tion done?"

"We have no legislation," replied Dr. Leete, "that is, next to none.
It is rarely that Congress, even when it meets, considers any new laws
of consequence, and then it only has power to commend them to the
following Congress, lest anything be done hastily. If you will
consider a moment, Mr. West, you will see that we have nothing to make
laws about. The fundamental principles on which our society is founded
settle for all time the strifes and misunderstandings which in your
day called for legislation.

"Fully ninety-nine hundredths of the laws of that time concerned the
definition and protection of private property and the relations of
buyers and sellers. There is neither private property, beyond personal
belongings, now, nor buying and selling, and therefore the occasion of
nearly all the legislation formerly necessary has passed away.
Formerly, society was a pyramid poised on its apex. All the
gravitations of human nature were constantly tending to topple it
over, and it could be maintained upright, or rather upwrong (if you
will pardon the feeble witticism), by an elaborate system of
constantly renewed props and buttresses and guy-ropes in the form of
laws. A central Congress and forty state legislatures, turning out
some twenty thousand laws a year, could not make new props fast enough
to take the place of those which were constantly breaking down or
becoming ineffectual through some shifting of the strain. Now society
rests on its base, and is in as little need of artificial supports as
the everlasting hills."

"But you have at least municipal governments besides the one central
authority?"

"Certainly, and they have important and extensive functions in looking
out for the public comfort and recreation, and the improvement and
embellishment of the villages and cities."

"But having no control over the labor of their people, or means of
hiring it, how can they do anything?"

"Every town or city is conceded the right to retain, for its own
public works, a certain proportion of the quota of labor its citizens
contribute to the nation. This proportion, being assigned it as so
much credit, can be applied in any way desired."

CHAPTER XX.

That afternoon Edith casually inquired if I had yet revisited the
underground chamber in the garden in which I had been found.

"Not yet," I replied. "To be frank, I have shrunk thus far from doing
so, lest the visit might revive old associations rather