From internal evidences we are convinced that the narrative
which follows was not reduced to writing till the twenty-
ninth century. Not only was it unlawful to write or print
such matter during that period, but the working-class was so
illiterate that only in rare instances were its members able
to read and write. This was the dark reign of the overman,
in whose speech the great mass of the people were
characterized as the “herd animals.” All literacy was
frowned upon and stamped out. From the statute-books of the
times may be instanced that black law that made it a capital
offence for any man, no matter of what class, to teach even
the alphabet to a member of the working-class. Such
stringent limitation of education to the ruling class was
necessary if that class was to continue to rule.
One result of the foregoing was the development of the
professional story-tellers. These story-tellers were paid by
the oligarchy, and the tales they told were legendary,
mythical, romantic, and harmless. But the spirit of freedom
never quite died out, and agitators, under the guise of
story-tellers, preached revolt to the slave class. That the
following tale was banned by the oligarchs we have proof
from the records of the criminal police court of Ashbury,
wherein, on January 27, 2734, one John Tourney, found guilty
of telling the tale in a boozing-ken of labourers, was
sentenced to five years' penal servitude in the borax mines
of the Arizona Desert.--EDITOR'S NOTE.]
Listen, my brothers, and I will tell you a tale of an arm. It was the
arm of Tom Dixon, and Tom Dixon was a weaver of the first class in a
factory of that hell-hound and master, Roger Vanderwater. This factory
was called “Hell's Bottom”... by the slaves who toiled in it, and I
guess they ought to know; and it was situated in Kingsbury, at the other
end of the town from Vanderwater's summer palace. You do not know where
Kingsbury is? There are many things, my brothers, that you do not know,
and it is sad. It is because you do not know that you are slaves. When I
have told you this tale, I should like to form a class among you for the
learning of written and printed speech. Our masters read and write and
possess many books, and it is because of that that they are our masters,
and live in palaces, and do not work. When the toilers learn to read
and write--all of them--they will grow strong; then they will use their
strength to break their bonds, and there will be no more masters and no
more slaves.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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