The Monikins Part 30

"So do turkeys, sir."

"Very true--but you have no feathers."

"Neither has a donkey."

"All very right, gentlemen--you do not bray, however."

"I will not answer for that," put in the captain, sending his leg forwards in a straight line, in a way to raise an outcry in Bob, that almost upset the Leaplower's proposition.

"At all events, gentlemen," he observed, "there is a test that will put the matter at rest, at once."

He then desired us, in turn, to p.r.o.nounce the word "our"--"OUR liberties"--"OUR country"--"OUR firesides"--"OUR altars," Whoever expressed a wish to be naturalized, and could use this word in the proper manner, and in the proper place, was ent.i.tled to be a citizen. We all did very well but the second mate, who, being a Herefordshire man, could not, for the life of him, get any nearer to the Doric, in the latter shibboleth, than "our halters." Now, it would seem that, in carrying out a great philanthropic principle in Leaplow, halters had been proscribed; for, whenever a rogue did anything amiss, it had been discovered that, instead of punishing him for the offence, the true way to remedy the evil was to punish the society against which he had offended. By this ingenious turn, society was naturally made to look out sharp how it permitted any one to offend it. This excellent idea is like that of certain Dutchmen, who, when they cut themselves with an ax, always apply salve and lint to the cruel steel, and leave the wound to heal as fast as possible.

To return to our examination: we all pa.s.sed but the second mate, who hung in his halter, and was p.r.o.nounced to be incorrigible. Certificates of naturalization were delivered on the spot, the fees were paid, and the schooner left us.

That night it blew a gale, and we had no more visitors until the following morning. As the sun rose, however, we fell in with three schooners, under the Leaplow flag, all of which seemed bound on errands of life or death. The first that reached us sent a boat on board, and a committee of six bob-upon-bobs hurried up our sides, and lost no time in introducing themselves. I shall give their own account of their business and characters.

It would seem that they were what is called a "nominating committee"

of the Horizontals, for the City of Bivouac, the port to which we were bound, where an election was about to take place for members of the great National Council. Bivouac was ent.i.tled to send seven members; and having nominated themselves, the committee were now in quest of a seventh candidate to fill the vacancy. In order to secure the naturalized interests, it had been determined to select as new a comer as possible. This would also be maintaining the principle of liberality, in the abstract. For this reason they had been cruising for a week, as near as the law would allow to the Leaphigh boundaries, and they were now ready to take any one who would serve.

To this proposition I again objected the difference of species. Here they all fairly laughed in my face, Brigadier Downright included, giving me very distinctly to understand that they thought I had very contracted notions on matters and things, to suppose so trifling an obstacle could disturb the harmony and unity of a Horizontal vote. They went for a principle, and the devil himself could not make them swerve from the pursuit of so sacred an object.

I then candidly admitted that nature had not fitted me, as admirably as it had fitted my friend the judge, for the throwing of summersets; and I feared that when the order was given "to go to the right about," I might be found no better than a bungler. This staggered them a little; and I perceived that they looked at each other in doubt.

"But you can, at least, turn round suddenly, at need?" one of them asked, after a pause.

"Certainly, sir," I answered, giving ocular evidence that I was no idle boaster, making a complete gyration on my heels, in very good time.

"Very well!--admirably well!" they all cried in a breath. "The great political essential is to be able to perform the evolutions in their essence--the facility with which they are performed being no more than a personal merit."

"But, gentlemen, I know little more of your const.i.tution and laws, than I have learned in a few broken discussions with my fellow-travellers."

"This is a matter of no moment, sir. Our const.i.tution, unlike that of Leaphigh, is written down, and he who runs can read; and then we have a political fugleman in the house, who saves an immense deal of unnecessary study and reflection to the members. All you will have to do, will be to watch his movements; and, my life on it, you will go as well through the manual exercise as the oldest member there."

"How, sir, do all the members take the manoeuvres from this fugleman?"

"All the Horizontals, sir--the Perpendiculars having a fugleman of their own."

"Well, gentlemen, I conceive this to be an affair in which I am no judge, and I put myself entirely in the hands of my friends."

This answer met with much commendation, and manifested, as they all protested, great political capabilities; the statesman who submitted all to his friends never failing to rise to eminence in Leaplow. The committee took my name in writing and hastened back to their schooner, in order to get into port to promulgate the nomination. These persons were hardly off the deck, before another party came up the opposite side of the ship. They announced themselves to be a nominating committee of the Perpendiculars, on exactly the same errand as their opponents. They, too, wished to propitiate the foreign interests, and were in search of a proper candidate. Captain Poke had been an attentive listener to all that occurred during the circ.u.mstances that preceded my nomination; and he now stepped promptly forward, and declared his readiness to serve. As there was quite as little squeamishness on one side as on the other, and the Perpendicular committee, as it owned itself, was greatly pressed for time, the Horizontals having the start of them, the affair was arranged in five minutes, and the strangers departed with the name of NOAH POKE, THE TRIED PATRIOT, THE PROFOUND JURIST, AND THE HONEST MONIKIN, handsomely placarded on a large board--all but the name having been carefully prepared in advance.

When the committee were fairly out of the ship, Noah look me aside, and made his apologies for opposing me in this important election. His reasons were numerous and ingenious, and, as usual, a little discursive.

They might be summed up as follows: He never had sat in a parliament, and he was curious to know how it would feel; it would increase the respect of the ship's company, to find their commander of so much account in a strange port; he had had some experience at Stunnin'tun by reading the newspapers, and he didn't doubt of his abilities at all, a circ.u.mstance that rarely failed of making a good legislator; the congressman in his part of the country was some such man as himself, and what was good for the goose was good for the gander; he knew Miss Poke would be pleased to hear he had been chosen; he wondered if he should be called the Honorable Noah Poke, and whether he should receive eight dollars a day, and mileage from the spot where the ship then was; the Perpendiculars might count on him, for his word was as good as his bond; as for the const.i.tution, he had got on under the const.i.tution at home, and he believed a man who could do that might get on under any const.i.tution; he didn't intend to say a great deal in parliament, but what he did say he hoped might be recorded for the use of his children; together with a great deal more of the same sort of argumentation and apology.

The third schooner now brought us to. This vessel sent another committee, who announced themselves to be the representatives of a party that was termed the Tangents. They were not numerous, but sufficiently so to hold the balance whenever the Horizontals and the Perpendiculars crossed each other directly at right angles, as was the case at present; and they had now determined to run a single candidate of their own.

They, too, wished to fortify themselves by the foreign interest, as was natural, and had come out in quest of a proper person. I suggested the first mate; but against this Noah protested, declaring that come what would, the ship must on no account be deserted. Time pressed; and, while the captain and the subordinate were hotly disputing the propriety of permitting the latter to serve, Bob, who had already tasted the sweets of political importance, in his a.s.sumed character of prince-royal, stepped slyly up to the committee, and gave in his name. Noah was too much occupied to discover this well-managed movement; and by the time he had sworn to throw the mate overboard if he did not instantly relinquish all ambitious projects of this nature, he found that the Tangents were off. Supposing they had gone to some other vessel, the captain allowed himself to be soothed, and all went on smoothly again.

From this time until we anch.o.r.ed in the bay of Bivouac, the tranquillity and discipline of the Walrus were undisturbed. I improved the occasion to study the const.i.tution of Leaplow, of which the judge had a copy, and to glean such information from my companions as I believed might be useful in my future career. I thought how pleasant it would be for a foreigner to teach the Leaplowers their own laws, and to explain to them the application of their own principles! Little, however, was to be got from the judge, who was just then too much occupied with some calculations concerning the chances of the little wheel, with which he had been furnished by a leading man of one of the nominating committees.

I now questioned the brigadier touching that peculiar usage of his country which rendered Leaphigh opinions concerning the Leaplow inst.i.tutions, society, and manners of so much value in the market of the latter. To this I got but an indifferent answer, except it was to say, that his countrymen, having cleared the interests connected with the subjects from the rubbish of time, and set everything at work, on the philosophical basis of reason and common sense, were exceedingly desirous of knowing what other people thought of the success of the experiment.

"I expect to see a nation of sages, I can a.s.sure you, brigadier; one in which even the very children are profoundly instructed in the great truths of your system; and, as to the monikinas, I am not without dread of bringing my theoretical ignorance in collision with their great practical knowledge of the principles of your government."

"They are early fed on political pap."

"No doubt, sir, no doubt. How different must they be from the females of other countries! Deeply imbued with the great distinctive principles of your system, devoted to the education of their children in the same sublime truths, and indefatigable in their discrimination, among the meanest of their households!"

"Hum!"

"Now, sir, even in England, a country which I trust is not the most debased on earth, you will find women, beautiful, intellectual, accomplished and patriotic, who limit their knowledge of these fundamental points to a zeal for a clique, and the whole of whose eloquence on great national questions is bounded by a few heartfelt wishes for the downfall of their opponents;--"

"It is very much so at Stunnin'tun, too, if truth must be spoken,"

remarked Noah, who had been a listener.

"Who, instead of instructing the young suckers that cling to their sides in just notions of general social distinctions, nurture their young antipathies with pettish philippics against some luckless chief of the adverse party;--"

"Tis pretty much the same at Stunnin'tun, as I live!"

"Who rarely study the great lessons of history in order to point out to the future statesmen and heroes of the empire the beacons of crime, the incentives for public virtue, or the charters of their liberties; but who are indefatigable in echoing the cry of the hour, however false or vulgar, and who humanize their attentive offspring by softly expressed wishes that Mr. Canning, or some other frustrator of the designs of their friends, were fairly hanged!"

"Stunnin'tun, all over!"

"Beings that are angels in form--soft, gentle, refined, and tearful as the evening with its dews, when there is a question of humanity or suffering; but who seem strangely transformed into she-tigers, whenever any but those of whom they can approve attain to power; and who, instead of entwining their soft arms around their husbands and brothers, to restrain them from the hot strife of opinions, cheer them on by their encouragement and throw dirt with the volubility and wit of fish-women."

"Miss Poke, to the backbone!"

"In short, sir, I expect to see an entirely different state of things at Leaplow. There, when a political adversary is bespattered with mud, your gentle monikinas, doubtless, appease anger by mild soothings of philosophy, tempering zeal by wisdom, and regulating error by apt and unanswerable quotations from that great charter which is based on the eternal and immutable principles of right."

"Well, Sir John, if you speak in this elocutionary manner in the house,"

cried the delighted Noah, "I shall be shy of answering. I doubt, now, if the brigadier himself could repeat all you have just said."

"I have forgotten to inquire, Mr. Downright, a little about your Leaplow const.i.tuency. The suffrage is, beyond question, confined to those members of society who possess a 'social stake.'"

"Certainly, Sir John, They who live and breathe."

"Surely none vote but those who possess the money, and houses, and lands of the country?"

"Sir, you are altogether in error; all vote who possess ears, and eyes, and noses, and bobs, and lives, and hopes, and wishes, and feelings, and wants. Wants we conceive to be a much truer test of political fidelity, than possessions."

"This is novel doctrine, indeed! but it is in direct hostility to the social-stake system."

"You were never more right, Sir John, as respects your own theory, or never more wrong as respects the truth. In Leaplow we contend--and contend justly--that there is no broader or bolder fallacy than to say that a representation of mere effects, whether in houses, lands, merchandise, or money, is a security for a good government. Property is affected by measures; and the more a monikin has, the greater is the bribe to induce him to consult his own interests, although it should be at the expense of those of everybody else."

"But, sir, the interest of the community is composed of the aggregate of these interests."

"Your pardon, Sir John; nothing is composed of it, but the aggregate of the interests of a cla.s.s. If your government is inst.i.tuted for their benefit only, your social-stake system is all well enough; but if the object be the general good, you have no choice but to trust its custody to the general keeping. Let us suppose two men--since you happen to be a man, and not a monikin--let us suppose two men perfectly equal in morals, intelligence, public virtue and patriotism, one of whom shall be rich and the other shall have nothing. A crisis arrives in the affairs of their common country, and both are called upon to exercise their franchise, on a question--as almost all great questions must--that unavoidably will have some influence on property generally. Which would give the most impartial vote--he who, of necessity, must be swayed by his personal interest, or he who has no inducement of the sort to go astray?"

"Certainly he who has nothing to influence him to go wrong. But the question is not fairly put--"