Workmen's advocate., 1890-06-14
EPISTLES OF RADICAL JACK,
 OR THE REVELATIONS OF A TRAMP.
OR THE
EPISTLE ".

master, l am punching out heels, sort ing, and odd -jobbing in the stock-room of Boston shoe factory: working with a lot of fellows who don't pan out ten cents worth of manliness to the ton. Many and many time, the narrow greed and broad ignorance of some of the civilized people I have had to associate with have so discouraged me as to make me wish l had never left my Crusoe | Island.
 When my shipmate (Jim Slater and l were cast away, we were two common | place fellows. When we were rescued, we were philosophers. We had been out of reach of newspapers, books and babblers for two years, and had done a vast deal of private thinking.
 Some time, may try to write regu- lar story of my life on many seas and in many lands; but noa0 am not story telling, but moralizing. Yet I have something to tell of my island experience.
 Jim Slater and l, constituting the total population of the island, had little difficulty in holding caucuses or con- ventions; but it acdS sometimes difficult to get unanimous vote, and quite im- possible to get a majority vote that was not unanimous. We did not, however, have any political voting. We contrived to do without any Government, standing | army, police, and taxes; and though we had some money, we never found any use for it. If another fellow had been cast away after we two first settlers had got possession of the island, we might have refused to let him live unless he paid HIS rent for our land, with the money we would lend him, and for which he would have to pay as much rent as for the land. Thus, we should keep getting our money back, to lend him again; and we two chaps would have lived like lords and gentlemen, without turning hand. We should have been the Government, the Upper Glass, the Party of Order, and the Conservators of Property. But the third fellow didn't come; we had to do all our own work. and our money didn't do us a bit of good.
 Say! Did you ever imagine that euerg- body might be rich? Not all the arch angels could make everybody rich; for the riches of one personals the word r7ches is now derstood-inevitabl imply the poverty of other persons. Just master this problem. Would all the people of the world be richer, if they had just thousand dollars each than they would if they had just ten cents each? That was one of the easiest of the | hundreds of problems that Jim Slater and 1 solved on our little island.
 ''Jack," said he, one Sunday, ''this is the parsons workday, and I've been | thinking how cur'us it is about that commandment"
 "Whot commandment" I asked.
 About the Sabbath, as they calls it." said Jim. "You see, Jack, i, says as | week. Now ain't them parsons break | ing that there commandment" l handn't thought much about the old commandments, since 1 was boy, and it took me some time to recall the exact wording of the one Jim referred to- "Sir days shdH thou labor" Then I remembered that the parsons had always skinned very lightly over that part, (which was intended as the most impor- | tant-for how can anyone ''rest" who doesn't labor ? and that they dwelt very unctuously and emphaticalIy on the tail end, and explained it to suit their own | private interests. l discovered by | thinking without textbook all who do not labor six days week break one end of the commandment, and that the parsons (who loaf six days and work for their living on the seventh break both ends.
 We were religious, in our simple way Jim and I; but we didn't pile up a heap of stones and call it a ''place of worship" The royal arch of heaven seemed more worshipful than any arch we could build, and we contrived to get along without hymn-book, an organ, a professional praying man, or a pro- fessional begging.box. l suppose we weren't very ''genteep' or respectable, especially as we didn't wear stove-pipe I hats on our heads or leather bags on our hands, but logged along, peaceably, in our own uncivillzed, rude, homely. natural way. (How is it that to be "in a state of nature Is so shocking to some civilized people? Do they think the devil is the author of Nature ?
 Well.-I haze been forgetting myself, and but please put line of stars, ! dear, persecuted Mir. Printer.
 When I began writing this Fourth