Louisa Sarah Bevington
Common-Sense Country
(1890)
************
About the print version:
Common-Sense Country
By
L.S. Bevington
London
Printed and Published by James Tochatti, "Liberty" Press,
60, Grove Park Terrace
Chiswick.
************
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Common-Sense Country.
There was a country where Common-sense had somehow got the upper hand.
In that country sense was as common as lunacy is in a madhouse. There was a
place for everything, and everything was either in that place, or else was on
the direct way there--the shortest way, the easiest way, the cheapest way. In
that country everybody was brought up with the notion that the simplest plan in
everything served everybody's turn best, even the clever people's; and it was
taken as a matter of course that if things did not go wrong people wouldn't.
They read in their books of history and comparative sociology that in countries
where things do go wrong, people go wrong too, in the blind, blundering attempt
to straighten things back a bit. But in Common-sense Country it was always said
when things went wrong that there had been some nonsense--that is, empty
word-play--in the heads or habits of the people, which had diverted attention
from realities, and caused the people to let things wander out of the way.
In Common-sense Country all the commodities and goods, all the
instruments, utensils, and appliances--in short, all the "things"--had very
simple and unadventurous biographies, and, if they could have spoken, they would
not have had much harrowing information to impart about the ravages of their
tissues and textures caused by moth and rust, not yet of vicissitudes incurred at the hands of thieves breaking through to steal. "I was
needed: I was made: I was conveyed: I was applied: I was consumed." That would
have summed up the history of a thing in the country where things went right:
only five short chapters. In most countries, of course, all sorts of distressing
and distracting other chapters intervene. Thus: "I was coveted: I was done
without: I was lied for: I was hated for: I was speculated in: I was
adulterated: I was advertised: I was legislated about: I was sold (and my buyer
with me): I was squandered: I was hoarded: I was quarrelled over: I was fought
for: I was burgled: I was bombed."
In Common-sense Country there was a job for everyone, and everyone was
merrily, ardently, or placidly doing that job. No one was doing mere "business"
and calling it work. No one was doing real work and feeling it "toil". Dull jobs
were done in short spells by an immense number of people; delightful jobs were
worked at for the pleasure of the thing, in longer spells, and by a fewer number
of people. It fell out so, naturally, and because of common sense; nobody had to
be at the trouble of enforcing the arrangement. The man with the dullest or most
fatiguing job, as a matter of course, got the longest leisure for re-creation of
his naturally flagging zest for the job. The man with the most pleasureable and
healthy job hardly knew leisure from job. The kindliest and most able-bodied and
jolliest of the people had common-sense reasons for attending to the least
appetizing tasks. Everybody knew they wanted doing; and these kindly, vigorous,
and jolly folks were those who cared most about getting them done, and cared
least about minor disagreeables. They also liked the peculiar way in which other
people shook hands with them for it, and more than made it good to them in the
way of respect and hospitality wherever they went.
You never saw any feet without shoes in cold weather in Common-sense
Country. And you never saw any shoes heaped up thousands thick in warehouses
with no feet to put into them. Common-sense citizens had grave objections, not
only to cold, discomfort, and disease, but also grave objections to the enormous
expense of thought, time, material, and goodwill, necessarily involved in any
and every measure for keeping empty shoes warm indoors, and human feet cold
outside in the street. You never came to a place in any Common-sense city where,
by turning your head to the right, you could see one horn of a dilemma in the
shape of a lot of grain or fish being destroyed on the lunatic excuse that it
could not be sold for more than it cost, while by turning your head to the left
the other horn of the dilemma became visible in the shape of men and women (with
their children) hungry, worried, and constantly at their wits' end, only because
they could not buy back the comestibles they had ploughed, reaped, milled,
fished, and otherwise laboured to bring within human reach.
In Common-sense Country there were no jerry built houses, because people
could not see any reason for making insecure and unhealthy dwellings. There were
no ground landlords to make it disadvantageous to any builder to build honestly;
no builders so hard pressed, therefore, that they were obliged to cause the
masons to scamp work, use limeless mortar, or unseasoned wood. No builder or
mason, moreover, had (in the name of common-sense) any object whatever in view
so immediately as the supplying of buildings wanted for use. He built houses for
bakers, clothiers, artists, and all sorts of other useful persons; and these
lived in the houses and produced food, clothing, works of art, and all sorts of
other useful things for the builder in exchange.
There was no waste of any energy or of any talent in Common-sense
Country. There were no churches and temples made with hands; because hands had
better things to do than build prisons to shut up souls in. Also because in
strict common sense the sky was holy enough to "sit under," and even to sing
spiritual songs under. Besides, Common-senseites had discovered that you could
not get the sun and fixed stars and all their lesser lights into the biggest of
temples ever made with hands. In Common-sense Country people like daylight for
their minds and morals as well as for their bodies; and found it cheapest in the
long run.
There were next to no shipwrecks on the coasts of Common-sense Country;
no one raced any ships to port in all weathers for the nonsensical reason of
getting in before other ships. People on shore could always afford to wait a day
or so for the weather, better than they could afford to kill men, sink ships,
and spoil cargoes through running amuck at nature's meteorological arrangements.
It did not matter a jot to any one which ship got in first, since all ships were
full of supplies, and sure to drop in, in natural order, as fast as needed. What
sense of hurry there was, founded of course on experience of the inconvenience
of waiting, led to all possible improvements in the art and science of
ship-building and engine-building, so that wind-and-wave difficulties had been
reduced to a minimum. So there was no colliding in fogs, no bursting of boilers,
no over-lading, and no un-seaworthy craft; also no "Lloyd's" agencies, to
speculate on anyone's want of common-sense, and to live as parasites on the low
moral vitality of the public, making profit at its expense. When folk talk of
"insuring" in that country, they always meant making as sure as possible against
chances of mishap. To insure a ship was to build her well, fit her well, man her
well, to steer clear of shoals, and keep her in sound repair. Likewise with the
insurance of houses. And to insure your life, you ...
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