OTHER “TASTES.”
With the next phase of Zelanian life, according to the notes of Leo Bergin, Oseba was deeply impressed and pleased, for he said:—
“As might be expected, my children, in a land so blessed by Nature, occupied by so noble a race, and ruled by such incomparably wise and generous laws, the word ‘pauper’ is not found in Zelanian statistics, and the ‘criminals,’ considering the newness of the country, are few indeed.”
Speaking of the character of crime, Oseba said:—
“Vice and virtue, my children, are largely questions of sensation. The actions of men that produce disagreeable sensations—immediate or remote—we call vices, while the opposite we call virtues. We are the product of experience. Vice is the guide board to virtue—the danger signal. Without vice there would be no definition for virtue.
“But taste has much to do in guiding a people. The Zelanians have a taste for knowledge, but they have other tastes. The Christian Outeroos are thirsty, and the Zelanians are Outeroos. Strange, but in a single year there were over 7,000 of these noble Zelanians arrested for their earnest efforts to satisfy this peculiar infatuation. This seems incredible, for while there are several persons in Zelania who are never known to be thirsty, there are about 7,000,000 gallons of beer used annually in filling the ‘alimentary canal’ of the Zelanians. Just why, with so goodly a supply, with so short a distance, both in time and space, between drinks, this peculiar sensation should turn the heads of men, is not very clear.
“Many very well-meaning people believe there would be less ‘arrests’ for these peculiar freaks should the distance between drinks be extended, but others, having considerable interest in the matter, hold that most of these confused persons are ‘taken in’ during their long search for somebody to do the ‘shouting.’
“However,” Oseba said, “there is a pleasing side, for while 51 per cent. of the population over fifteen years of age were born in Zelania, this portion is said to have furnished but 17 per cent. of the Court’s takings for this confusing recreation.
“For other crimes, the 51 per cent. of native-born furnish but 28 per cent. of the law breakers.
“It may be, my children, that the 49 per cent. of the foreign born, who are said to furnish the other per cent. of the ‘takings,’ are only celebrating their arrival in so glorious a country—a country in which a day’s earnings, it is said, will pay for many beers. At any rate, the native-born Zelanian seems the better man, for he either ‘calls’ less frequently or ‘carries his load’ better than the ‘new chum.’”
But all are thirsty, Mr. Oseba, and the “practice at the bar,” if not profitable, is exhilarating.
They think they want a drink.
When it’s wet they want a drink.
When it’s dry they want a drink.
When it’s warm, and when it’s cold;
When they’re young and when they’re old—
They think, and when they think,
They want a drink.
When they’re sick, and when they’re well,
Bound for heaven or for ——,
Then they think—they want a drink.
But do they think when e’er they drink?
Or does the drink confuse the think?
“But the fact,” said Mr. Oseba, “that in one year there were twelve homicides is most surprising to the inquiring stranger. Surely no man well ‘quartered’ in Zelania should care to be killed, and the reckless head that would plan, or the ruthless hand that would execute a design to close a life in Zelania, should in some manner be restrained from so fell a purpose. Deducting the homicides of foreign birth, however, it leaves for the Zelanians the cleanest record in the ‘Christian’ world—as one would expect.
“The Zelanians, my children, are usually glad they are alive, and, too, they are usually willing to allow others to remain and enjoy the entertainment.”