Since it is not given one soul to be perfect in everything, and since the attempted study of everything would result in perfection in nothing, each individual hopes to become more speedily sure of final perfection by using all available means of improvement in what is at present the chief business of life, and by attending the lectures provided by the Guardian for the purpose of elucidating the most intricate technicalities of each trade and profession in existence. The Lecturers are chosen by the State, and are all paid a uniform salary. As many places would be too small to repay for the domiciling of a complete staff of Lecturers in their midst, a system of travelling prevails, whereby the Lecturers travel from one place to another, so that each member of the community may have opportunities of attaining individual perfection by receiving public instruction in her or his special vocation. All railways, water companies, and similar great undertakings are in the hands of the State, which receives all surplus profits, and pays its employés more liberally than private companies ever did in former days. A fixed percentage is always taken by the State. Should the proceeds be more than the State percentage, the surplus becomes the perquisite of the working staff, who thus receive a graduated addition to their income. Should bad work or bad management reduce the profits, the State still takes its fixed percentage, and it is thus made the individual interest of all persons employed by the State to do their best to promote the success of whatever department of State labour is entrusted to them. The Teuto-Scots were guilty of many practices which are rigorously prohibited in New Amazonia. One of these was the use of the dried leaves of a plant called tobacco; by some it was put in the mouth, and the juice masticated out of it. By the majority of users it was slowly burnt, and the resulting smoke allowed to pass into the mouth, to be emitted immediately after in clouds of an unpleasant, choking nature. The practice is in many old works described as dirty and offensive; yet it is an undoubted fact that the discontinuance of the use of tobacco was so rebelled against, and so distasteful to many New Amazonian women, that frequent expulsions from the country took place before the custom was stamped out. In all times there have been many vices attributed to the habit of imbibing fluids, which were so remarkable in their effects, that the users of them were deprived of both sense and motion, besides suffering bodily illness. It is the boast of New Amazonia that an intoxicant cannot be procured in the island, and that all existing establishments for the manufacture of these dangerous compounds were devoted to more noble uses.