The Darkest Hours - 18 Chilling Dystopias in One Edition. Samuel Butler
Читать онлайн книгу.
the only logical order. Everything has been carefully prescribed by the Department of Culture and the Department of Sociology, and the same plan is followed by all Foreign Observers, whatever city they may be visiting.”
We went first to a look-out tower which stood on a hill about a mile outside the town. Here we had a view of the surrounding country. The town lay in a bend of the river. It was not exactly picturesque, but the large number of new public buildings near the centre, the broad streets lined with villas, each surrounded by a garden in the large residential quarter on the western side, and even the orderly streets of houses and flats on the more thickly populated eastern side, produced altogether a fine effect. The country round was magnificent. Low wooded hills rose on three sides, backed by higher hills in the distance. Sheep talked almost learnedly about the geology of the district and the historical reasons for the situation of Bridgetown. Then he pointed out that the plan of the town was like a wheel. In the centre were the public buildings and squares. The main streets radiated like spokes, and between these came the residential quarters of the seven social classes; those of the first three on the west side, those of the fourth to the north and south, those of the fifth, sixth and seventh, to the east. On the east side also lay the factories, workshops and warehouses. The shops were arranged in a sort of ring running through the middle of each of the residential quarters.
“The seven social classes?” I asked. I had heard in a vague way of the existence of this arrangement, but had little idea what it meant.
“Yes,” answered Sheep, as if he were reading from a guide-book, “the first consists of the highest aristocracy, military and civil; the second, of the military and naval officers, all of noble birth; the third, of the highest mercantile class with an income of £5000 a year and the officials of the first grade in the Imperial civil service; the fourth, of the officials of the civil service of lower grades and the bulk of the professional classes; the fifth, of the skilled artisan class; the sixth, of the semi-skilled; and the seventh, of the menial industrial groups.”
I asked him to go over it again whilst I took a note for future reference.
The rest of the morning passed in listening to Sheep’s elaborate descriptions of the drainage and sewage systems, the water supply, the power and light and heat supply, the tramway system, the parcels system, the postal delivery system, the milk delivery system, all from the geographical point of view. After lunch we spent some time in going all over the town on the tramways. This completed the geographical survey.
At six o’clock I was deposited in the hotel just in time for dinner. Presently I prepared to go out to some place of amusement; but on attempting to leave the hotel I was stopped by the porter, who told me I could not leave the hotel unless accompanied by my conductor.
So I spent the evening in writing up my journal. During the day I had noticed that everywhere all the men were dressed in a sort of uniform, and that the colours of these uniforms corresponded to the rank or class of the wearers. Perhaps I ought to have mentioned this circumstance earlier, for certainly it was one of the first things I noticed when I began to go into the streets. The colours of the uniforms are very striking and even crude. They supply the only touch of the picturesque in Bridgetown, for, judging by my first day’s impressions of the town, I should imagine that the authorities responsible for rebuilding it have swept away every vestige of the tiny mediæval city which once existed on this spot and have replaced it by a perfectly uniform piece of Meccanian town-planning. In such a setting these uniforms strike one at first as out of place, but perhaps I have not yet grasped their purpose or significance. The colour of the uniforms of the members of the First Class is white; that of the Second Class, red or scarlet; of the Third, yellow; of the Fourth, green; of the Fifth, chocolate; of the Sixth, grey; of the Seventh, dark blue. But so far I have seen no white uniforms, and only a few scarlet. I saw several yellow uniforms to-day, but the most common were the green uniforms of the Fourth Class and the chocolate uniforms of the Fifth Class, to which the skilled artisans belong. Greys and dark blues were also fairly numerous; but what surprised me most of all was the small number of people to be seen in the streets. I must ask Sheep for the explanation of this.
Promptly at nine o’clock next morning Sub-Conductor of Foreign Observers Sheep made his appearance at the hotel, and we began our tour of the public buildings. He took me first to the ‘Import-Food-Hall,’ which stood alongside the railway on the outskirts of the town near the industrial quarter. It was a great warehouse through which all the food brought into the town has to pass before it is allowed to be sold in the markets and shops. (The sole exception is milk, which is distributed by municipal servants.) The building was very extensive and several stories high. The two ends were open for the passage of railway wagons. The architecture was not without a certain coarse dignity. The arches were decorated in Romanesque style, and the whole front facing the street was covered with rude sculptures in high relief of scenes connected with the production of food. The interior walls were covered with frescoes depicting similar scenes. Conductor Sheep grew almost enthusiastic over this exhibition of Meccanian Art. All these decorations, he said, had been executed by the students of the Bridgetown Art School. I was not altogether surprised to hear this; there was something so very naïve and obvious about the whole idea.
We next saw the municipal slaughter-houses, which were almost adjoining. Inspector Sheep informed me how many minutes it took to kill and prepare for the meat market a given number of cattle, sheep or pigs. He dilated on the perfection of the machinery for every process, and assured me that not a single drop of blood was wasted. The amount of every particular kind of animal food required for each week in the year was ascertained by the Sociological Department, and consequently there was no difficulty in regulating the supply. The perfection of the methods of preserving meat also effected some economy. Conductor Sheep assured me that the Meccanian slaughter-houses had become the models for all the civilised world, and that a former Director of the Bridgetown slaughter-houses had been lent to a foreign Government to organise the system of technical instruction for butchers.
The five markets were in five different parts of the city. They served to distribute perishable foods only, which were not allowed to be sold in the ordinary shops. All women in the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Classes were obliged to do their marketing in person. Each person was obliged to deal solely with one dealer for a year at a time, and to attend at the market at a particular hour, so that there should be no congestion and no waste of time on the part of the dealers. This, I suppose, explains the wonderful orderliness of these markets. There was no gossiping or chaffering. Whether the people enjoy this arrangement is a matter upon which Sheep did not enlighten me. He said it had been calculated by the Time Department that an economy of 50 per cent had been effected in the time spent upon the daily purchase of food since the introduction of the modern market system.
Foods that are not perishable are sold in the shops, and as regards certain articles there is the same system of choosing each year the shop at which one buys a particular article, whilst as regards others trade is free. The housewife must buy her bread always from the same baker; but things like mustard, spices, coffee or preserved food may be bought at any shop.
The sale of drink is regulated in a different way. The three lowest classes are not allowed to keep drink in their houses; but as the favourite national drink is a mild kind of beer which can be got in any restaurant, there is no apparent hardship in this regulation. The way in which excess is checked is very curious. The weekly budgets of every family, in all classes below the fourth, are checked by the authorities—by which department I do not know—and if the amount spent on drink exceeds a certain sum per head, a fine is inflicted and the offender warned. If the offence is persisted in, the offender is forbidden to buy any drink for a specified period. One might suppose that such regulations could easily be evaded; so they could in most countries, but not in Meccania. Everything is so perfectly scrutinised that no evasion seems possible—at any rate as far as the three lowest classes are concerned.
“This scrutiny of family budgets,” I remarked, “is it not resented and even evaded?”
“I do not think it is resented,” answered Sheep, “but it certainly cannot be evaded. Why should it be resented? The facts are only known to the officials, and in any case they would be required by the Sociological Department. How else could it obtain the necessary data for its researches?