburbs, indeed, when they had any, have melted away into the
general country, and space and elbow-room has been got in their centres:
but there are the towns still with their streets and squares and market-
places; so that it is by means of these smaller towns that we of to-day
can get some kind of idea of what the towns of the older world were
like;--I mean to say at their best."

"Take Oxford, for instance," said I.

"Yes," said he, "I suppose Oxford was beautiful even in the nineteenth
century.  At present it has the great interest of still preserving a
great mass of pre-commercial building, and is a very beautiful place, yet
there are many towns which have become scarcely less beautiful."

Said I: "In passing, may I ask if it is still a place of learning?"

"Still?" said he, smiling.  "Well, it has reverted to some of its best
traditions; so you may imagine how far it is from its nineteenth-century
position.  It is real learning, knowledge cultivated for its own sake--the
Art of Knowledge, in short--which is followed there, not the Commercial
learning of the past.  Though perhaps you do not know that in the
nineteenth century Oxford and its less interesting sister Cambridge
became definitely commercial.  They (and especially Oxford) were the
breeding places of a peculiar class of parasites, who called themselves
cultivated people; they were indeed cynical enough, as the so-called
educated classes of the day generally were; but they affected an
exaggeration of cynicism in order that they might be thought knowing and
worldly-wise.  The rich middle classes (they had no relation with the
working classes) treated them with the kind of contemptuous toleration
with which a mediaeval baron treated his jester; though it must be said
that they were by no means so pleasant as the old jesters were, being, in
fact, _the_ bores of society.  They were laughed at, despised--and paid.
Which last was what they aimed at."

Dear me! thought I, how apt history is to reverse contemporary judgments.
Surely only the worst of them were as bad as that.  But I must admit that
they were mostly prigs, and that they _were_ commercial.  I said aloud,
though more to myself than to Hammond, "Well, how could they be better
than the age that made them?"

"True," he said, "but their pretensions were higher."

"Were they?" said I, smiling.

"You drive me from corner to corner," said he, smiling in turn.  "Let me
say at least that they were a poor sequence to the aspirations of Oxford
of 'the barbarous Middle Ages.'"

"Yes, that will do," said I.

"Also," said Hammond, "what I have been saying of them is true in the
main.  But ask on!"

I said: "We have heard about London and the manufacturing districts and
the ordinary towns: how about the villages?"

Said Hammond: "You must know that toward the end of the nineteenth
century the villages were almost destroyed, unless where they became mere
adjuncts to the manufacturing districts, or formed a sort of minor
manufacturing districts themselves.  Houses were allowed to fall into
decay and actual ruin; trees were cut down for the sake of the few
shillings which the poor sticks would fetch; the building became
inexpressibly mean and hideous.  Labour was scarce; but wages fell
nevertheless.  All the small country arts of life which once added to the
little pleasures of country people were lost.  The country produce which
passed through the hands of the husbandmen never got so far as their
mouths.  Incredible shabbiness and niggardly pinching reigned over the
fields and acres which, in spite of the rude and careless husbandry of
the times, were so kind and bountiful.  Had you any inkling of all this?"

"I have heard that it was so," said I "but what followed?"

"The change," said Hammond, "which in these matters took place very early
in our epoch, was most strangely rapid.  People flocked into the country
villages, and, so to say, flung themselves upon the freed land like a
wild beast upon his prey; and in a very little time the villages of
England were more populous than they had been since the fourteenth
century, and were still growing fast.  Of course, this invasion of the
country was awkward to deal with, and would have created much misery, if
the folk had still been under the bondage of class monopoly.  But as it
was, things soon righted themselves.  People found out what they were fit
for, and gave up attempting to push themselves into occupations in which
they must needs fail.  The town invaded the country; but the invaders,
like the warlike invaders of early days, yielded to the influence of
their surroundings, and became country people; and in their turn, as they
became more numerous than the townsmen, influenced them also; so that the
difference between town and country grew less and less; and it was indeed
this world of the country vivified by the thought and briskness of town-
bred folk which has produced that happy and leisurely but eager life of
which you have had a first taste.  Again I say, many blunders were made,
but we have had time to set them right.  Much was left for the men of my
earlier life to deal with.  The crude ideas of the first half of the
twentieth century, when men were still oppressed by the fear of poverty,
and did not look enough to the present pleasure of ordinary daily life,
spoilt a great deal of what the commercial age had left us of external
beauty: and I admit that it was but slowly that men recovered from the
injuries that they inflicted on themselves even after they became free.
But slowly as the recovery came, it _did_ come; and the more you see of
us, the clearer it will be to you that we are happy.  That we live amidst
beauty without any fear of becoming effeminate; that we have plenty to
do, and on the whole enjoy doing it.  What more can we ask of life?"

He paused, as if he were seeking for words with which to express his
thought.  Then he said:

"This is how we stand.  England was once a country of clearings amongst
the woods and wastes, with a few towns interspersed, which were
fortresses for the feudal army, markets for the folk, gathering places
for the craftsmen.  It then became a country of huge and foul workshops
and fouler gambling-dens, surrounded by an ill-kept, poverty-stricken
farm, pillaged by the masters of the workshops.  It is now a garden,
where nothing is wasted and nothing is spoilt, with the necessary
dwellings, sheds, and workshops scattered up and down the country, all
trim and neat and pretty.  For, indeed, we should be too much ashamed of
ourselves if we allowed the making of goods, even on a large scale, to
carry with it the appearance, even, of desolation and misery.  Why, my
friend, those housewives we were talking of just now would teach us
better than that."

Said I: "This side of your change is certainly for the better.  But
though I shall soon see some of these villages, tell me in a word or two
what they are like, just to prepare me."

"Perhaps," said he, "you have seen a tolerable picture of these villages
as they were before the end of the nineteenth century.  Such things
exist."

"I have seen several of such pictures," said I.

"Well," said Hammond, "our villages are something like the best of such
places, with the church or mote-house of the neighbours for their chief
building.  Only note that there are no tokens of poverty about them: no
tumble-down picturesque; which, to tell you the truth, the artist usually
availed himself of to veil his incapacity for drawing architecture.  Such
things do not please us, even when they indicate no misery.  Like the
mediaevals, we like everything trim and clean, and orderly and bright; as
people always do when they have any sense of architectural power; because
then they know that they can have what they want, and they won't stand
any nonsense from Nature in their dealings with her."

"Besides the villages, are there any scattered country houses?" said I.

"Yes, plenty," said Hammond; "in fact, except in the wastes and forests
and amongst the sand-hills (like Hindhead in Surrey), it is not easy to
be out of sight of a house; and where the houses are thinly scattered
they run large, and are more like the old colleges than ordinary houses
as they used to be.  That is done for the sake of society, for a good
many people can dwell in such houses, as the country dwellers are not
necessarily husbandmen; though they almost all help in such work at
times.  The life that goes on in these big dwellings in the country is
very pleasant, especially as some of the most studious men of our time
live in them, and altogether there is a great variety of mind and mood to
be found in them which brightens and quickens the society there."

"I am rather surprised," said I, "by all this, for it seems to me that
after all the country must be tolerably populous."

"Certainly," said he; "the population is pretty much the same as it was
at the end of the nineteenth century; we have spread it, that is all.  Of
course, also, we have helped to populate other countries--where we were
wanted and were called for."

Said I: "One thing, it seems to me, does not go with your word of
'garden' for the country.  You have spoken of wastes and forests, and I
myself have seen the beginning of your Middlesex and Essex forest.  Why
do you keep such things in a garden? and isn't it very wasteful to do
so?"

"My friend," he said, "we like these pieces of wild nature, and can
afford them, so we have them; let alone that as to the forests, we need a
great deal of timber, and suppose that our sons and sons' sons will do
the like.  As to the land being a garden, I have heard that they used to
have shrubberies and rockeries in gardens once; and though I might not
like the artificial ones, I assure you that some of the natural rockeries
of our garden are worth seeing.  Go north this summer and look at the
Cumberland and Westmoreland ones,--where, by the way, you will see some
sheep-feeding, so that they are not so wasteful as you think; not so
wasteful as forcing-grounds for fruit out of season, _I_ think.  Go and
have a look at the sheep-walks high up the slopes between Ingleborough
and Pen-y-gwent, and tell me if you think we _waste_ the land there by
not covering it with factories for making things that nobody wants, which
was the chief business of the nineteenth century."

"I will try to go there," said I.

"It won't take much trying," said he.





"Now," said I, "I have come to the point of asking questions which I
suppose will be dry for you to answer and difficult for you to explain;
but I have foreseen for some time past that I must ask them, will I 'nill
I.  What kind of a government have you?  Has republicanism finally
triumphed? or have you come to a mere dictatorship, which some persons in
the nineteenth century used to prophesy as the ultimate outcome of
democracy?  Indeed, this last question does not seem so very
unreasonable, since you have turned your Parliament House into a dung-
market.  Or where do you house your present Parliament?"

The old man answered my smile with a hearty laugh, and said: "Well, well,
dung is not the worst kind of corruption; fertility may come of that,
whereas mere dearth came from the other kind, of which those walls once
held the great supporters.  Now, dear guest, let me tell you that our
present parliament would be hard to house in one place, because the whole
people is our parliament."

"I don't understand," said I.

"No, I suppose not," said he.  "I must now shock you by telling you that
we have no longer anything which you, a native of another planet, would
call a government."

"I am not so much shocked as you might think," said I, "as I know
something about governments.  But tell me, how do you manage, and how
have you come to this state of things?"

Said he: "It is true that we have to make some arrangements about our
affairs, concerning which you can ask presently; and it is also true that
everybody does not always agree with the details of these arrangements;
but, further, it is true that a man no more needs an elaborate system of
government, with its army, navy, and police, to force him to give way to
the will of the majority of his _equals_, than he wants a similar
machinery to make him understand that his head and a stone wall cannot
occupy the same space at the same moment.  Do you want further
explanation?"

"Well, yes, I do," quoth I.

Old Hammond settled himself in his chair with a look of enjoyment which
rather alarmed me, and made me dread a scientific disquisition: so I
sighed and abided.  He said:

"I suppose you know pretty well what the process of government was in the
bad old times?"

"I am supposed to know," said I.

(Hammond)  What was the government of those days?  Was it really the
Parliament or any part of it?

(I)  No.

(H.)  Was not the Parliament on the one side a kind of watch-committee
sitting to see that the interests of the Upper Classes took no hurt; and
on the other side a sort of blind to delude the people into supposing
that they had some share in the management of their own affairs?

(I)  History seems to show us this.

(H.)  To what extent did the people manage their own affairs?

(I)  I judge from what I have heard that sometimes they forced the
Parliament to make a law to legalise some alteration which had already
taken place.

(H.)  Anything else?

(I)  I think not.  As I am informed, if the people made any attempt to
deal with the _cause_ of their grievances, the law stepped in and said,
this is sedition, revolt, or what not, and slew or tortured the
ringleaders of such attempts.

(H.)  If Parliament was not the government then, nor the people either,
what was the government?

(I)  Can you tell me?

(H.)  I think we shall not be far wrong if we say that government was the
Law-Courts, backed up by the executive, which handled the brute force
that the deluded people allowed them to use for their own purposes; I
mean the army, navy, and police.

(I)  Reasonable men must needs think you are right.

(H.)  Now as to those Law-Courts.  Were they places of fair dealing
according to the ideas of the day?  Had a poor man a good chance of
defending his property and person in them?

(I)  It is a commonplace that even rich men looked upon a law-suit as a
dire misfortune, even if they gained the case; and as for a poor one--why,
it was considered a miracle of justice and beneficence if a poor man who
had once got into the clutches of the law escaped prison or utter ruin.

(H.)  It seems, then, my son, that the government by law-courts and
police, which was the real government of the nineteenth century, was not
a great success even to the people of that day, living under a class
system which proclaimed inequality and poverty as the law of God and the
bond which held the world together.

(I)  So it seems, indeed.

(H.)  And now that all this is changed, and the "rights of property,"
which mean the clenching the fist on a piece of goods and crying out to
the neighbours, You shan't have this!--now that all this has disappeared
so utterly that it is no longer possible even to jest upon its absurdity,
is such a Government possible?

(I)  It is impossible.

(H.)  Yes, happily.  But for what other purpose than the protection of
the rich from the poor, the strong from the weak, did this Government
exist?

(I.)  I have heard that it was said that their office was to defend their
own citizens against attack from other countries.

(H.)  It was said; but was anyone expected to believe this?  For
instance, did the English Government defend the English citizen against
the French?

(I)  So it was said.

(H.)  Then if the French had invaded England and conquered it, they would
not have allowed the English workmen to live well?

(I, laughing)  As far as I can make out, the English masters of the
English workmen saw to that: they took from their workmen as much of
their livelihood as they dared, because they wanted it for themselves.

(H.)  But if the French had conquered, would they not have taken more
still from the English workmen?

(I)  I do not think so; for in that case the English workmen would have
died of starvation; and then the French conquest would have ruined the
French, just as if the English horses and cattle had died of
under-feeding.  So that after all, the English _workmen_ would have been
no worse off for the conquest: their French Masters could have got no
more from them than their English masters did.

(H.)  This is true; and we may admit that the pretensions of the
government to defend the poor (_i.e._, the useful) people against other
countries come to nothing.  But that is but natural; for we have seen
already that it was the function of government to protect the rich
against the poor.  But did not the government defend its rich men against
other nations?

(I)  I do not remember to have heard that the rich needed defence;
because it is said that even when two nations were at war, the rich men
of each nation gambled with each other pretty much as usual, and even
sold each other weapons wherewith to kill their own countrymen.

(H.)  In short, it comes to this, that whereas the so-called government
of protection of property by means of the law-courts meant destruction of
wealth, this defence of the citizens of one country against those of
another country by means of war or the threat of war meant pretty much
the same thing.

(I)  I cannot deny it.

(H.)  Therefore the government really existed for the destruction of
wealth?

(I)  So it seems.  And yet--

(H.)  Yet what?

(I)  There were many rich people in those times.

(H.)  You see the consequences of that fact?

(I)  I think I do.  But tell me out what they were.

(H.)  If the government habitually destroyed wealth, the country must
have been poor?

(I)  Yes, certainly.

(H.)  Yet amidst this poverty the persons for the sake of whom the
government existed insisted on being rich whatever might happen?

(I)  So it was.

(H.)  What must happen if in a poor country some people insist on being
rich at the expense of the others?

(I)  Unutterable poverty for the others.  All this misery, then, was
caused by the destructive government of which we have been speaking?

(H.)  Nay, it would be incorrect to say so.  The government itself was
but the necessary result of the careless, aimless tyranny of the times;
it was but the machinery of tyranny.  Now tyranny has come to an end, and
we no longer need such machinery; we could not possibly use it since we
are free.  Therefore in your sense of the word we have no government.  Do
you understand this now?

(I)  Yes, I do.  But I will ask you some more questions as to how you as
free men manage your affairs.

(H.)  With all my heart.  Ask away.





"Well," I said, "about those 'arrangements' which you spoke of as taking
the place of government, could you give me any account of them?"

"Neighbour," he said, "although we have simplified our lives a great deal
from what they were, and have got rid of many conventionalities and many
sham wants, which used to give our forefathers much trouble, yet our life
is too complex for me to tell you in detail by means of words how it is
arranged; you must find that out by living amongst us.  It is true that I
can better tell you what we don't do, than what we do do."

"Well?" said I.

"This is the way to put it," said he: "We have been living for a hundred
and fifty years, at least, more or less in our present manner, and a
tradition or habit of life has been growing on us; and that habit has
become a habit of acting on the whole for the best.  It is easy for us to
live without robbing each other.  It would be possible for us to contend
with and rob each other, but it would be harder for us than refraining
from strife and robbery.  That is in short the foundation of our life and
our happiness."

"Whereas in the old days," said I, "it was very hard to live without
strife and robbery.  That's what you mean, isn't it, by giving me the
negative side of your good conditions?"

"Yes," he said, "it was so hard, that those who habitually acted fairly
to their neighbours were celebrated as saints and heroes, and were looked
up to with the greatest reverence."

"While they were alive?" said I.

"No," said he, "after they were dead."

"But as to these days," I said; "you don't mean to tell me that no one
ever transgresses this habit of good fellowship?"

"Certainly not," said Hammond, "but when the transgressions occur,
everybody, transgressors and all, know them for what they are; the errors
of friends, not the habitual actions of persons driven into enmity
against society."

"I see," said I; "you mean that you have no 'criminal' classes."

"How could we have them," said he, "since there is no rich class to breed
enemies against the state by means of the injustice of the state?"

Said I: "I thought that I understood from something that fell from you a
little while ago that you had abolished civil law.  Is that so,
literally?"

"It abolished itself, my friend," said he.  "As I said before, the civil
law-courts were upheld for the defence of private property; for nobody
ever pretended that it was possible to make people act fairly to each
other by means of brute force.  Well, private property being abolished,
all the laws and all the legal 'crimes' which it had manufactured of
course came to an end.  Thou shalt not steal, had to be translated into,
Thou shalt work in order to live happily.  Is there any need to enforce
that commandment by violence?"

"Well," said I, "that is understood, and I agree with it; but how about
crimes of violence? would not their occurrence (and you admit that they
occur) make criminal law necessary?"

Said he: "In your sense of the word, we have no criminal law either.  Let
us look at the matter closer, and see whence crimes of violence spring.
By far the greater part of these in past days were the result of the laws
of private property, which forbade the satisfaction of their natural
desires to all but a privileged few, and of the general visible coercion
which came of those laws.  All that cause of violent crime is gone.
Again, many violent acts came from the artificial perversion of the
sexual passions, which caused overweening jealousy and the like miseries.
Now, when you look carefully into these, you will find that what lay at
the bottom of them was mostly the idea (a law-made idea) of the woman
being the property of the man, whether he were husband, father, brother,
or what not.  That idea has of course vanished with private property, as
well as certain follies about the 'ruin' of women for following their
natural desires in an illegal way, which of course was a convention
caused by the laws of private property.

"Another cognate cause of crimes of violence was the family tyranny,
which was the subject of so many novels and stories of the past, and
which once more was the result of private property.  Of course that is
all ended, since families are held together by no bond of coercion, legal
or social, but by mutual liking and affection, and everybody is free to
come or go as he or she pleases.  Furthermore, our standards of honour
and public estimation are very different from the old ones; success in
besting our neighbours is a road to renown now closed, let us hope for
ever.  Each man is free to exercise his special faculty to the utmost,
and every one encourages him in so doing.  So that we have got rid of the
scowling envy, coupled by the poets with hatred, and surely with good
reason; heaps of unhappiness and ill-blood were caused by it, which with
irritable and passionate men--_i.e._, energetic and active men--often led
to violence."

I laughed, and said: "So that you now withdraw your admission, and say
that there is no violence amongst you?"

"No," said he, "I withdraw nothing; as I told you, such things will
happen.  Hot blood will err sometimes.  A man may strike another, and the
stricken strike back again, and the result be a homicide, to put it at
the worst.  But what then?  Shall we the neighbours make it worse still?
Shall we think so poorly of each other as to suppose that the slain man
calls on us to revenge him, when we know that if he had been maimed, he
would, when in cold blood and able to weigh all the circumstances, have
forgiven his manner?  Or will the death of the slayer bring the slain man
to life again and cure the unhappiness his loss has caused?"

"Yes," I said, "but consider, must not the safety of society be
safeguarded by some punishment?"

"There, neighbour!" said the old man, with some exultation "You have hit
the mark.  That _punishment_ of which men used to talk so wisely and act
so foolishly, what was it but the expression of their fear?  And they had
need to fear, since they--_i.e._, the rulers of society--were dwelling
like an armed band in a hostile country.  But we who live amongst our
friends need neither fear nor punish.  Surely if we, in dread of an
occasional rare homicide, an occasional rough blow, were solemnly and
legally to commit homicide and violence, we could only be a society of
ferocious cowards.  Don't you think so, neighbour?"

"Yes, I do, when I come to think of it from that side," said I.

"Yet you must understand," said the old man, "that when any violence is
committed, we expect the transgressor to make any atonement possible to
him, and he himself expects it.  But again, think if the destruction or
serious injury of a man momentarily overcome by wrath or folly can be any
atonement to the commonwealth?  Surely it can only be an additional
injury to it."

Said I: "But suppose the man has a habit of violence,--kills a man a
year, for instance?"

"Such a thing is unknown," said he.  "In a society where there is no
punishment to evade, no law to triumph over, remorse will certainly
follow transgression."

"And lesser outbreaks of violence," said I, "how do you deal with them?
for hitherto we have been talking of great tragedies, I suppose?"

Said Hammond: "If the ill-doer is not sick or mad (in which case he must
be restrained till his sickness or madness is cured) it is clear that
grief and humiliation must follow the ill-deed; and society in general
will make that pretty clear to the ill-doer if he should chance to be
dull to it; and again, some kind of atonement will follow,--at the least,
an open acknowledgement of the grief and humiliation.  Is it so hard to
say, I ask your pardon, neighbour?--Well, sometimes it is hard--and let
it be."

"You think that enough?" said I.

"Yes," said he, "and moreover it is all that we _can_ do.  If in addition
we torture the man, we turn his grief into anger, and the humiliation he
would otherwise feel for _his_ wrong-doing is swallowed up by a hope of
revenge for _our_ wrong-doing to him.  He has paid the legal penalty, and
can 'go and sin again' with comfort.  Shall we commit such a folly, then?
Remember Jesus had got the legal penalty remitted before he said 'Go and
sin no more.'  Let alone that in a society of equals you will not find
any one to play the part of torturer or jailer, though many to act as
nurse or doctor."

"So," said I, "you consider crime a mere spasmodic disease, which
requires no body of criminal law to deal with it?"

"Pretty much so," said he; "and since, as I have told you, we are a
healthy people generally, so we are not likely to be much troubled with
_this_ disease."

"Well, you have no civil law, and no criminal law.  But have you no laws
of the market, so to say--no regulation for the exchange of wares? for
you must exchange, even if you have no property."

Said he: "We have no obvious individual exchange, as you saw this morning
when you went a-shopping; but of course there are regulations of the
markets, varying according to the circumstances and guided by general
custom.  But as these are matters of general assent, which nobody dreams
of objecting to, so also we have made no provision for enforcing them:
therefore I don't call them laws.  In law, whether it be criminal or
civil, execution always follows judgment, and someone must suffer.  When
you see the judge on his bench, you see through him, as clearly as if he
were made of glass, the policeman to emprison, and the soldier to slay
some actual living person.  Such follies would make an agreeable market,
wouldn't they?"

"Certainly," said I, "that means turning the market into a mere battle-
field, in which many people must suffer as much as in the battle-field of
bullet and bayonet.  And from what I have seen I should suppose that your
marketing, great and little, is carried on in a way that makes it a
pleasant occupation."

"You are right, neighbour," said he.  "Although there are so many, indeed
by far the greater number amongst us, who would be unhappy if they were
not engaged in actually making things, and things which turn out
beautiful under their hands,--there are many, like the housekeepers I was
speaking of, whose delight is in administration and organisation, to use
long-tailed words; I mean people who like keeping things together,
avoiding waste, seeing that nothing sticks fast uselessly.  Such people
are thoroughly happy in their business, all the more as they are dealing
with actual facts, and not merely passing counters round to see what
share they shall have in the privileged taxation of useful people, which
was the business of the commercial folk in past days.  Well, what are you
going to ask me next?"

 Trafalgar Square Dick, William, and the man from Piccadilly continue on their way and come to a more residential area of houses with beautiful gardens full of flowers and fruit trees. As William takes in this view, he has the strange sensation of seeing this same place but with only tall, ugly houses and buildings. He then recognizes the place as Trafalgar Square. The men discuss the history of the place, with William becoming quite impassioned and nearly revealing his time travel once again. William defends the 19th century by comparing it the medieval period, but Dick counters that people at least acted openly according to their conscience back then. This takes the men into a deep discussion of prisons, which Dick informs William no longer exist in England. Since William is clearly uncomfortable during Dick's diatribe, they turn the conversation to architecture once again. They also turn their conversation back to William's pipe, with more misunderstandings due to William seeming to not like the pipe for being so pretty and calling it "too valuable" , a word which Dick does not understand. Driving past a small factory, Dick explains the general means of production to William, saying that very little is done with machinery and factory buildings are thus used as "banded workshops to do hand-work in which working together is necessary or convenient" . The carriage comes to a part of the road being repaired by a group of men. Though William seems to think he will finally see people unhappy with the job they have to do, they instead find the men to be laughing and enjoying their labor. Chapter 8: An Old Friend The carriage arrives in Long Acre and the man from Piccadilly chooses to get out here, wishing the other men well. Dick tells William that they will soon be at the home of his kinsman. After a little more travel, the men reach the home of Dick's great-great-grandfather, the old British Museum. Dick hints that there is someone he will want to visit with while William speaks with his kinsman. Dick drives the carriage into a stable and then the men walk up to the building. Dick remarks on the ugliness of the old architecture once again, but says that there is worth in seeing what one's ancestors found beautiful. With Dick seeming hesitant for some reason, the men head inside. Chapter 9: Concerning Love Dick and William go upstairs in the museum. An old man welcomes them and tells Dick that Clara is here, which makes Dick flustered. The old man welcomes William and asks where he is from, accepting William's answer that he used to live in England but has spent a while abroad. Clara enters and the old man invites them to go spend time in another part of the house together, rather than listen to William and himself talk about history. Dick and Clara leave and the old man and William start their conversation. William asks the old man to talk to him as if he is "a being from another planet" . However, before they launch into history, William asks the old man to fill him in about the relationship between Dick and Clara. The old man tells him that Dick and Clara were happily in a relationship for two years; Dick left Clara for another woman who he stayed with for only a year, and now Dick seems sad to have let Clara go. He tells William that they have two children together, who have been staying with one of his daughters. William remarks that he must have wanted to keep them out of divorce court, but the old man scoffs at this, reminding William that divorce court is another institution that has been abolished now that all goods are collective. The old man is clear, however, that this does not mean that all relationships are now free of troubles and foolishness. William inquires about the position of women in 21st-century English society. The old man tells him that specific focus on the emancipation of women is unnecessary since everyone can now do what they like for work and pleasure. William notes that he has seen women waiting on men, such as at the Guest House, but Old Hammond counters that William may simply not respect housekeeping as much as people do now. They also discuss the burden of motherhood, which some women in the 19th century were trying to emancipate themselves from, but again the old man argues back that "all the ARTIFICIAL burdens of motherhood are now done away with" , and even that women are more suited to be good mothers in this environment. The chapter ends with the men briefly discussing beauty, specifically how beautiful people have become in this socialist society, since everyone has freedom and children are born only from happy, healthy relationships. Chapter 10: Questions and Answers The old man invites William to ask another question, and William brings up education. The old man expands upon what Dick began in Chapter 5, telling William about children choosing what they learn about and when, in contrast to students being forced to study subjects by rote at certain times. He uses William as an example that this system did not work anyway, asking William how much mathematics he remembers now that he is an adult, after being forced through years of mathematics classes. Next, William asks about households; that is, whether people live in family units or communally. The old man responds that people are able to move around as they please, including asking to live with anyone who agrees to live with them, but that many people like to live in the same place and with the same people for a while at a time. William asks what has become of cities, and Old Hammond replies that they are "more like ancient Babylon now than the 'modern Babylon' of the nineteenth century" . The old man tells William that they have a holiday called "The Clearing of Misery," during which there is a feast, dancing, and singing on the site of some of the old city slums. William asks specifically what lies east of Bloomsbury, and the old man tells him in detail about the way there is still a more dense living population in London due to tradition and that down by the Thames there are houses that people often live in for short stretches of time. The old man tells William about the other once-large cities, and then about the smaller cities nearby, which have mostly turned into small towns with lots of open country between them. After a brief tangent in which the old man scoffs at Oxford, Cambridge, and the pretensions of educated people of the past, William gets him on the subject of villages. The old man explains how people quickly desired to return to the land with the transition to socialism and, after some initial struggle, people relearned how to live off of the land and divisions between town and village people lessened. The old man describes the view of England now as a garden that everyone is helping to cultivate. William inquires as to the population of England now, and the old man says that he believes it has not changed but has simply spread out. He encourages William to explore the more rural parts of England this summer. Chapter 11: Concerning Government William now asks about government. The old man replies, "our present parliament would be hard to house in one place, because the whole people is our parliament" . In response to William's questions as to how things are run if there is no centralized government, Old Hammond fires back a series of questions about how the Parliament actually used to function, suggesting that it was only ever constructed to help the upper classes. Lawsuits were generally costly and unfair, especially for the poor. The conclusion of the dialogue is "the government really existed for the destruction of wealth" . Chapter 12: Concerning the Arrangement of Life William continues to press Old Hammond about the viability of this system. Old Hammond intuits that William is skeptical of how this system of government prevents crime. However, the old man persuades him that people genuinely commit less crime, though he does admit that there are certainly still instances of violence, especially caused by romantic issues. He posits that not having a system of laws and jails means that people are more likely to feel bad and change their ways when they commit what would once have been considered a crime. William suggests that they see a criminal act as a "spasmodic disease" and the old man agrees with this assessment.

