DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION.
I called at the Department of Information, and when I was introduced I
realized that I was in the presence of one of the world's greatest
teachers. She gave me a warm handshake and said, "I have been expecting
you, and now that you are here, I will take pleasure in showing you the
workings of the department over which I have the honor to preside.
There are no Government or private detective agencies in our country,
but a constant watch is kept on all public officials as well as private
violators of the law, by the Government placing for sale in every
postoffice and every military station and every prison Government
envelopes with fifty-cent stamps on them, and any person interfering in
the sending or tampering with said letters is punished by imprisonment
for five years at hard labor. Steel boxes with a slit in the lid to
receive the letters were placed in every postoffice, military station
and prison, and could not be opened except by a commissioner from the
Department of Information. Any person could buy one, for there was a
printed address on them, and send it to the President, who has at the
present time three hundred secretaries (young ladies chosen from the
orphan home) to read the letters, answer them and send a copy to the
Minister of Justice who has them Classified, and acting on the
information sends orders out to bring the guilty parties to justice,
and as punishment is meted out only to the bribetakers, for it is only
acting according to the mandates of human nature for a relative or
friend to try to get a person out of trouble to offer a bribe, carried
with it no penalty, but it left the bribetaker at the mercy of the
other party, and in consequence of adopting this system very few public
officials proved untrue, and crime has greatly diminished. Our
department has charge of all mail matter and telegraph, telepost and
telephone lines and wireless stations and all newspaper books and
magazine publications, and we edit the National Gazette; besides we
have charge of all Government scientific research parties, and if you
will call again to-morrow I think I will be able to introduce you to
the Chief Engineer who stands very high in his profession, and who has,
by placing an Astronomical Observatory on the summit of Mount Everest,
attracted the attention of the civilized world."