1888.] HINTS TOWARD SMALL FARMING. 289 



grown by a brother of the grange, lodge, party, or church. 

 Unorganized people, free buyers for cash, will not let a dealer 

 refuse to deal in the good things that are shown on the street. 



The profit in secret societies consists in leaving a large class 

 outside to take advantage of. "When everybody is organized 

 secretly, and matched in solid ranks against each other, then there 

 can be no free trade, and organic expenses will consume the profits 

 of organization. 



Just now, I suspect — I know nothing, and I don't care to know 

 too much — that our largest secret societies are becoming too popu- 

 lar for profit, and the wiser members would be glad to have grasp- 

 ing, s6lfisb, and foolish people frightened away. Bright mechanics 

 and artisans may find a secret circle too large for their own credit. 

 Private methods in which many are trained will work insidiously, 

 at last, into all human institutions, open churches, and political 

 parties, till wives, even, may unite in some secret society to sup- 

 press their tedious husbands. We drown bedsteads to kill vermin, 

 and we smoke ships to exterminate rats. Some know that the 

 recent sinking of a great party was done under some such wide- 

 spread, saving impulse. 



There must be some good in secret societies or there would not 

 be so many sorts of them. Naturalists say there is some good in 

 worms, and we find one kind of vermin needful to destroy 

 another. 



A farmer's business is so spread out in broad day-light that he 

 is not expert in underhand tricks. Naturally, he fears and hates 

 them, because, lacking practice, he is easily beaten by them. 



Every extinct nation had its secret societies. Ireland, we read 

 of late, has been full of them. I don't know whether it is exactly 

 to the credit of a secret society to have outlasted — like the wander- 

 ing Jew — many national lives and civilizations. We ought, after 

 making so many awful failures in the world, to begin turning our 

 minds so squarely to the good of every man that no narrow, secret, 

 selfish, wire-pulling organization shall be allowed to sap the founda- 

 tions and outhve the State we are building. 



The devil himself, however, is never so black as he is painted. 

 The old story goes that he once had all the heavenly grips and 

 pass-words. We must not, according to the new testament, or 

 according to the best common-sense of our time, load ourselves 

 down with old hatreds. Rather let them drop into the furrow for 



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