PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1957, 27 August 1891, Page 36

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Caesar's Column.

If you analyse the telegrams for the past three or four weeks you cannot but be struck with the number that refer to war growlings — civil and international— and to social'discontent. I intended some time ago giving a brief outline of the what might be called sopial economic novels, which deal with the future, and show or shadow forth the possible state of civilisation when our earth will have become a little heaven below. Of those I have read, " Looking Forward," " Looking Backward," and " News from Nowhere " deal with a blissful future, only a century ahead, too, when "To err is human" won't be applicable ; " Metzerott the Shoemaker " and " Mervale Eastman the Christian Socialist " deal with the. present' transition stage, but tend to a good time coming. These, however, I do not now intend to touch on, but the latest addition to the social problem series of fictional works,

, "Caesar's Coi/chhn," I intend to make the {subject of my notes to-day. It deals with New York in 1889, but applies to the whole civilised wprld, wb)en, by the present tendency to rings, syndicates, &c, and to a downward morality and want of religion, a pampered plutocracy gets into power. By that time the struggle for, dollars will hays developed a mass of humanity cast largely in one mould. The physique of the men belonging to the plutocracy will be splendid, the features regular, firm, and squarely set, bnt lit up or darkened — which you will — with incredulity, cunning, unbelief, and heartlessness. The women, too, will be commanding, clear-complexioned, keen-eyed, and lovely, but loveless and calculating. In fact 100 years is to bring a civilisation that will be a drealful failure, for seven-tenths of the hujnan race will be in hopeless poverty, with minds dark and despairing, and with souls crying out bitterly against the Author of the Universe. To such depths is the proletariat driven that he would mortgage his soul and trade his Maker for lOOdol.

To keep down the mutterings and sputterings of the masses the Oligarchy have standing armies which are simply armed police. They also control aerial war ships, which, though light, are strong, because built of aluminium. These terrible vessels sail over a hostile force and drop into its midst great bombs loaded with deadly explosives mixed with bullets. Where one of these drops the ground looks like the crater of an extinct volcano, with circles of dead levelled in every direction ; in addition they are furnished with bombs filled with a subtle vaporous poison which, when the shell bursts, being heavier than air, rolls, like a slow blot that spreads steadily over the earth in all directions, bringing sudden death to those who breathe it. So when an outbreak occurs, they hover like great foul birds, dark-winged over the insurgents, and with a single bomb inspire such terror that the contest is at an end.

Opposed to the wealth that controls such infernal machines, and that laughs at the masses that it exploits, is the

BROTHERHOOD OF DESTRUCTION,

which seeks to establish universal justice, whioh means the giving of equal opportunities to all men, and a repression by law of those gigantic abnormal selfishnesses whioh ruin millions for the benefit of thousands. Usury is to be abolished ; large fortunes are to be made an impossibility, for they are usually the accumulation of wreckage, and every dollar represents disaster, and so on, . The organisation of the Brotherhood is so cunningly contrived that the Council of the Plutocracy, though aware of its existence, cannot for a long time get any definite information as to its strength in numbers and means of attack. It is made up of tens, and no one can possibly betray more than nine of the confederation. Eaoh 10 has a leader ap«

pointed by a higher power, and these leaders, known to one another only by numbers, meet masked in tens, and are in turn commanded by others ; and so the scale rises, culminating in a council of 100 controlled by an executive of three. Every commander of 10 has 10 magazine rifles holding 100 bullets, and as destructive as a Galling, and each 10 rifles are buried in a rubber sack ready at any instant for use. In this way 200,000,000 drilled and armed, couchant, silent, treacherous, pardlike, yefc with blood-shot, glaring eyes and tense-drawn limbs are ready for the fatal spring. The Mamelukes of the air however are for a time faithful to the Plutocracy, though constantly increasing their demands for pay, and the secret of the gas bombs cannot be got.

At last a spy manages to work himself up to the Council of the Hundred, and details all information he gets at a meeting of the Plutocratic Council, held in the palace of Prince Cabano, beside whose wealth that of Baron Hirsch's, the millionaire Moses of the nineteenth century, is but a shadow. Realising the gravity of the situation, it is agreed that if necessary 10,000,000 of the " canaille" are to die. A friend of the Brotherhood is, however, secreted in a conservatory adjoinin ?, and the whole plot is betrayed. Shortly after the commanders of the aerial warships are brought over unknown to the Oligarchy, and when the revolt brakes out the Plutocrat, and not the Proletariat, is shot or smothered in multitudes.

OESAB'S COLUMN.

Then comes the act that gives its name to the book. The head of the Executive was Caesar, a man of Italian descent, of an immense size, and possessing considerable ability and undaunted courage. He had possessed a farm, but accumulated interest on a mortgage, combined with misfortunes, forced him under. In addition, his family happiness was ruined by one of the creatures of the Plutocracy. He took to the mountains and in company with a gentleman whose father had been imprisoned for life, at first raised insurrections but afterwards organised the 11 Brotherhood of Destruction," which did its work only too well.

Cassar on the overthrow of the Plutocracy established himself in Prince Cabano's palace as a dictator — a veritable king dcvil — and gave his passions unbridled license. When asked what should be done with the thousands of bodies that were breeding a pestilence, an idea struck him, |and with an oath he exclaimed : " I have it ! I have it I Make a pyramid of them, and pour cement over them, and let it stand for ever as a monument of this glorious day's work ! Hurrah I " The idea was carried out, course upon course of bodies being built and cemented ; and that no one might dare to destroy the column it was loaded with dynamite bombs in such a manner that if the structure were disturbed the city would be destroyed as by an earthquake. And so the revolution was accomplished. But with what result 1 Csesar made Such a beast of himself and behaved so arrogantly that in 24 hours the mob had his head stuck on ( a pole and were in search of the remaining two members of the executive. One, a Jew, the brains of the Brotherhood, had taken flight in an air ship with 100,000,000dol ; and the other, who was the bank on Tvhich the Brotherhood drew for money — for he was a rich man, seeing that the revolution had brought hopeless anarchy, also fled or flew in an air, ship for a primitive State in the centre of Africa.

On leaving, a friend whose guest he wag to -be, said, "What will those millione do tomorrow 1 "

♦'Starve and devour each other," he said.

'.' Will not civil government rise again out of this ruin?"

11 Not for a long time. Ignorance, passion, suspicion, brutality, criminality will be the lions in the path." He then traces the efforts to reconstruct society?; but the efforts",only result in tragedies, running through and ending in catastrophes, because they spring from a wrong basis. Something more than might is wanted to regenerate the world. The last chapter or two is devoted to the description of the ideal State which is founded in Africa. It sounds prettily, but in practice I am afraid but little improvement^would be made on the present state of affairs. The book is strongly written, but I won't go so far as an American paper did, and say that what " Uncle Tom's Cabin" did toward the downfall of slavery, " Cassar's Column " will do towards the downfall of a pampered plutocracy.