“I think I shall take my supper this evening in your elegant
restaurant, which you have just described, if I can find some one to
take me!” exclaimed Viola. “I am only too sorry that it is so far off.”
“But let me tell you, Miss Viola, in our world you would not wait for
some one to take you, if you desired to go anywhere. You would start
whenever you felt like it, either alone or in company with others, just
as it happens. A woman in our world is as free and independent to go
any and all places as a man is. She earns as much with her day’s labor
as a man does, and is therefore not financially dependent on any man,
as you will readily see by an explanation of our monetary system some
future time.”
“How do you do your laundry work?” asked Mrs. Uwins. “I suppose that is
done on the same large, easy scale as all your other work.”
“Our laundry contains a powerful steam washing-machine, which is
capable of washing the garments of the whole family in less than an
hour’s time, and almost without the aid of a human hand. It contains
a drying room, in which the wash is dried in a few minutes. Electric
irons do the ironing. To wash, dry and iron the garments of a thousand
men, women and children requires the labor of only a few persons for
a very short time. Every one pays for his own washing, and can get as
much of it done as he wants. The laundry work is all done by experts.
We wash every day, for every day we bathe and change clothes after our
day’s work is done.
“In this laundry department we economize an immense amount of labor
by co-operation, and doubtless conduces vastly to our average health,
which is with you very often impaired by overwork, and by contracting
cold when an overheated washer hangs out the clothes. Here, with you,
each small family must have a washing apparatus, even if it is nothing
more than a sickly woman’s hands. Each has a clothes-line, on which
the clothes wear perhaps nearly as much by drying as by bodily wear.
Each keeps a number of flat-irons, which are mostly operated by the
muscles of an over-heated woman, many of whom are engaged in hard work
for more than twelve hours a day. In your society a washer-woman is
looked upon as an inferior. In our society she stands equal with the
highest. No wonder that with you all try to avoid the profession of
being a washer-woman. No wonder that many of your women prefer to live
a life of shame and degradation, which brings them a hell during life
and a premature death. Hard, hard work and little pay! It is easily
seen why it is considered a hard, degraded position here. It is easily
seen, too, why so many filthy garments are worn in your society, when
we contemplate how few of you have water fit to wash with; how many
of the poorer classes who are too poor to buy the necessary soap; how
inconvenient your laundry and drying apparatus are; how laborious your
ironing. It is no wonder that many wear undergarments for a week, two
weeks, and even three weeks, without changing them.
“Next I may give you a description of our store, which is located
in a convenient place in each ‘big-house.’ It is a very capacious
department. Everything is kept as clean and orderly as the finest
drawing-room. All commodities that an individual might want to buy
are kept for sale there. The different classes of goods have each a
certain division of this department. All the financial business of
the members of the family is either directly or indirectly transacted
in this department. Meal tickets, barber tickets, restaurant tickets,
etc., are sold in this store-department. Of course, you understand by
this time that everything in our world is sold at cost. The clerks
receive pay for their work the same as an engineer or miner. We have no
_profit_, as you will see when we get to our mercantile system. Profit
results from _monopoly_, and we have no monopoly and hence no _profit_.
The profit system is one of the greatest evils of your industrial
world. Some of your economists condemn your competitive system. But
competition is as natural, necessary and beneficial to the welfare
and progress of mankind as the unobstructed natural law of supply
and demand is essential for an economic regulation of production and
consumption. By profit a person may be able to live an idle life; may
have others produce his food, clothing, shelter and luxuries for him.
By competition, a person must always work. Monopoly, from which all
profit, etc., accrues, and not competition, is that great enemy of the
human race.
“On some more convenient topic I shall endeavor to show you that your
profit system does not only enable certain persons to live from the
labor of others, but it also tends to make them dishonest and cruel.”
“I have long ago arrived at the same conclusions about our profit
system,” said Mr. Uwins. “I am pleased to find that I am right in this,
for I have already written considerably on this subject and intend to
write much more. I know it is not a very popular subject to write on,
for it cuts down the extravagant income of our so-called best society.”
“Mr. Midith, you said a short time ago that all of you bathe at
least once a day. Will you be kind enough to describe your bathing
conveniences?” I asked. “I have always been fond of water, and before
I go to Mars--that is if I ever shall be able to go--I would like to
know whether there is still plenty of water left on the surface of that
planet to enjoy a good swim.”
“In the first place, Mr. Fulton, we have large, beautiful, artificial
lakes for swimming and bathing purposes, which I will describe to you
more fully when we get to the park and other out-door descriptions, and
also under the topic of education.
“Besides these artificial lakes, which are largely used during warm,
pleasant weather, we have a plentiful supply of splendid bath-rooms,
supplied with hot and cold water; large mirrors and other convenient
furniture and toilet articles.
“We have one _large_ parlor with a seating capacity far exceeding
all the members of the family--men, women and children. This is the
grandest and most imposing apartment in the ‘big-house.’ In the center
of this apartment plays a cool, refreshing fountain, which ascends its
water to the high, artistically decorated ceiling; and as it descends
again, the brilliant electric lights reflect its iridescence in all
directions. The walls below are largely composed of windows and grand
mirrors, from which hundreds of mirthful, happy faces are reflected.
The furniture is of the most elaborate style. The chairs, sofas,
couches, etc., are models of ease and comfort, as well as elegance.
This grand parlor also contains an almost perfect electric orchestra
of more than a thousand pieces. This grand band of instrumental music
sends it sweet, soft symphonies, to which those of your Beethoven and
Mozart can scarcely be compared, to the ears of all who are seeking
comfort and happiness in this magnificent drawing-room.
“Then we have various smaller parlors and sittingrooms of different
sizes, all of which are richly furnished. Each individual has also a
private apartment. This arrangement affords each person an opportunity
to be with a large collection of individuals in the large parlor,
or with a smaller group in the various sized smaller parlors, or be
all to himself in his private apartment. To be sure, two or more
may room together, if they like, but this is rarely ever practiced.
Under health we have no physical compulsion, no master, other than
we desire, no slave, and no ‘boss.’ All the public domestic work is
performed by specialists, both men and women. The public parlors are
kept clean, ornamented and in tasty order by individuals of the family,
who have selected that as their daily occupation. Each individual
keeps his private apartment to suit his own taste. Cleanliness, order
and regularity are taught, practiced and esteemed such high virtues
that all persons, male and female, pride themselves in keeping their
private apartment as clean and enticing as possible. You see we have
an abundance of time for it. Our regular day’s labor consists of but an
hour or two. Each individual sleeps in his private apartment. The grand
folding beds are always clean and neatly folded by each individual
owner. Every person furnishes his private apartment to suit himself.
In them we have fine carpets on the floor, elegant furniture, costly
curtains, elaborate paintings, rare ornaments, a complete toilet, an
ornamental register for electric heating, brilliant electric lights,
a few choice books and pictures, likely some musical instruments, and
many other conveniences of which I shall tell you under different
topics.”
“What is generally the size of a private apartment?” asked Rev. Dudley.
“They are about twenty feet square, including closets and a wash-room,”
replied Mr. Midith.
“Now, let me tell you,” continued Mr. Midith, “in another part of
the ‘big-house’ is a large, richly furnished hall for all kinds
of amusements, games, lectures, athletic sports, gymnastic and
calisthenical exercises, singing, walking, speaking, music, bicycle
riding and all other amusements and sports in which Marsites desire to
engage.
“Several nursery apartments for children and babies are abundantly
supplied with toys. The floors of these apartments are composed of a
smooth, hard composition, scrubbed or flooded several times a day. The
seats, which are along the walls, are all stationary, and hundreds of
children, even if left all by themselves in these departments, could
do no damage to the building or furniture. Here adults can bring and
amuse the babies and little children. Further on I shall describe the
out-door nurseries.
“The barber department, which I have referred to before, is in charge
of skillful barbers, both ladies and gentlemen. Little or no shaving is
done, for nearly every man wears a full beard. Men, women and children
have their hair cut short, dressed and arranged in various styles,
which we found more convenient and more healthful. You must always bear
in mind that as man slowly but gradually reaches a higher state of
intellectual culture, he makes his habits, customs and fashions conform
more and more with the laws of life and health. Because his esthetic
faculties continually unfold more and more in the direction of greater
well-being, the pursuit of happiness becomes a continually increasing
incentive. We have many other apartments, which I shall describe under
the topic to which they belong.”
“Oh, what beautiful, pleasant homes you must have!” said Celestine.
“Yes; and how short a day’s labor is there!” exclaimed Roland. “Nearly
all work is done with machinery.”
“I wish we could all go and live there!” ejaculated Viola, who had
been intensely interested in Mr. Midith’s description of the Marsian
“big-house.”
“Why, we could live here on earth just like it, if we only knew a
little more,” said Mr. Midith. “There is nothing miraculous in what I
have told you, and in the way we live. All you need to live, labor, and
co-operate as we do on Mars, are good, fair, intelligent, industrious,
orderly men, women and children, who foster no revenge, prejudice and
jealousy, who know and are willing to do their respective parts from
the promptings of inward sentiments. All you need in addition to what
you already have is a little more intelligence for the masses--a little
more experience which teaches them that right acts _only_ can bring
happiness. Additional intelligence, as a whole, strengthens virtuous
traits and weakens vicious ones.
“As soon as your masses can plainly see that you can live a much
happier life the way the Marsites live, you will certainly live that
way; for it is undoubtedly true that all sentient beings are in
pursuit of what they believe to be the greatest happiness, immediate
and remote. You require nothing _new_ in _kind_; nothing that lies in
inaccessible regions; nothing that is not in the nature of things to
develop the mundane inhabitant so as to live a Marsian life.
“You, as well as we, can build one large family residence better than
a multitude of small ones. You can build your residences and other
buildings certain distances apart, and around a rectangular tract of
land which we call a community, with much less labor than huddle them
together in crowded cities and towns or isolate them in the country.
You can build and operate railroads and motor lines, and have them
pass through big-houses as well as having them pass through a lonely
country. You can run pumps, electric lights, elevators, churns,
laundries and all other machinery by electric power. You know how to
construct, furnish and maintain grand, clean kitchens, dining halls,
restaurants, stores, halls, barber shops, nurseries, parlors and
private apartments. You can, if you only knew it, derive far more
happiness by voluntary co-operation, by being kind, cleanly, orderly,
not jealous and free, than you can by single-handed effort, by being
cruel, filthy, disorderly, jealous and in slavery and superstition. No
doubt the same evolutionary forces that have brought the human being
above the manlike ape in the past will slowly elevate him to a still
higher and nobler plane in the future. I believe that thousands of the
foremost intellectual men and women of the United States, and other
countries of your world, would now be ready to live a Marsian life, or
one nearly like it, if they were not prevented by the less intelligent
ones. Intelligence is the motive power which determines our course of
action.”
“Is there not a great noise and confusion in your ‘big-houses’ on
account of so many of you living in one dwelling?” asked Viola. “So
many running in and out, up and down. One singing, one crying, and
one screaming. A collection of a thousand persons here always causes
considerable bluster and sometimes a great tumult.”
“It is very true, from the very nature of things, that a collection
of a thousand individuals in your society causes a confusion, not
unfrequently a tumult, and sometimes even a riot. You are not commonly
prepared for such large assemblies, and we are. With you there is a
rush and a scramble for the few best places, and all the rest must
accept what is left. We provide first-class accommodation for _all_,
and have even more places than persons to take them. This puts an end
to all rush and scramble, for men and women scramble only for things
that are scarce.
“Everything in our ‘big-house’ is quiet and orderly. All one hears
on ordinary occasions is a soft, pleasing tone of conversation, and
oftentimes music intermingled with songs and mirthful laughs. We do
not delight in such noisy, boisterous conduct as is often practiced by
a collection of your people, who think they can not enjoy themselves
without freely indulging in the use of intoxicating liquor and tobacco.
This pernicious practice often puts the drinker under the influence of
liquor, and the smoker poisons the air his companions have to breathe.
We have learned that we can reap the greatest amount of happiness
ourselves by not infringing upon the equal rights of others. With but
one invader in the world, the world is not as good as with no invader
in it.
“You see we are never all doing the same thing at once except,
perhaps, eating and sleeping. The cook does his work in the kitchen,
the barber in his shop, the engineer in the engine-house, the duster
in the parlor, the clerk in the store, the waiter in the dining-hall
and restaurant, the farmer in the field, the miner in the mine, etc.
Some are spending their leisure time in walking, some in the parlors,
some in riding on trains and motors, some by visiting, some in riding
bicycles, some in plays and games, some in their private apartment, and
some in countless other engagements. Some of the children are in one
nursery and some are in another; some are in the house and some are out
doors; some are bathing and some are playing; some are at mental study,
others at physical work, and so on in endless variety. There is a rush
nowhere, for there is plenty of room everywhere.”
“How grand, and yet how simple, does all this appear after we hear it,
father!” exclaimed Viola. “It seems that the inhabitants of all worlds
ought to have sufficient intelligence to live such kind, free, rich
lives. Is it not wonderful, mother?”
“It is, indeed, wonderful,” said Mrs. Uwins.
“I think it is now time for retiring,” said Mr. Midith. “To-morrow
evening I shall give you an explanation, as you have already requested
me, of the _exterior_ of the big-house--the out-door surroundings.
I can assure you they are as grand to look upon as the _interior_.
Thrifty, clean, straight, orderly, symmetrical. Everything is in charge
of experts, who pride themselves in the agreeable taste and arrangement
they effect by their skill and labor.”