“Strange, but the books show seventy-nine suicides to have been committed in one year in Zelania, though it seems incredible that any person in Zelania should voluntarily retire. Of course, they may have desired to get to heaven ahead of some of their neighbors, for in Zelania they like to be considered a little advanced.
“To insure or secure the public health, there are wise sanitary laws, charitable institutions and hospitals; the practice of medicine is wisely guarded, and carried on by able physicians. In all these public affairs, the Government—which means the people in their organised capacity—is most generous in its assistance.
“In local hospitals, or charitable enterprise, the Government usually gives pound for pound for all private contributions, and the many institutions of the kind in all Australasia furnish a pleasing surprise to observing travellers.”
“ON THE MAKE.”
Mr. Oseba was greatly interested in the “enterprise” of the Outeroos. I quote:—
“I have visited all the countries of the upper crust of Oliffa, and I have observed that the Outeroos are taking a lot of physical exercise. They are engaged in a mad scramble for dollars. Just why any man should want so many ‘dollars’ is not very clear, but it is very clear that they do want them. Men with very many dollars are, in most things, much like the men with very few dollars; they are alarmed at smallpox, the cold and the heat make them thirsty, and the shapely actress turns alike their shallow heads. Then, too, the grim chariot that carries waste from the ‘City of Confusion’ and deposits it in the ‘City of the Silent,’ calls about as promptly at the mansion of Lady Bountiful as at the hovel of the laundress.
“When the man of dollars dies, he is about as dead as his footman—under like circumstances. He’ll be dead about as long, and whatever his facilities for the transfer of wealth while in active business, he can take none of it with him. But, maybe, ’tis well, for if the old story be true, it would probably melt.
“The world has been aroused by the magic force of modern genius, and is being unified by Anglo-Saxon commercial enterprise. The nations are growing wealthy; gold is the sole object of ambition, of toil, of production, of trade. For gold the industrious strive, the duke marries, the boss robs, the politician ‘negotiates,’ the lawyer deceives, the judge decrees, the noble cheats, and the ‘parson’—takes up a collection. In this enormous confusion, a great many people get a lot of exercise—a few, ‘clip the coupons,’ and are happy.
“But the superior Outeroos are only veneered pagans, my children, and gold is the universal god. When Moses smashed the ‘golden calf’ the fragments must have been many, and each tiny piece must have multiplied into many full-grown bullocks.