 accumulations of personal property are merely burden
some the moment they exceed what adds to the real comfort. In your day, if a man
had a house crammed full with gold and silver plate, rare china, expensive
furniture, and such things, he was considered rich, for these things represented
money, and could at any time be turned into it. Nowadays a man whom the legacies
of a hundred relatives, simultaneously dying, should place in a similar
position, would be considered very unlucky. The articles, not being salable,
would be of no value to him except for their actual use or the enjoyment of
their beauty. On the other hand, his income remaining the same, he would have to
deplete his credit to hire houses to store the goods in, and still further to
pay for the service of those who took care of them. You may be very sure that
such a man would lose no time in scattering among his friends possessions which
only made him the poorer, and that none of those friends would accept more of
them than they could easily spare room for and time to attend to. You see, then,
that to prohibit the inheritance of personal property with a view to prevent
great accumulations would be a superfluous precaution for the nation. The
individual citizen can be trusted to see that he is not overburdened. So careful
is he in this respect, that the relatives usually waive claim to most of the
effects of deceased friends, reserving only particular objects. The nation takes
charge of the resigned chattels, and turns such as are of value into the common
stock once more.«
    »You spoke of paying for service to take care of your houses,« said I; »that
suggests a question I have several times been on the point of asking. How have
you disposed of the problem of domestic service? Who are willing to be domestic
servants in a community where all are social equals? Our ladies found it hard
enough to find such even when there was little pretense of social equality.«
    »It is precisely because we are all social equals whose equality nothing can
compromise, and because service is honorable, in a society whose fundamental
principle is that all in turn shall serve the rest, that we could easily provide
a corps of domestic servants such as you never dreamed of, if we needed them,«
replied Dr. Leete. »But we do not need them.«
    »Who does your house-work, then?« I asked.
    »There is none to do,« said Mrs. Leete, to whom I had addressed this
question.
