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“You have brought me here by force; I didn’t ask you to put
me in prison,” he said. “You must therefore feed me and
work for me. Let me go, and I shall work for myself and
never trouble you for aid.” Though they beat him
unmercifully, fastened him to a wheelbarrow, shut him in a solitary
cell, gave him bread and water only—he was unmoved.
Women have complete equality with men, and their only
union is that of free love. As a protest against the present
form of marriage they have given up the terms man and wife,
and say simply “friend.” This is illustrated by the extract
from a trial, where a man, a woman, and a little girl were before
the magistrate.
“Is that your wife?” said the judge. “No; that is not my
wife.”
“But you live with her?” “Yes; but she is not mine, she
belongs to herself.”
“Is that your husband?” he asked the woman. “No; that
is not my husband,” she said.
“What is he, then?” asked the astonished judge. “I need
him, and he needs me; that is all. But we belong each to
ourselves.”
“What of the girl, does she belong to you?” “No, she is
of our blood, but she is not ours; she belongs to herself.”
“What fools you are!” exclaimed the judge, impatiently.
“Does that coat you are wearing belong to you?” “No; it
does not belong to me.”
“What do you wear it for, then?” “I wear it so long as
you don’t take it from me. This skin was once on a sheep’s
back, now it is on mine; to-morrow it may, perhaps, be on yours.
Why do you want me to know to whom it belongs? Nothing
belongs to me except my thoughts, my understanding, &c.”
Pessimists and agnostics as they are, they yet have an ideal
which they believe will be realised in the distant future. A
last judgment shall come on the earth, a terrible struggle
between the evil and the good, a kind of Battle of Armageddon,
in which the good will triumph, and a kingdom founded on
truth and justice will be established on the earth.
There is very little connected knowledge of this strange sect,
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