They wore out in a week, and the
people called them, because they were bought fresh for every Sunday--"
"Sat'd'y-night shoes," screamed the old farmer. "I know 'em. My gals buy
'em. Half-dolla' a pai', and not wo'th the money."
"Well," said the Altrurian, "they were a cheat and a lie in every way,
and under the new system it was not possible, when public attention
was called to the fact, to continue the falsehood they embodied. As soon
as the Saturday-night shoes realized itself to the public conscience,
an investigation began, and it was found that the principle of the
Saturday-night shoe underlay half our industries and made half the work
that was done.
"Then an immense reform took place. We renounced, in the most solemn
convocation of the whole economy, the principle of the Saturday-night
shoe, and those who had spent their lives in producing sham shoes--"
"Yes," said the professor, rising from his seat near us and addressing the
speaker, "I shall be very glad to know what became of the worthy and
industrious operatives who were thrown out of employment by this explosion
of economic virtue."
"Why," the Altrurian replied, "they were set to work making honest shoes;
and, as it took no more time to make a pair of honest shoes which lasted a
year than it took to make a pair of dishonest shoes that lasted a week,
the amount of labor in shoemaking was at once enormously reduced.
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