Page:The Eleventh Virgin.pdf/185

This page needs to be proofread.

CHAPTER III.

Everyone in the radical movement had gone to jail at some time or another for at least 2 few days, if not a few years. June had not yet had that experience, but she had heard many talk of it.

There were the eleven radicals living in a single tax colony in Delaware who had come into conflict with one of the old Delaware Blue Laws which read “Thou shalt indulge in no worldly amusement on the Sabbath.”

A number of anarchists, as well as socialists and single taxers were living in the colony at the time. At a meeting of the socialist local a feud was begun between the anarchists and the socialists because the latter refused to allow one of the most insistent of the former to hold the floor. He had been in the habit of attending every meeting and pestering the members of the local with long speeches until they felt that they could no longer endure it. In a less civilized community, they would have thrown him out bodily or given him a thrashing on his way to the meeting-room to teach him better manners. A long argument was held as to whether they should use force to rid themselves of the nuisance. Decid-

ing that it would savor of anarchy, they asked the

[180]