Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/64

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A VISIT TO MARS.
59

a few brilliant orators and sent them to the people to persuade them not to give heed to a man of one idea. These orators argued that it would be a great crime to destroy the property of others, and that their only way of securing happiness was to toil on with patience and keep looking for brighter days. The people listened to the specious sophistries and thus pushed aside their redeemer, putting off forever the day of their deliverance.

Similar troubles continued to arise in the valley, but the rich always succeeded in quieting the people before they rose to determined action.

Then the rich decided to put an end to these agitations among the toilers. Accordingly they cut off all communication from valley to valley, either by epistle or person, and refused longer to permit any poor toiler, or his children, to pursue any study whatever. By this method, in the course of a few hundred years, the valley dwellers lapsed into ignorant slaves, not knowing, except by tradition, that there were other people in other parts of Mars. Thus the rich continued