There are certain articles thought to be especially dangerous.  Newspapers are strictly forbidden,—­unless first steeped in a tincture of asbestos of a very dull color, expressly manufactured and supplied by the Governing Machine.  When properly saturated with the essence of dulness and death, and brought down from a glaring white and black to a decidedly ashy-gray neutral color, a few small newspapers are permitted to be circulated, but with the greatest caution.  They sometimes take fire, it is said,—­these journals,—­when brought too near any brain overcharged with electricity.  Two or three times, it is said, the Governing Machine has been put out of order by the newspapers and their readers bringing too much electro-magnetism (or something like it) to bear on parts of the works;—­the machine had even taken fire and been nearly burnt up, and the head engineer got so singed that he never dared to take the management of the works again.

So it is thought that nothing is so unfavorable to the working of the wheels as light, heat, electricity, magnetism, and, generally, all the imponderable and uncatchable essences that float about in the air; and these, it is thought, are generated and diffused by these villanous newspapers.  Certain kinds of books are also forbidden, as being electric conductors.  Most of the books allowed in the city of Grindwell are so heavy, that they are thought to be usually non-conductors, and therefore quite safe in the hands of the people.

It is at the city gates that most vigilance is required with regard to the prohibited articles.  There the poor fellows who keep the gates have no rest night or day,—­so many suspicious-looking boxes, bundles, bales, and barrels claim admittance.  Quantities of articles are arrested and prevented from entering.  Nothing that can in any way interfere with the great machine can come in.  Newspapers and books from other countries are torn and burnt up.  Speaking-trumpets, ear-trumpets, spectacles, microscopes, spy-glasses, telescopes, and, generally, all instruments and contrivances for extending the sphere of ordinary knowledge, are very narrowly examined before they are admitted.  The only trumpets freely allowed are of a musical sort, fit to amuse the people,—­the only spectacles, green goggles to keep out the glare of truth’s sunshine,—­the magnifying-glasses, those which exaggerate the proportions of the imperial governor of the machinery.  All sorts of moral lightning-rods and telegraph-wires are arrested, and lie in great piles outside the city walls.

But in spite of the utmost vigilance and care of the officers at the gates and the sentinels on the thick walls, dangerous articles and dangerous people will pass in.  A man like Kossuth or Mazzini going through would produce such a current of the electric fluid, that the machine would be in great danger of combustion.  Remonstrances were sometimes sent to neighboring cities, to the effect that they should