Of this unknown country and its inhabitants I have written a large volume
which nothing but the obstinacy of publishers has kept from the world, and
which I trust will yet see the light. Naturally, I do not wish to publish
at this time anything that will sate public curiosity, and this brief
sketch will consist of such parts only of the work as I think can best be
presented in advance without abating interest in what is to follow when
Heaven shall have put it into the hearts of publishers to square their
conduct with their interests. I must, however, frankly confess that my
choice has been partly determined by other considerations. I offer here
those parts of my narrative which I conceive to be the least
credible--those which deal with the most monstrous and astounding follies
of a strange people. Their ceremony of marriage by decapitation; their
custom of facing to the rear when riding on horseback; their practice of
walking on their hands in all ceremonial processions; their selection of
the blind for military command; their pig-worship--these and many other
comparatively natural particulars of their religious, political,
intellectual and social life I reserve for treatment in the great work for
which I shall soon ask public favor and acceptance.
In Tortirran politics, as in Tamtonian, the population is always divided
into two, and sometimes three or four "parties," each having a "policy"
and each conscientiously believing the policy of the other, or others,
erroneous and destructive. In so far as these various and varying policies
can be seen to have any relation whatever to practical affairs they can be
seen also to be the result of purely selfish considerations. The
self-deluded people flatter themselves that their elections are contests
of principles, whereas they are only struggles of interests. They are very
fond of the word _slagthrit_, "principle"; and when they believe
themselves acting from some high moral motive they are capable of almost
any monstrous injustice or stupid folly. This insane devotion to principle
is craftily fostered by their political leaders who invent captivating
phrases intended to confirm them in it; and these deluding aphorisms are
diligently repeated until all the people have them in memory, with no
knowledge of the fallacies which they conceal. One of these phrases is
"Principles, not men." In the last analysis this is seen to mean that it
is better to be governed by scoundrels professing one set of principles
than by good men holding another. That a scoundrel will govern badly,
regardless of the principles which he is supposed somehow to "represent,"
is a truth which, however obvious to our own enlightened intelligence, has
never penetrated the dark understandings of the Tortirrans. It is chiefly
through the dominance of the heresy fostered by this popular phrase that
the political leaders are able to put base men into office to serve their
own nefarious ends.
I have called the political contests of Tortirra struggles of interests.
In nothing is this more clear (to the looker-on at the game) than in the
endless disputes concerning restrictions on commerce. It must be
understood that lying many leagues to the southeast of Tortirra are other
groups of islands, also wholly unknown to people of our race. They are
known by the general name of _Gropilla-Stron_ (a term signifying "the Land
of the Day-dawn"), though it is impossible to ascertain why, and are
inhabited by a powerful and hardy race, many of whom I have met in the
capital of Tanga. The Stronagu, as they are called, are bold navigators
and traders, their proas making long and hazardous voyages in all the
adjacent seas to exchange commodities with other tribes. For many years
they were welcomed in Tortirra with great hospitality and their goods
eagerly purchased. They took back with them all manner of Tortirran
products and nobody thought of questioning the mutual advantages of the
exchange. But early in the present century a powerful Tortirran demagogue
named Pragam began to persuade the people that commerce was piracy--that
true prosperity consisted in consumption of domestic products and
abstention from foreign. This extraordinary heresy soon gathered such head
that Pragam was appointed Regent and invested with almost dictatorial
powers. He at once distributed nearly the whole army among the seaport
cities, and whenever a Stronagu trading proa attempted to land, the
soldiery, assisted by the populace, rushed down to the beach, and with a
terrible din of gongs and an insupportable discharge of stink-pots--the
only offensive weapon known to Tortirran warfare--drove the laden vessels
to sea, or if they persisted in anchoring destroyed them and smothered
their crews in mud. The Tortirrans themselves not being a sea-going
people, all communication between them and the rest of their little world
soon ceased. But with it ceased the prosperity of Tortirra. Deprived of a
market for their surplus products and compelled to forego the comforts and
luxuries which they had obtained from abroad, the people began to murmur
at the effect of their own folly. A reaction set in, a powerful opposition
to Pragam and his policy was organized, and he was driven from power.
But the noxious tree that Pragam had planted in the fair garden of his
country's prosperity had struck root too deeply to be altogether
eradicated. It threw up shoots everywhere, and no sooner was one cut down
than from roots underrunning the whole domain of political thought others
sprang up with a vigorous and baleful growth. While the dictum that trade
is piracy no longer commands universal acceptance, a majority of the
populace still hold a modified form of it, and that "importation is theft"
is to-day a cardinal political "principle" of a vast body of Tortirra's
people. The chief expounders and protagonists of this doctrine are all
directly or indirectly engaged in making or growing such articles as were
formerly got by exchange with the Stronagu traders. The articles are
generally inferior in quality, but consumers, not having the benefit of
foreign competition, are compelled to pay extortionate prices for them,
thus maintaining the unscrupulous producers in needless industries and a
pernicious existence. But these active and intelligent rogues are too
powerful to be driven out. They persuade their followers, among whom are
many ignorant consumers, that this vestigial remnant of the old Pragam
policy is all that keeps the nation from being desolated by small-pox and
an epidemic of broken legs. It is impossible within these limits to give a
full history of the strange delusion whose origin I have related. It has
undergone many modifications and changes, as it is the nature of error to
do, but the present situation is about this. The trading proas of the
Stronagu are permitted to enter certain ports, but when one arrives she
must anchor at a little distance from shore. Here she is boarded by an
officer of the government, who ascertains the thickness of her keel, the
number of souls on board and the amount and character of the merchandise
she brings. From these data--the last being the main factor in the
problem--the officer computes her unworthiness and adjudges a suitable
penalty. The next day a scow manned by a certain number of soldiers pushes
out and anchors within easy throw of her, and there is a frightful beating
of gongs. When this has reached its lawful limit as to time it is hushed
and the soldiers throw a stated number of stink-pots on board the
offending craft. These, exploding as they strike, stifle the captain and
crew with an intolerable odor. In the case of a large proa having a cargo
of such commodities as the Tortirrans particularly need, this bombardment
is continued for hours. At its conclusion the vessel is permitted to land
and discharge her cargo without further molestation. Under these hard
conditions importers find it impossible to do much business, the
exorbitant wages demanded by seamen consuming most of the profit. No
restrictions are now placed on the export trade, and vessels arriving
empty are subjected to no penalties; but the Stronagu having other
markets, in which they can sell as well as buy, cannot afford to go empty
handed to Tortirra.
It will be obvious to the reader that in all this no question of
"principle" is involved. A well-informed Tortirran's mental attitude with
regard to the matter may be calculated with unfailing accuracy from a
knowledge of his interests. If he produces anything which his countrymen
want, and which in the absence of all restriction they could get more
cheaply from the Stronagu than they can from him, he is in politics a
_Gakphew_, or "Stinkpotter"; if not he is what that party derisively calls
a _Shokerbom_, which signifies "Righteous Man"--for there is nothing which
the Gakphews hold in so holy detestation as righteousness.
Nominally, Tortirra is an hereditary monarchy; virtually it is a
democracy, for under a peculiar law of succession there is seldom an
occupant of the throne, and all public affairs are conducted by a Supreme
Legislature sitting at Felduchia, the capital of Tanga, to which body each
island of the archipelago, twenty-nine in number, elects representatives
in proportion to its population, the total membership being nineteen
hundred and seventeen. Each island has a Subordinate Council for the
management of local affairs and a Head Chief charged with execution of the
laws. There is also a Great Court at Felduchia, whose function it is to
interpret the general laws of the Kingdom, passed by the Supreme Council,
and a Minor Great Court at the capital of each island, with corresponding
duties and powers. These powers are very loosely and vaguely defined, and
are the subject of endless controversy everywhere, and nowhere more than
in the courts themselves--such is the multiplicity of laws and so many are
the contradictory decisions upon them, every decision constituting what is
called a _lantrag_, or, as we might say, "precedent." The peculiarity of a
_lantrag_, or previous decision, is that it is, or is not, binding, at the
will of the honorable judge making a later one on a similar point. If he
wishes to decide in the same way he quotes the previous decision with all
the gravity that he would give to an exposition of the law itself; if not,
he either ignores it altogether, shows that it is not applicable to the
case under consideration (which, as the circumstances are never exactly
the same, he can always do), or substitutes a contradictory _lantrag_ and
fortifies himself with that. There is a precedent for any decision that a
judge may wish to make, but sometimes he is too indolent to search it out
and cite it. Frequently, when the letter and intent of the law under which
an action is brought are plainly hostile to the decision which it pleases
him to render, the judge finds it easier to look up an older law, with
which it is compatible, and which the later one, he says, does not repeal,
and to base his decision on that; and there is a law for everything, just
as there is a precedent. Failing to find, or not caring to look for,
either precedent or statute to sustain him, he can readily show that any
other decision than the one he has in will would be _tokoli impelly_; that
is to say, contrary to public morals, and this, too, is considered a
legitimate consideration, though on another occasion he may say, with
public assent and approval, that it is his duty, not to make the law
conform to justice, but to expound and enforce it as he finds it. In
short, such is the confusion of the law and the public conscience that the
courts of Tortirra do whatever they please, subject only to overruling by
higher courts in the exercise of _their_ pleasure; for great as is the
number of minor and major tribunals, a case originating in the lowest is
never really settled until it has gone through all the intermediate ones
and been passed upon by the highest, to which it might just as well have
been submitted at first. The evils of this astonishing system could not be
even baldly catalogued in a lifetime. They are infinite in number and
prodigious in magnitude. To the trained intelligence of the American
observer it is incomprehensible how any, even the most barbarous, nation
can endure them.
An important function of the Great Court and the Minor Great Court is
passing upon the validity of all laws enacted by the Supreme Council and
the Subordinate Councils, respectively. The nation as a whole, as well as
each separate island, has a fundamental law called the _Trogodal_, or, as
we should say, the Constitution; and no law whatever that may be passed by
the Council is final and determinate until the appropriate court has
declared that it conforms to the Trogodal. Nevertheless every law is put
in force the moment it is perfected and before it is submitted to the
court. Indeed, not one in a thousand ever is submitted at all, that
depending upon the possibility of some individual objecting to its action
upon his personal interests, which few, indeed, can afford to do. It not
infrequently occurs that some law which has for years been rigorously
enforced, even by fines and imprisonment, and to which the whole
commercial and social life of the nation has adjusted itself with all its
vast property interests, is brought before the tribunal having final
jurisdiction in the matter and coolly declared no law at all. The
pernicious effect may be more easily imagined than related, but those who
by loyal obedience to the statute all those years have been injured in
property, those who are ruined by its erasure and those who may have
suffered the severest penalties for its violation are alike without
redress. It seems not to have occurred to the Tortirrans to require the
court to inspect the law and determine its validity before it is put in
force. It is, indeed, the traditional practice of these strange tribunals,
when a case is forced upon them, to decide, not as many points of law as
they can, but as few as they may; and this dishonest inaction is not only
tolerated but commended as the highest wisdom. The consequence is that
only those who make a profession of the law and live by it and find their
account in having it as little understood by others as is possible can
know which acts and parts of acts are in force and which are not. The
higher courts, too, have arrogated to themselves the power of declaring
unconstitutional even parts of the Constitution, frequently annulling most
important provisions of the very instrument creating them!
A popular folly in Tortirra is the selection of representatives in the
Councils from among that class of men who live by the law, whose sole
income is derived from its uncertainties and perplexities. Obviously, it
is to the interest of these men to make laws which shall be uncertain and
perplexing--to confuse and darken legislation as much as they can. Yet in
nearly all the Councils these men are the most influential and active
element, and it is not uncommon to find them in a numerical majority. It
is evident that the only check upon their ill-doing lies in the certainty
of their disagreement as to the particular kind of confusion which they
may think it expedient to create. Some will wish to accomplish their
common object by one kind of verbal ambiguity, some by another; some by
laws clearly enough (to them) unconstitutional, others by contradictory
statutes, or statutes secretly repealing wholesome ones already existing.
A clear, simple and just code would deprive them of their means of
livelihood and compel them to seek some honest employment.
So great are the uncertainties of the law in Tortirra that an eminent
judge once confessed to me that it was his conscientious belief that if
all cases were decided by the impartial arbitrament of the _do-tusis_ (a
process similar to our "throw of the dice") substantial justice would be
done far more frequently than under the present system; and there is
reason to believe that in many instances cases at law are so decided--but
only at the close of tedious and costly trials which have impoverished the
litigants and correspondingly enriched the lawyers.
Of the interminable train of shames and brutalities entailed by this
pernicious system, I shall mention here only a single one--the sentencing
and punishment of an accused person in the midst of the proceedings
against him, and while his guilt is not finally and definitively
established. It frequently occurs that a man convicted of crime in one of
the lower courts is at once hurried off to prison while he has still the
right of appeal to a higher tribunal, and while that appeal is pending.
After months and sometimes years of punishment his case is reached in the
appellate court, his appeal found valid and a new trial granted, resulting
in his acquittal. He has been imprisoned for a crime of which he is
eventually declared not to have been properly convicted. But he has no
redress; he is simply set free to bear through all his after life the
stain of dishonor and nourish an ineffectual resentment. Imagine the storm
of popular indignation that would be evoked in America by an instance of
so foul injustice!
* * * * *
In the great public square of Itsami, the capital of Tortirra, stands a
golden statue of Estari-Kumpro, a famous judge of the Civil Court.[2] This
great man was celebrated throughout the kingdom for the wisdom and justice
of his decisions and the virtues of his private life. So profound were the
veneration in which he was held and the awe that his presence inspired,
that none of the advocates in his court ever ventured to address him
except in formal pleas: all motions, objections, and so forth, were
addressed to the clerk and by him disposed of without dissent: the silence
of the judge, who never was heard to utter a word, was understood as
sanctioning the acts of his subordinate. For thirty years, promptly at
sunrise, the great hall of justice was thrown open, disclosing the judge
seated on a loftly dais beneath a black canopy, partly in shadow, and
quite inaccessible. At sunset all proceedings for the day terminated,
everyone left the hall and the portal closed. The decisions of this august
and learned jurist were always read aloud by the clerk, and a copy
supplied to the counsel on each side. They were brief, clear and
remarkable, not only for their unimpeachable justice, but for their
conformity to the fundamental principles of law. Not one of them was ever
set aside, and during the last fifteen years of the great judge's service
no litigant ever took an appeal, although none ever ventured before that
infallible tribunal unless conscientiously persuaded that his cause was
just.
[2] Klikat um Delu Ovwi.
One day it happened during the progress of an important trial that a sharp
shock of earthquake occurred, throwing the whole assembly into confusion.
When order had been restored a cry of horror and dismay burst from the
multitude--the judge's head lay flattened upon the floor, a dozen feet
below the bench, and from the neck of the rapidly collapsing body, which
had pitched forward upon his desk, poured a thick stream of sawdust! For
thirty years that great and good man had been represented by a stuffed
manikin. For thirty years he had not entered his own court, nor heard a
word of evidence or argument. At the moment of the accident to his
simulacrum he was in his library at his home, writing his decision of the
case on trial, and was killed by a falling chandelier. It was afterward
learned that his clerk, twenty-five years dead, had all the time been
personated by a twin brother, who was an idiot from birth and knew no law.