to out-talk his neighbour, and it
was with difficulty the chairman obtained order and established a
sequence of events. An old man in the gallery read loudly from Victor
Hugo while a speaker in the orchestra declaimed on Single Tax. Finally
the old man was silenced, and Dave began to learn that all the economic
diseases to which society is heir might be healed by a potion
compounded by Henry George. Another in the audience started to speak
of the failure of the established system of marriage, embellishing his
argument with more than one local incident of a salacious nature, but
he was at last required to give place to a woman who had a more
personal grievance to present.

"You talk about your masters and your slaves, and your taxes and your
marriages," she cried in a shrill voice that penetrated every corner of
the building. "I can tell you something about masters and slaves. I'm
hearing everywhere that what this country wants is population; that is
the talk of the politician, and the learned men, that are supposed to
know. Now, what is the country doing for those that bring the
population--not from the slums of Europe, that is not what I'm
asking--but for those that bring the native-born population--the only
population that doesn't have to be naturalized? I'm the mother of six,
and what has the country done for me, but leave me at the mercy of
those who charge more for an hour's attendance than my old man can save
from a month's drudgery? And then, with my health broken down--in the
service of the State--I have to go to the hospital, and they tell me I
must have an operation, and I wake up with a horrid pain and a bill for
a hundred and fifty dollars. All done in an hour, or less, and that's
the bill, or part of it, for the hospital dues and the extras and
etceteras are still to come. Masters and slaves! More than I can save
in a year, or two years, and no one to say whether the work was needed
or not, or whether it was well done or not. When my kitchen pipes are
plugged a plumber fixes them and charges me a dollar, and if he doesn't
do it right he has to do it over again, but when the human pipes go
wrong the man-plumber charges a hundred and fifty dollars, and if he
doesn't do it right he collects just the same, and the undertaker adds
another hundred. Now I don't know whether this comes under the head of
Capital or Labour or Single Tax, but I do know it is outrageous
extortion--extortion of blood money