Colymbia/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
NAMES AND GOVERNMENT OFFICES.
THE Colymbians do not bestow permanent and indelible names on their infants as we do. Every person on coming of age selects the name which pleases himself best. Up to that time the young people go by pet names, such as Dick, Tom, Harry, Molly, Betty, Madge, or some other familiar and endearing appellation, that is not intended to be the permanent one. All come of age when twenty years old, if they have not earned their majority sooner. The age of twenty is selected on physiological grounds. Thus, the natural duration of man's life is held to be one hundred years, divided into five periods of twenty years each. At the end of the first period he is considered to have arrived at maturity, and to be fit for holding office under Government. At the end of the next period, when forty years of age, he is thought to have attained the utmost perfection of development. During the third period, that is from forty to sixty, he is considered to remain at his full vigour of mind and body. From sixty to eighty he is said to decline slowly, and the last period witnesses a more complete failure of his faculties, during which he is exempted from the occupations and labours of life, and receives a pension from the state, if he have no private fortune, to allow him the repose his failing powers require.
Up to eighty years of age, he is still considered fit for work and may be employed in a post under Government. But at eighty he is compelled to give up his place or office and to go on the retired list, in order to make room for younger and more vigorous men.
The two periods of twenty and eighty are celebrated by rejoicings and festivals, more or less imposing according to the social status of the individual. At the former period, he is congratulated on becoming fit for public life, at the latter period he is again congratulated on gaining exemption from work.
He may anticipate his majority by a year or two, by passing a rigorous examination in hieroglyphics; by making some scientific discovery; by inventing some ingenious machine; by executing some great work of art, or by showing a certain proficiency in musical oratory.
On attaining his majority by the lapse of the required number of years, or in any of the ways adverted to, he has to appear before a magistrate, and assume the name he is thenceforth to bear.
Under this system it is impossible that any one can have a name he dislikes, as he might easily have, if his name were bestowed on him in his infancy by others. The same rule is applied to the female portion of the community; and they too can anticipate their majority in the same way as the males, though this very rarely, if ever, happens.
The names selected by the young men are usually those of some heroes of antiquity, or of some celebrated historical characters. But they often prefer to pay some living or deceased friend a compliment by assuming his name; and sometimes they will retain the pet name by which they had hitherto been called. This is particularly the case with the young ladies, who frequently elect to retain the trivial name their loving parents had bestowed on them, rather than take any new name. Thus there are lots of Pollys, Jennys, Millys, and such like. If they dislike their childish name, or think that it is not sufficiently pretty, they often take the name of some terrestrial flower they know or have read of, which strikes their fancy, as Lily, Rose, Daisy, and so on. Occasionally they select the name of some interesting character of romance or history. The names of Shakspeare's heroines are much affected by them. They have better sense than to select the name of some moral quality, such as Patience, Mercy, Charity, which fond parents in England sometimes inflict on their daughters.
Thus it happens that one seldom meets with ugly names among the Colymbians, for, though parents or guardians sometimes do not scruple to give their children and wards most unæsthetic names, it is very unlikely that any one will give himself a name that might excite ridicule or contempt.
The Colymbians rightly consider that there is a great deal in a name, and that one's future career is often made or marred by an appropriate or an injudicious name. Hence they hold that no one has a right to bestow a name on another without his consent, and they attach great importance to allowing a perfect liberty of choice to all on arriving at years of discretion.
The selection of a name is with some a most important event, and as the time approached for doing so, they would ask the advice of their friends, and spend days in poring over lists of names which are published in order to aid them in their choice.
A name once assumed and registered cannot be laid aside and another substituted. So most feel it is important to select a name that they will always feel pleasure in bearing, and which will make them more attractive and be useful to them in their future career.
As most of the literature of the Colymbians, when not indigenous, is derived from English sources, the names they chiefly affect are familiar English ones; but some prefer French or German names, others ancient classical names, and some even select the quaint names of their ancestral Colymbians. But whatever names they adopt are sure to be highly euphonious, as is to be expected among a race where music is so universally and so thoroughly cultivated. Indeed, many of the ladies choose appellations made up of some two of the names of the musical notes, as Laré, Mido, Fala, Simi, Solla, &c.
Surnames or family names are often such as are familiar to us, as Smith, Brown, Jones, &c., showing the English origin of the family's founder. But some of the surnames are derived from the race that originally peopled these islands. These native names usually terminate in "ik" or "ob," "Ngasik," "Mburob," and so on. The surname can be changed at will; and as the ancient names are considered unfashionable, very few families or individuals retain them. They are ever ready to drop them for some high-sounding English or French name, which they have got out of books. So there are Stanleys, Montmorencys, De Guesclins, Montagues, &c., who, one might swear, are the descendants of a native stock which had changed its name.
Little importance is attached to their family names by the Colymbians, so that it is only a few who go to the trouble to change them, even if they are decidedly ugly. It is not considered etiquette to address any one by his family name, but only by the name of his choice. Thus it often happens that some very intimate friends do not actually know one another's surnames. It is only on the solemn occasion of taking a lease of a house that the surname is used at all. In society one only hears people called by their chosen name, as Ajax, Rupert, Gustavus, or Daisy, Cleopatra, Lucretia, &c.
But it is not only in their names that the Colymbians go on quite opposite principles from those that obtain among terrestrials. In the selection of persons to fill the various offices under Government, they also seem to act on principles the exact reverse of what we consider the right method. They never give a place to any one who has given evidence of his fitness for it by an acquaintance with the matter with which he will afterwards have to deal; but only to one whose whole previous career shows him to be entirely ignorant of it. Thus, if it is an inspectorship of public buildings that has to be filled up, one who is utterly ignorant of architecture is appointed, and the new inspector, on entering on his duties, is accustomed to boast of his peculiar fitness for the post, by reason of knowing nothing of the construction of houses. In consequence of his entire ignorance, he would say, he would be able to fulfil the duties entrusted to him with strict impartiality, free from all prejudices in favour or against any particular method of building. If, under his supervision, houses are built that soon fall to pieces, this is looked upon as inevitable and no blame attaches to him or to the authorities who appointed him. And so with all other offices held under Government. The chief of the state appoints his friends and supporters, and never troubles himself about their qualifications, or rather he purposely appoints such only as we should consider utterly disqualified.
The same system is not followed in private life. Those who wish anything done for themselves, employ only those who have proved themselves by their studies and experience the best workmen. Thus it happens that everything done by private enterprize is well done; whereas everything done by Government is so wrongly done, that it has to be continually patched and tinkered, or all taken to pieces and done over again from the beginning. Government buildings are continually tumbling down or being repaired, Government contracts invariably lead to never-ending law-suits, Government works of all kinds are constantly going wrong.
This plan has certainly the effect of creating an enormous amount of extra work. But this gives great satisfaction to the people, for it gives employment and high wages to artisans and workmen of all sorts, and nothing would be so unpopular with the multitude as that Government should do its work effectually; for the labouring classes look to Government to give them the maximum of work and wages for every job undertaken by it.
Even when the Government selects a person for the execution of a work who is known to be a skilled artist, it takes care that his skill is not in the particular kind of work he is appointed to do. Thus, if it has to appoint an architect to build a great public hall, it selects one who has never built anything but small private houses. In this way, the hall, when built, is certain to be so defective as to require constant repairs, or it perhaps tumbles down altogether, amid the general approbation of the working classes, ever on the outlook for jobs.
This mode of conducting its business gives, as I have said, general satisfaction. There are, to be sure, a few grumblers, who contend that Government should be economical and get its work always done in the best possible style, which it could easily do as it has the whole extent of the country to choose from. But these form an insignificant minority and are looked upon as selfish tax-payers or impracticable ideologists.
If one of these grumblers and sticklers for economy, by his persistency and his eloquence, seemed to be producing an effect on the public, and was otherwise dangerous and annoying to the party in power, the chief would bestow on him the appointment of minister of some important department of state, for which he was especially disqualified by education and experience. That would not have mattered much, and he might have done as well as the other heads of departments, had he been willing to let things alone. But this he would never do. His services had been acquired and his place had been obtained by his economical theories. So he at once commenced to put them in practice. Knowing nothing about the subjects to which his department referred, he could look at them only as things to be financially pruned. In his zeal for economy he cared not how he offended and morally trod on the tender toes of those placed under his authority. Thus he set every one against him, and after a short tenure of office became the most popular of ministers. This was just what the chief of the state wanted, and what he foresaw would happen. He could now safely depose the unpopular minister and did not need to fear him hereafter, as his actions, when in office, had fairly deprived him of all influence when out of office. The very circumstance of his having accepted office would ruin him in the estimation of some; his offensive conduct to better men than himself would cause him to be disliked by others, and his economical cheeseparing's would alienate from him all interested in the expenditure of Government money, so that his career as a demagogue was cut short.
The politics of the Colymbians are of a very simple character. There are those who want place and power, and those who want work and pay. These latter place the former in power, if not with the expressed intention, at fill events with the full expectation, that when in power they will repay their electors by plenty of work and high wages. A government which professed its intention of being economical, became at once unpopular. None interest themselves in politics, save the place-hunters and the inferior sort of working-classes; and yet these last, who constitute almost the whole of the electors—for persons who have no interest in Government jobs seldom take part in elections—never elect one of their own class, but always one of the members of the upper ranks, rightly judging that people who are not under the necessity of earning their livelihood by work will know less of the value of money than those that are, and consequently will be less chary of lavishing the public wealth by which they (the electors) profit.
The taxes in Colymbia are all of the nature of income-tax and are only levied on those having a certain minimum income. The daily, weekly or monthly wages of the labouring classes are exempt from taxation; hence their hearty approval of a freely-spending government. As there are no imports or exports there is of course no source of revenue from customs.
The building operations below water are very extensive and are constantly going on. The facility with which the workmen move about the largest blocks of coral-rock seems wonderful. This is owing to the weight of bodies in water, as compared with the same bodies in air, being so much less by the difference between the weight of air and of water. Thus it may readily happen that a body may weigh hundreds of pounds in air and not above an ounce or two in water; it may of course even be lighter than the water.
One advantage attending the building of houses in Colymbia is that accidents to the workmen are almost impossible. Of course it is obvious that if they fall off the top of a house, they will not practically fall at all, nor yet rise, their equilibrium with the water being maintained by their weight-belts. If a mass of the building material fall on a workman, its specific gravity being but little greater than that of water, it will fall on him as gently as a feather-bed in air, and he has no difficulty in extricating himself. Labour is thus comparatively light, and free from the risks attending it in air. And yet the hours of labour are shorter in Colymbia than they are with us. The law has rigidly fixed eight hours as the limit of working hours for hired labour. No overtime is allowed. Thus the day is divided into three periods of eight hours each, to wit, eight hours for work, eight hours for play and eight hours for sleep.
As the Colymbians do not require to drink, none of the wages of the labourers are spent on beer; and as food is plentiful and cheap, and as few clothes and no coal or candles are used, the workman has always something to spend on his amusements and has always time to amuse himself.