Thomas Spence had a shop in High Holborn from which he published little pamphlets of rough philosophy, called Pig’s Meat; in 1795 he issued A Description of Spensonia, which was followed in 1801 by The Constitution of Spensonia: A Country in Fairyland situated between Utopia and Oceana; brought from thence by Captain Swallow. Spence’s title to have written a complete utopia rests upon the fact that he proposes a return to an environment which had once been, in its fashion, complete. Spensonia begins with a parable about a father who had a number of sons, who built them a ship for traffic, and who provided that the profits of the enterprise were to be shared in common. This ship is wrecked upon an island; and the sons quickly awake to the conclusion that if “they did not apply the Marine Constitution given them by their father to their landed property, they would soon experience inexpressible inconveniences. They therefore declared the property of the island to be the property of them all collectively, in the same manner as the ship had been, and that they ought to share the profits thereof in the same way. The island they named Spensonia, after the ship which their father had given them. They next chose officers to mark out such portions of the land, as every person or family desired to occupy, for which they were to receive for the use of the public a certain rent according to its value. This rent was applied to public uses or divided among themselves as they thought proper. But in order to keep up the remembrance of their rights, they decreed that they should never fail to share at rent-time, an equal dividend, though ever so small, and though the public demands should be ever so urgent.... As they had determined, when seeing that every ship they should build and man, should ... be the property of the crew, so, in conformity therewith, they decreed that every district or parish which they should people, should be the property of the inhabitants, and the rent and police of the same at their disposal.... A National Assembly or Congress consisting of delegates from all the parishes takes care of the national concerns, and defrays the expenses of the state and matters of common utility, by a pound rate from each parish without any other tax.” What is a parish and what is its work? Look around the English countryside and see. A parish, to begin with, is a “compact portion of the country, designedly not too large that it may the more easily be managed by the inhabitants with respect to its revenues and the police.”