ormly. Their houses are all alike. They say "yea" and "nay," although
not "thee" and "thou," and call persons by their first names. They confine
themselves chiefly to the useful, and use no ornaments. There are at
present eighteen societies of Shakers in the United States, scattered
throughout seven States. They number in all two thousand four hundred and
fifteen persons, and own one hundred thousand acres of land. Their
industries are similar to those of the Rappists and True Inspirationists,
and are somewhat famed for the excellence of their products. The Shakers
are nearly all Americans, like the Oneidans, next mentioned, and unlike all
other communistic societies in the United States.

The Perfectionists of Oneida and Wallingford are perhaps the most singular
of all communists. They were founded by John Humphrey Noyes, who organized
a community at Putney, Vermont, in 1846. In 1848 this was consolidated with
others at Oneida in Madison county, New York. In 1849 a branch community
was started at Brooklyn, New York, and in 1850 one at Wallingford,
Connecticut, all of which have since broken up or been merged in the two
communities of Oneida and Wallingford. Their principles are perfectionism,
communism and free love. By "perfection" they mean freedom from sin, which
they all claim to have, or to seek as practically attainable. They claim,
in explaining their sense of this term, that as a man who does not drink is
free from intemperance, and one who does not swear is free from profanity,
so one who does not sin at all is free from sin, or morally perfect. Their
communism is like that of the Icarians, so far as property is concerned,
this being owned equally by all for the benefit of all as they severally
have need; which state they claim is the state of man after the
resurrection. But they have a community not only of goods, but also of
wives; or, rather, they have no wives at all, but all women belong to all
men, and all men to all women; which they assert to be the state of Nature,
and therefore the most perfect state. They call it complex marriage instead
of simple, and it is both polygamy and polyandry at the same time. They are
enemies of all exclusiveness or selfishness, and hold that there should be
no exclusiveness in money or in women or children. Their idea is to be in
the most literal sense no respecters of persons. All women and children are
the same to all men, and _vice versa_. A man never knows his own child