Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 1.djvu/586

578 and consciences of the people, and which is still considered by some as not altogether powerless. I refer to the Ecclesiastic department of the Grindwell works. This was formerly the greatest labor-saving machinery ever invented. But however powerful the operation of the Church machinery upon the grandmothers and grandfathers of the modern Grindwellites, it has certainly fallen greatly into disuse, and is kept a-going now more for the sake of appearances than for any real efficacy. The most knowing ones think it rather old-fashioned and cumbrous, — at any rate, not comparable to the State machinery, either in its design or its mode of operation. And as in these days of percussion-caps and Miniè rifles we lay by an old matchlock or crossbow, using it only to ornament our walls, — or as the powdered postilion with his horn and his boots is superseded by the locomotive and the electric telegraph, — so the old rusty Church wheels are removed into buildings apart from the daily life of the people, where they seem to revolve harmlessly and without any necessary connection with the State wheels.

Not that I mean to say that it works smoothly and well at all times, — this Grindwell machine. How can such an old patched and crumbling apparatus be expected always to work well? And how can you hope to find, even in the most enslaved or routine-ridden community, entire obedience to the will of the monarch and his satellites? Unfortunately for the cause of order and quiet, there will always be found certain tough lumps, in the shape of rebellious or non-conformist men, which refuse to be melted in the strong solvents or ground up in the swift mills of Absolutism. Government must look after these impediments. If they are positively dangerous, they must be destroyed or removed. If only suspected, or known to be powerless or inactive, they must at least be watched.

And here, again, the machine of government shows a remarkable ingenuity of organization.

For instance, it is said that there are pipes laid all along the streets, like hose, leading from a central reservoir. Nobody knows exactly what they are for but if any one steps upon them, up spirts something like a stream of gas, and takes the form of a gendarme, — and the unlucky street-walker must pay dear for his carelessness. Telegraph wires radiate like cobwebs from the chamber of the main-spring, and carry intelligence of all that is going on in the houses and streets. Man-traps are laid under the pavements, — sometimes they are secretly introduced under your very table or bed, — and if anything is said against that piece of machinery called the main-spring, or against the head engineer, the trap will nab you and fly away with you, like the spider that carried off Margery Mopp. If a number of people get together to discuss the meaning of and the reasons for the existence of the main-spring, or any of the big wheels immediately connected therewith, the ground under them will sometimes give way, and they will suddenly find themselves in unfurnished apartments not to their liking. And if any one should be so rash as to put his hand on the wheels, he is cut to pieces or strangled by the silent, incessant, fatal whirl of the engine.

The head engineer keeps his machine, and the city on which it acts, as much in the dark as possible. He has a special horror of sunshine. He seems to think that the sky is one great burning lens, and his machine-rooms and the city a vast powder-magazine. There are certain articles thought to be especially dangerous.

Newspapers are strictly forbidden, — unless first steeped in a tincture of asbestos of a very dull color, expressly manufactured and supplied by the Governing Machine. When properly saturated with the essence of dulness and death, and brought down from a glaring white and black to a decidedly ashy-gray neutral color, a few small newspapers are permitted to be circulated, but with the greatest caution. They sometimes take fire, it is said,—