Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/182

168 their sets of books in a certain prescribed way. Why? Because some one of them might plead bankruptcy fraudulently and the examiner would only be able to discover the fraud by considerable mental exertion, unless the books were kept according to a certain formula and everything set down in its proper place. If there were no books at all the examiner would have a hard time finding his way through the wilderness of business memoranda. In order to save him this trouble in case of a bankruptcy, the law deprives a hundred other merchants who would never think of defrauding their creditors, of their freedom of action. Each one of us is obliged to report his coming and going, at least in the large cities, to the police. Why? Because one of us might happen to commit a crime some day, in which case the police would be obliged to hunt him up. In order to save themselves this trouble, for which by the way, they are hired and paid, they oblige us to take upon ourselves this constant trouble of reporting our whereabouts to them. I could give a hundred such examples if I were not afraid of their monotony. At the same time the restrictions thus imposed by the State upon the citizens miss their aim completely. The laws oppress those only who have no idea of resisting them; while on the other hand, they have never prevented the consummation of any unlawful act by those who have determined to submit no longer to their control. The bigamist commits his crime in spite of the formalities which render marriage so difficult, expensive and surrounded by such ceremonies to the honest man. The robber has his knife and his revolver in his pocket in spite of the laws forbidding the peaceable citizens to carry weapons. And it is the same in every thing. It is the same system as Herod's although less tragical, who ordered all the children to be killed because there was a possibility that one