The victory was complete.  The new law was framed and passed.  Under it every citizen, howsoever poor or ignorant, possessed one vote, so universal suffrage still reigned; but if a man possessed a good common-school education and no money he had two votes, a high-school education gave him four; if he had property, likewise, to the value of three thousand sacos he wielded one more vote; for every fifty thousand sacos a man added to his property, he was entitled to another vote; a University education entitled a man to nine votes, even though he owned no property.

The author goes on to show the beneficent results of this enaction; how the country was benefited and glorified by this stimulus toward enlightenment and industry.  No one ever suspected that Mark Twain was the author of this fable.  It contained almost no trace of his usual literary manner.  Nevertheless he wrote it, and only withheld his name, as he did in a few other instances, in the fear that the world might refuse to take him seriously over his own signature or nom de plume.

Howells urged him to follow up the “Gondour” paper; to send some more reports from that model land.  But Clemens was engaged in other things by that time, and was not pledged altogether to national reforms.

He was writing a skit about a bit of doggerel which was then making nights and days unhappy for many undeserving persons who in an evil moment had fallen upon it in some stray newspaper corner.  A certain car line had recently adopted the “punch system,” and posted in its cars, for the information of passengers and conductor, this placard: 

A Blue Trip Slip for an 8 Cents Fare, A Buff Trip Slip for a 6 Cents Fare, A Pink Trip Slip for a 3 Cents Fare, For Coupon And Transfer, Punch The Tickets.

Noah Brooks and Isaac Bromley were riding down-town one evening on the Fourth Avenue line, when Bromley said: 

“Brooks, it’s poetry.  By George, it’s poetry!”

Brooks followed the direction of Bromley’s finger and read the card of instructions.  They began perfecting the poetic character of the notice, giving it still more of a rhythmic twist and jingle; arrived at the Tribune office, W. C. Wyckoff, scientific editor, and Moses P. Handy lent intellectual and poetic assistance, with this result: 

       Conductor, when you receive a fare,

       Punch in the presence of the passenjare! 
       A blue trip slip for an eight-cent fare,
       A buff trip slip for a six-cent fare,
       A pink trip slip for a three-cent fare. 
       Punch in the presence of the passenjare!

    Chorus
       Punch, brothers!  Punch with care! 
       Punch in the presence of the passenjare!