microscopes, spy-glasses, telescopes, and, generally, all instruments
and contrivances for extending the sphere of ordinary knowledge, are
very narrowly examined before they are admitted. The only trumpets
freely allowed are of a musical sort, fit to amuse the people,--the
only spectacles, green goggles to keep out the glare of truth's
sunshine,--the magnifying-glasses, those which exaggerate the
proportions of the imperial governor of the machinery. All sorts of
moral lightning-rods and telegraph-wires are arrested, and lie in great
piles outside the city walls.

But in spite of the utmost vigilance and care of the officers at the
gates and the sentinels on the thick walls, dangerous articles and
dangerous people will pass in. A man like Kossuth or Mazzini going
through would produce such a current of the electric fluid, that the
machine would be in great danger of combustion. Remonstrances were
sometimes sent to neighboring cities, to the effect that they should
keep their light and heat to themselves, and not be throwing such strong
_reflections_ into the weak eyes of the Grindwellites, and putting in
danger the governmental powder-magazine,--as the machine-offices were
sometimes called. An inundation or bad harvest, producing a famine among
the poor, causes great alarm, and the government officers have a time of
it, running about distributing alms, or raising money to keep down the
price of bread. Thousands of servants in livery, armed with terrific
instruments for the destruction of life, are kept standing on and around
the walls of the city, ready at a moment's notice to shoot down any one
who makes any movement or demonstration in a direction contrary to
the laws of the machine. And to support this great crowd of liveried
lackeys, the people are squeezed like sponges, till they furnish the
necessary money.