It needs hardly to be stated that in their personal affairs these people pursue an entirely different course, for if they did not there could be no profitable industries and professions among them, and no property to tax for the support of their government.  In his private business a Tamtonian has as high appreciation of fitness and experience as anybody, and having secured a good man keeps him in service as long as possible.

The ruler of the nation, whom they call a Tnediserp, is chosen every five years but may be rechosen for five more.  He is supposed to be selected by the people themselves, but in reality they have nothing to do with his selection.  The method of choosing a man for Tnediserp is so strange that I doubt my ability to make it clear.

The adult male population of the island divides itself into two or more seitrap[1] Commonly there are three or four, but only two ever have any considerable numerical strength, and none is ever strong morally or intellectually.  All the members of each ytrap profess the same political opinions, which are provided for them by their leaders every five years and written down on pieces of paper so that they will not be forgotten.  The moment that any Tamtonian has read his piece of paper, or mroftalp, he unhesitatingly adopts all the opinions that he finds written on it, sometimes as many as forty or fifty, although these may be altogether different from, or even antagonistic to, those with which he was supplied five years before and has been advocating ever since.  It will be seen from this that the Tamtonian mind is a thing whose processes no American can hope to respect, or even understand.  It is instantaneously convinced without either fact or argument, and when these are afterward presented they only confirm it in its miraculous conviction; those which make against that conviction having an even stronger confirmatory power than the others.  I have said any Tamtonian, but that is an overstatement.  A few usually persist in thinking as they did before; or in altering their convictions in obedience to reason instead of authority, as our own people do; but they are at once assailed with the most opprobrious names, accused of treason and all manner of crimes, pelted with mud and stones and in some instances deprived of their noses and ears by the public executioner.  Yet in no country is independence of thought so vaunted as a virtue, and in none is freedom of speech considered so obvious a natural right or so necessary to good government.

    [1] The Tamtonian language forms its plurals most irregularly, but
        usually by an initial inflection.  It has a certain crude and
        primitive grammar, but in point of orthoepy is extremely
        difficult.  With our letters I can hardly hope to give an
        accurate conception of its pronunciation.  As nearly as possible
        I write its words as they sounded to my ear when carefully
        spoken for my instruction by intelligent natives.  It is a harsh
        tongue.