ischarged from other
service during his incumbency. Instead of paying a salary to him, as
in your day, the subscribers pay the nation an indemnity equal to the
cost of his support for taking him away from the general service. He
manages the paper just as one of your editors did, except that he has
no counting-room to obey, or interests of private capital as against
the public good to defend. At the end of the first year, the
subscribers for the next either reelect the former editor or choose
any one else to his place. An able editor, of course, keeps his place
indefinitely. As the subscription list enlarges, the funds of the
paper increase, and it is improved by the securing of more and better
contributors, just as your papers were."

"How is the staff of contributors recompensed, since they cannot be
paid in money."

"The editor settles with them the price of their wares. The amount is
transferred to their individual credit from the guarantee credit of
the paper, and a remission of service is granted the contributor for a
length of time corresponding to the amount credited him, just as to
other authors. As to magazines, the system is the same. Those
interested in the prospectus of a new periodical pledge enough
subscriptions to run it for a year; select their editor, who
recompenses his contributors just as in the other case, the printing
bureau furnishing the necessary force and material for publication, as
a matter of course. When an editor's services are no longer desired,
if he cannot earn the right to his time by other literary work, he
simply resumes his place in the industrial army. I should add that,
though ordinarily the editor is elected only at the end of the year,
and as a rule is continued in office for a term of years, in case of
any sudden change he should give to the tone of the paper, provision
is made for taking the sense of the subscribers as to his removal at
any time."

"However earnestly a man may long for leisure for purposes of study or
meditation," I remarked, "he cannot get out of the harness, if I
understand you rightly, except in these two ways you have mentioned.
He must either by literary, artistic, or inventive productiveness
indemnify the nation for the loss of his services, or must get a
sufficient number of other people to contribute to such an indemnity."

"It is most certain," replied Dr. Leete, "that no able-bodied man
nowadays can evade his share of work and live on the toil o