oxication, to riot, to disease. Love
existed, and was ardent in pursuit, but its object, once secured, was
faithful. The adulterer, the profligate, the harlot, were phenomena so
unknown in this commonwealth, that even to find the words by which they
were designated one would have had to search throughout an obsolete
literature composed thousands of years before. They who have been
students of theoretical philosophies above ground, know that all these
strange departures from civilised life do but realise ideas which have
been broached, canvassed, ridiculed, contested for; sometimes partially
tried, and still put forth in fantastic books, but have never come
to practical result. Nor were these all the steps towards theoretical
perfectibility which this community had made. It had been the sober
belief of Descartes that the life of man could be prolonged, not,
indeed, on this earth, to eternal duration, but to what he called the
age of the patriarchs, and modestly defined to be from 100 to 150 years
average length. Well, even this dream of sages was here fulfilled--nay,
more than fulfilled; for the vigour of middle life was preserved even
after the term of a century was passed. With this longevity was combined
a greater blessing than itself--that of continuous health. Such diseases
as befell the race were removed with ease by scientific applications of
that agency--life-giving as life-destroying--which is inherent in vril.
Even this idea is not unknown above ground, though it has generally
been confined to enthusiasts or charlatans, and emanates from confused
notions about mesmerism, odic force, &c. Passing by such trivial
contrivances as wings, which every schoolboy knows has been tried and
found wanting, from the mythical or pre-historical period, I proceed to
that very delicate question, urged of late as essential to the perfect
happiness of our human species by the two most disturbing and potential
influences on upper-ground society,--Womankind and Philosophy. I mean,
the Rights of Women.

Now, it is allowed by jurisprudists that it is idle to talk of rights
where there are not corresponding powers to enforce them; and above
ground, for some reason or other, man, in his physical force, in the use
of weapons offensive and defensive, when it come to positive personal
contest, can, as a rule of general application, master women. But among
this people there can be no doubt about the rights of women, because, as
I have befor