Page:Life in a thousand worlds.djvu/317

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LIFE IN A THOUSAND WORLDS.

bending at his toil for eight or ten hours to pay the physician who calls for a few minutes? In some cases this program is continued for weeks, until the honest toiler finds himself confronted with a doctors bill and medicine bill to haunt him until the debt is either forgiven or paid at great sacrifice.

On the world of Swift and in the vast majority of civilized worlds in space, the community or government furnishes a salaried physician within reasonable reach of every home. The doctors of Swift are not expected to work night and day. They have shifts to divide the toil equally.

In architecture this distant planet excels us by far. I improved the opportunity and went to witness a magnificent temple of worship which has been in process of erection for over two hundred years. Any conceit that I previously had on account of the large structures of my own world quickly vanished at the sight of this imposing edifice. During my visit the winged workers were laboring on the upper stories and I watched them with great wonderment as they descended from the clouds to carry materials to the