And yet nihilism, socialism, the spirit of revolt, are more powerful than ever, and ere long will come the upheaval, when all shall be overturned and “the old shall pass away and all things become new.” The Russian nobility, with the Czar at their head, as the high priest of “caste,” are solely and entirely responsible for the spirit of anarchy and nihilism which is abroad in the domain of immense Russia. It is a fashion and the fancy of the sham aristocracy in this country to inveigh against anything like socialism, nihilism, and anarchism in America. Should the presence of this dread monster, called nihilism, ever be felt in America, the blame would rest entirely upon the shoulders of the sham aristocrats, just as the Czar and his nobles in Russia are responsible for its presence in that country. There must be a vent for the pent-up indignation of the people; this is, happily for us, found in the ballot-box. It is to this source of relief that we are indebted for the non-existence of socialism in America. It has not been the prudence, wisdom, or consideration of the sham aristocrats which prevents the growth of nihilism here. CHAPTER XIX. PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS IN ROME. There is a striking historical parallelism between the Anglo-Saxons in modern history and the Romans a thousand years before. The Romans conquered the world as the Anglo-Saxons are conquering the world. The Romans were the first race to found and maintain an empire as wide as the bounds of western civilization. Their characteristic qualities were, like those of the Anglo-Saxons, their supreme sense of duty, their respect for law, their great natural aptitude for government, their earnest practicality, their somewhat deficient sense of the beautiful, and their high military skill and discipline. But before Rome could begin her march toward her later position as mistress of the world she had to rid herself of the domestic incubus of an internal oligarchy. The authentic history of Rome--for the earlier annals of her seven kings are little more than legends--opens with the struggle of the Plebeians--the mass of her people--to break down the hereditary domination of the privileged “caste,” the Patricians, who had a monopoly of political power, had appropriated the whole of the public land, and by unjust laws had burdened the Plebeians with taxes and debts, and reduced many of them to actual slavery. In the year 495 B. C., there one day rushed into the crowded forum an old man, ragged and emaciated, his back covered with bloody stripes. He loudly proclaimed his history, which was that of hundreds of others. He had done service in several wars; his farm had been ravaged and burned, and his cattle driven away; to pay his taxes he had been forced into debt; his Patrician creditor had demanded a usurious interest, and had finally compelled him to work as a slave.