e public and
especially the poor. He proposed that the members of the gootle trust
divide their capital and each member go into the business of making
gootles for himself--I do not mean for his personal use--in different
parts of the country. But none of them was to sell to consumers, but to
other men, who would sell in quantity to still other men, who would sell
single gootles for domestic use. Each manufacturer would of course require
a full complement of officers, clerks and so forth, as would the other
men--everybody but the consumer--and each would have to support them and
make a profit himself. Competition would be so sharp that solicitors would
have to be employed to make sales; and they too must have a living out of
the business. Honored stranger, am I right in my inference that the
proposed system has something in common with the one which obtains in your
own happy, enlightened and prosperous country, and which you would
approve?"

I did not care to reply.

"Of course," the Jumjum continued, "all this would greatly have enhanced
the cost of gootles, thereby lessening the sales, thereby reducing the
output, thereby throwing a number of workmen out of employment. You see
this, do you not, O guest of my country?"

"Pray tell me," I said, "what became of the reformer who proposed all this
change?"

"All this change? Why, sir, the one-thousandth part is not told: he
proposed that his system should be general: not only in the gootle trust,
but every trust in the country was to be broken up in the same way! When I
had him before me, and had stated my objections to the plan, I asked him
what were its advantages.

"'Sir,' he replied, 'I speak for millions of gentlemen in uncongenial
employments, mostly manual and fatiguing. This would give them the kind of
activity that they would like--such as their class enjoys in other
countries where my system is in full flower, and where it is deemed so
sacred that any proposal for its abolition or simplification by trusts is
regarded with horror, especially by the working men.'

"Having reported to the Panjandrum (whose vermiform appendix may good
angels have in charge) and received his orders, I called the reformer
before me and addressed him thus:

"'Illustrious economist, I have the honor to inform you that in the royal
judgment your proposal is the most absurd, impudent and audacious ever
made; that the system which you propose to set up is revolutionary and
mischievo