A part of one of the less
malarial of the old cities, however, is maintained by the commonwealth in
the form of its prosperity, and is studied by antiquarians for the
instruction, and by moralists for the admonition, it affords. A section of
a street is exposed, and you see the foundations of the houses; you see
the filthy drains that belched into the common sewers, trapped and
retrapped to keep the poison gases down; you see the sewers that rolled
their loathsome tides under the streets, amid a tangle of gas-pipes,
steam-pipes, water-pipes, telegraph-wires, electric lighting-wires,
electric motor-wires, and grip-cables--all without a plan, but makeshifts,
expedients, devices, to repair and evade the fundamental mistake of having
any such cities at all.
"There are now no cities in Altruria, in your meaning, but there are
capitals, one for each of the regions of our country and one for the whole
commonwealth. These capitals are for the transaction of public affairs, in
which every citizen of Altruria is schooled, and they are the residences
of the administrative officials, who are alternated every year, from the
highest to the lowest.
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