"If," he said, "in giving you this sketch of the process by which our
present social order has been established, I should mention a class or
party who have stood at certain times distinctly apart from or in
opposition to the majority, I must, in the first place, beg you to ask
no questions about them, and in the next not to repeat incautiously
the little I may tell you, or to show, by asking questions of others,
what you have heard from me."
I gave my promise frankly, of course, and he then gave me the
following sketch of Martial history:--
We date events from the union of all races and nations in a single
State, a union which was formally established 13,218 years ago. At
that time the large majority of the inhabitants of this planet
possessed no other property than their houses, clothes, and tools,
their furniture, and a few other trifles. The land was owned by fewer
than 400,000 proprietors. Those who possessed movable wealth may have
numbered thrice as many. Political and social power was in the hands
of the owners of property, and of those, generally connected with them
by birth or marriage, who were at any rate not dependent on manual
labour for their bread.
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