Page:Across the Zodiac (Volume 1).djvu/147

 but the deaths in public nurseries between the first and tenth years are twenty-nine in twelve dozen admissions in the stronger sex, and only about ten in the weaker. Read these facts as we may, they ensure employment to the young men when their education is completed—the two last years of severe study adding somewhat to the mortality among them.

"A large number find employment in superintending the property of others. To give them a practical interest in its preservation and improvement, they are generally, after a shorter or longer probation, adopted by their employers as heirs to their estate; our experience of Communism having taught us that immediate and obvious self-interest is the only motive that certainly and seriously affects human action. The distance at which they are kept, and the absolute seclusion of our family life, enables us easily to secure ourselves against any over-anxiety on their part to anticipate their inheritance. The minority who do not thus find a regular place in society are employed in factories, as artisans, or on the lands belonging to the State. To ensure their zeal, the last receive a fixed proportion of the produce, or are permitted to rent land at fixed rates, and at the end of ten years receive a part thereof in full property. By these means we are free from all the dangers and difficulties of that state of society which preceded the Communistic cataclysm. We have poor men, and men who can live only by daily labour; but these have dissipated their wealth, or are looking forward at no very distant period to a sufficient competence. The entire population of our planet does not exceed two