New Amazonia: A Foretaste of the Future. Mrs. George Corbett
for a married woman to hold property in her own right. She might earn, or in any other way acquire, a large fortune. Her husband could take and squander every penny of it, without the least fear of being taxed with having done more than he had a perfect right to do.” “Your England, as you call it, must be a strange country,” said Principal Grey. “But I cannot quite make out where it is. I am not considered ignorant in matters appertaining to history and geography, but I am unable to locate this England of yours. Once upon a time, a matter of a thousand years ago, the neighbouring island, which is now called Teuto-Scotland, was called Albion, and later on England, but we have always understood ourselves to be the only race living which is at all representative of England and the ancient English.”
“And what country is this?” I enquired in my turn, marvelling much to hear this giantess speak of “the ancient English.”
“This country is New Amazonia. A long time ago it was called Erin by some, but Ireland was the name it was best known by. It used to be the scene of perpetual strife and warfare. Our archives tell us that it was subjugated by the warlike English, and that it suffered for centuries from want and oppression. The land was appropriated by English mercenaries, who exacted enormous rents, which they spent anywhere but in Ireland. Famines, attempted revolutions and conspiracies, unjust repressive laws, and all sorts of calamities are said to have ruined and depopulated the country until the wars arose which resulted in our coming here. But as all is so strange here to you, you shall, if you care about it, be taken out this evening, and then you will be better able to judge what sort of people we are. Meanwhile, our duties must be attended to. Hilda, be good enough to take this woman to your room, until we can make other arrangements, and—oh dear, there is the little gentleman! What shall we do with him?”
The Honourable Augustus was being conducted through the principal reception rooms of the college, for such the building was, and the question of his ultimate disposal could be discussed without the embarrassment which his presence might perhaps have entailed.
“Suppose we request Mr. Medlock to take him until he decides what his future arrangements will be?” suggested Professor Wise, a lady who had hitherto taken no part in the conversation. “It would never do to let him sleep in the college for a night! The poor little thing’s character would be irretrievably compromised.”
“Of course it would,” agreed Principal Grey, and she set about making the necessary arrangements forthwith, while I, wondering if I had been asleep for five or six centuries, followed Hilda to the upper story in which her sleeping room was situated. But long before I reached it I felt tired to death. The marble stairs were exceedingly massive, and were apparently interminable, while the beautiful banister rails were too large for me to grasp them with my hand, and thus help myself up. I was at last compelled to sit down exhausted, feeling that not one more step could I mount.
Hilda looked at me in astonishment, as I sat panting with my unwonted exertions. “Is it possible,” she cried, “that the walk up these few steps has exhausted you? You must be ill, or is it the fault of the queer clothes that you wear that you are incapable of taking exercise? But whichever way it is, you cannot sit here, so be kind enough to excuse me.”
The next moment I was lifted up as if I were a child, and Hilda ran nimbly up another long flight of steps with me, finally depositing me in a room that was very handsomely furnished, though most of the articles in it were of a style the like whereof I had never seen before. Seeing that I had apparently been Rip-van-Winkelized for about six hundred years, this is not at all surprising.
But I could not help noticing a piano, which was the facsimile of one which was in my own possession before I fell asleep. In fact, I had an idea that it was the very same piano, though how it got here I could not imagine. Hilda saw me looking at it, and did not remove my mystification by remarking, “Yes, it is a curious old thing, isn’t it, and in excellent preservation, I believe. We have several more of them in the capital, all formerly owned by Englishwomen who originally settled in Dublin after the wars.”
“Then is this Dublin?” I asked. “If so, I am not so very far from home, after all.”
“This place used to be called Dublin in the time of the ancient Irish, but when the country was turned over to what was then contemptuously called ‘petticoat government,’ nearly all place-names were changed, and the names of famous women applied to them. Thus we have Fawcetville, Beecherstown, Weldonia, Besantsville, Jarrettburn, and hundreds of other names, the etymological origin of which is easily traceable. In fact, it is one of our laws that no town or village shall receive a name which does not commemorate some woman who has done all she could to advance the interests of her sex.”
Our conversation lasted awhile longer, but Hilda had her studies to attend to, and after reaching several books from a bookshelf for me to amuse myself with during her absence, she left me for awhile to my own devices promising to do all she could to make my visit a pleasant one.
There were many things here to arouse my curiosity, but I was most anxious to see if the books were printed in a style which I could understand, as I hoped to gain a great deal of information relative to the strange land in which I found myself, through no effort of will on my own part.
Fortunately I found the type and paper very beautiful, and with the exception that the spelling was considerably more phonetic than that in vogue with us, I found very little difference between our language as at present printed, and as exponed in the pages of “The History of Amazonia,” which was the first book I opened.
I must have spent at least two hours in close reading, and if anyone would like to know the results of my investigations in posthumous history, she or he will find them recorded in the next chapter.
CHAPTER III.
The history began with a brief resumé of such events as school books had long ago made me tolerably familiar with, but went on to say that it was in the reign of Victoria that the incidents which ultimately resulted in the disruption of the British Empire took place, though the final decisive steps did not eventuate until towards the close of the reign of her successor, who used his utmost endeavours to secure justice for all his subjects. But the factious discontent had been growing for so many years, that it was impossible for him, when he did at last come into power, to retrieve all the errors, and undo all the mischief, which had been done during the reign of his predecessor.
Ireland especially was troublesome, for it had always been made to feel that it was a subjugated State. The Sovereign sedulously petted and spoiled the northern portion of her dominions, and was so inordinately fond of everything Scotch, that even the English grew jealous, when year after year the Sovereign’s chief desire seemed to be to prove that she possessed no English sympathies whatever, and that she positively declined to show the light of her countenance to any but Scotch subjects or German relatives, if she could help it.
The principal emoluments of the State fell to the share of alien Germans, and British taxpayers were ground to the dust, while scores of thousands of pounds of their money crossed the Channel for the support of Germans, some of whom were not too illustriously born, but all of whom found favour in the eyes of Victoria Regina.
A great deal of encouragement being thus given to the Germans and Scots, who were always willing to accept conditions to which the English found it impossible to bow, England became over-run with them, so much so, indeed, that the natives of the soil found it necessary to emigrate to other countries, in order to earn their livelihood, and England itself gradually became the principal abiding-place of a hybrid race, who were known as Teuto-Scots.
All this time Ireland languished in a state of neglect and discontent, which was eventually fanned into a fierce flame in consequence of the treatment bestowed by the English Government upon certain patriots whom they revered. There were several facsimile copies of allegorical documents which so evidently referred to events which occurred in my own time in England, and which were so prominently instanced as the predisposing causes of the Irish revolution, that I subsequently took the trouble of copying one of them, and give it