The process of conversation thus became very simple. For example, No. 23,482,657 wishes to say a few words to No. 10,334, who is somewhere, but where he knows not, in the southern hemisphere. He sends his message to the central depôt. The stirring of the needle there rings a small bell, and displays a white mark on the front of the box. The clerk on duty takes it down, reads the message; then taking box No. 10,334, he repeats it to the required correspondent. Of course, any two particular friends who may have occasion for frequent conversation can have, in addition, two special needles with which they can communicate directly.
All the passengers in the submarine ship were provided with these boxes, and, on their arrival at Lasondre, the question, whether the sympathetic influence extended to the northern hemisphere, was at once decided in the affirmative. Communication with the South Pole was just as easy from the north as from the south side of the equator.
The South Pole being thus the most convenient centre for communication with the entire surface of the planet, had evidently strong claims for selection as the site of the universal metropolis. And before two years, dating from the return of the ship, were over, the whole planet was united in one vast empire, and the seat of government fixed at Australis, as we may style the city of the South Pole.
The united government at once extended to the whole world the signalling system which had been so successfully carried out in the south; this, of course, involved an enormous addition to the depôt in Australis. And now, for the first time, the exact number of the primeval creation of the rational inhabitants was definitely ascertained. It was found that, at the era of the ship, there were in the northern hemisphere 70,589,347 persons, and in the southern 29,410,653; thus the total population, which had never been increased, nor, as they had just learned, diminished, was, as before stated, exactly one hundred millions, and these were equally divided between the male and female sexes.
Several years elapsed after the return of the ship before the stupendous change which had been wrought in the condition of the Hesperians, by the knowledge they had acquired of the indestructibility of life, began to produce the effects which afterwards became conspicuous. They were essentially a travel-loving race, and the great stimulus given to this propensity by the discovery of a new hemisphere seems for a time to have absorbed a good deal of their energies. The epoch, moreover, was immediately marked by the complete cessation of voluntary evanescence—in other words, of suicide, which, under the influence of the widely-spread world-weariness, had become only too common during the last age. When it was clearly understood that evanescence only meant change of place, the ignoble custom came to an end.
It is well worth notice that, at the era of the union, the southern empire, though numerically far inferior to the northern, had reached a very much higher stage of both moral and political development. This superiority is easily explained. For thousands of years the southerners had been acquainted with the true conditions of life; that is to say, they had known that each individual is an indelible unit, in no way to be obliterated; and, therefore, that it is expedient for society to make the best of him. This same knowledge also reacted on the individual, however badly disposed he might have been by nature. He knew perfectly well that he could no more get rid of the society than the society could get rid of him; that, in fact, society was by far the stronger of the two, and, for this reason, it was plainly his interest to conduct himself at least in an inoffensive manner. It was invariably found that such a course of behaviour, steadily maintained for a lengthened period, reacted so strongly on even a malignant character, that, in a century or two, the subject became a worthy member of society.
In the northern empire, on the other hand, as it was believed, and indeed with truth, that an undesirable and troublesome neighbour could at any time be suppressed, either by the gallows or some equivalent method, criminal legislation seems to have rather aimed at the extirpation than the reformation of the offender. But after the era of the ship, and subsequent union of the whole planet, all this was very speedily changed.
Through the entire period of ten thousand years which, at the time of my arrival, had elapsed since the beginning of the modern history, no revolutionizing discovery had taken place. But, slowly and silently, a change took place in the characters of the Hesperians, which ultimately led to the complete remodelling of the greater part of their social institutions. Evanescence, except as the result of accident, wholly disappeared, for the age of violence was passed, capital punishment was an impossibility, and suicide a fruitless ebullition of temper. The enforced toleration of everyone by everyone else, worked, in the course of ages, as its inevitable result, a greatly increased kindliness of disposition and demeanour; and this was still further helped when progress of time, combined with the absolute fixity of the population, brought about the strange state of things, that each individual was personally acquainted with every other member of the Hesperian multitude. The number of his acquaintances was 99,999,999.
And now we have the explanation of the great intensity of the astonishment which my sudden appearance in Lucetta excited in that town. Though not differing very much either in person or dress from many of themselves, yet the mere fact of my being a stranger to them was sufficient evidence that I was either a new creation on the planet, or had come from another world. In either case my arrival gave them hope that some light was about to be thrown on the great question which had vexed them all so long—Who was the Maker of the Universe?