"
"Yes," said the professor, "I understand that. What became of the
shoemakers?"
"They joined the vast army of other laborers who had been employed,
directly or indirectly, in the fabrication of fraudulent wares. These
shoemakers--lasters, button-holers, binders, and so on--no longer wore
themselves out over their machines. One hour sufficed where twelve hours
were needed before, and the operatives were released to the happy labor of
the fields, where no one with us toils killingly, from dawn till dusk, but
does only as much work as is needed to keep the body in health. We had a
continent to refine and beautify; we had climates to change and seasons to
modify, a whole system of meteorology to readjust, and the public works
gave employment to the multitudes emancipated from the soul-destroying
service of shams. I can scarcely give you a notion of the vastness of the
improvements undertaken and carried through, or still in process of
accomplishment. But a single one will, perhaps, afford a sufficient
illustration. Our southeast coast, from its vicinity to the pole, had
always suffered from a winter of antarctic rigor; but our first president
conceived the plan of cutting off a peninsula, which kept the equatorial
current from making in to our shores; and the work was begun in his term,
though the entire strip, twenty miles in width and ninety-three in length,
was not severed before the end of the first Altrurian decade.
Pages:
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267