Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/266

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THE DIAMOND WORLD.
261

gathered into one receptacle after which the weird auction begins. No one can compete with the corporations and no one tries.

The legal form of the auction is soon over and the half ton or ton of dust is legally bought by the corporations whose officers order it to be sprinkled over the gardens. It serves the same purpose as phosphate in our fields. This awful process is repeated each year. The sepulchers, emptied thus, are open for new burials. So you can see that with all the gruesomeness of this whole business, there is an economic side to it, and the people have come to view it all in a philosophical manner.

When this wretched custom was first inaugurated a bitter wail ascended from the ranks of the laboring classes, for they well knew whose graves would be opened. Never was there such a stir among the working classes of people. They held mass meetings and grew loudly indignant until the Trust became alarmed at the uprising.

Then did some of these rich sharpsters, who were best gifted in speech, go out to meet their servants, addressing them thus: