Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 4).djvu/320

 "Why—upon my word, yes! I seem to be conscious of a most hideous hubbub, discord, babel, and confusion—of an incessant wrangling, recrimination, and grumbling. It's perfectly bewildering and awful. I seem to see masses of forms, all struggling, and kicking, and rending one another—crawling over and treading on each other. What a horribly unpleasant state of affairs!"

"That's it!" cried James, with excited enthusiasm. "That's one of my worlds! Those are my human beings! You perceive it all perfectly! Now I wish you to tell me what strikes you most forcibly amid the confusion."

"Why—well—here are a group of human beings screaming with acute lamentation all in one key. They appear to be screaming for 'babies': they are calling upon the sky to rain down babies on their land, and upon the sea to wash up babies on the shore in shoals, like herrings! What can they require all those babies for? Surely not to eat?"

"Oh, no; not to eat. To increase the population. You will recall our touching upon the mania of these human creatures for increase of population, in our last talk on the subject? Well, this group of creatures are the legislators of one of the nations, and they are frantic with grief because the population does not increase with sufficient rapidity."

"Ah, yes," said William, "I perceive that they have temporarily ceased their shrieks of lamentation in order to discuss various wild projects for increasing the population more rapidly. They are proposing taxes on bachelors, and premiums on large families, and other equally strange expedients. What very eccentric fellows, to be sure! What can they require all these babies for?"

"To—er—kill! Not to kill while babies, but after they are grown up into soldiers. The beautiful philoprogenitive instinct is very strong in these human beings of mine; their tenderness towards children is really touching. There are many societies for the protection of children; and human Governments are very severe upon violence to children. You see—er—if an infant is killed it is—er—disqualified for being subsequently slaughtered on the field of battle.

"Infanticide is regarded as a most heartless crime. You now perceive that that group of legislators are glaring at an adjacent island containing another nation, and are shrieking with anger and envy! That is because that insular nation has so many more babies, and increases so much more rapidly in population."

"Oh, ah, yes! I perceive the island you mention," said William. "It appears to me to be inconveniently crowded already; in fact, it seems unable to produce food enough to support its population."

"Oh! it is—it is! It is a most happy island; the happiness of a given district being always measured by its population. A large tract of land filled with the beauties of inanimate nature, but having a population insufficient to pollute the air, is considered a very sad sight; and earnest efforts are always made to crowd it with immigrants."

"I perceive an enormous congregation of your human beings on this island—a dense mass of them, all pushing and squeezing for want of space, and seething over each other as if they were boiling," said William.

"Yes," explained James, "that is the capital of the island, and the largest city in this particular world. It is so crowded that the air is unfit to breathe, and is full of sulphur and other poisons from the fires made by the inhabitants. Perfect health is unknown within its bounds. Everybody suffers perpetually from his liver, and has to