Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/344

 marred by the want of a directing head. Consequently, the most curious, troublesome, and absurd ways had crept into practice. For instance, if any one had committed a wrong upon another, the police, instead of making straight for the wrong-doer, arrested first the injured party, and compelled him to secure and punish the other. This was such additional expense and suffering to the victim, that the one would dread and shun the authorities almost as much as the other, and thus the wrong-doer could often make a clean escape. The New Party had been long urgent to end this anomaly. Indeed, both parties had long admitted it as such; and at last, but only the other day, the step in the right direction began to be taken, by appointment of what was called the Rotucesorp-Cilbup, or direct catcher and trier of the wrong-doer.

Amongst peculiarities which still reign, in spite of all efforts of the New Party, the most striking, perhaps, is the very ancient custom and law of giving the whole of a family inheritance to some one member only, instead of dividing equally amongst the whole. On the death of the head of a family, the State Lottery Box, which is called in, determines, by the cast of the dice, which individual of the family is to enjoy the whole property; while all the other members, so far at least as the public law is concerned, may be at once turned out destitute upon the highway. Although this ancient custom seems now at last tottering to its fall, it is still a most tender point with a formidable section of the Old Party, which would fain maintain its existence, in spite of the ever-increasing force of opposing argument and opinion.