And everyone is happy about it? . . . Is there anyone who isn’t happy about it?”
Soldiers in jeeps sweep mounted machine-guns back and forth across the crowd with a slow, searching movement.
“Everybody happy. Well that’s fine.” He turns jovially to the prostrate President. “I’ll keep your papers in case I get caught short. Haw Haw Haw.” His loud,
metallic laugh rings out across the dump, and the crowd laughs with him under the searching guns.
The forms of democracy are scrupulously enforced on the Island. There is a Senate and a Congress who carry on endless sessions discussing garbage disposal
and outhouse inspection, the only two questions over which they have jurisdiction. For a brief period in the mid-nineteenth century, they had been allowed to control the dept, of Baboon Maintenance but this privilege had been withdrawn owing to absenteeism in the
Senate.
The purple-assed Tripoli baboons had been brought to the Island by pirates in the 17th century. There was a legend that when the baboons left the Island it would
fall. To whom or in what way is not specified, and it is a capital offense to kill a baboon, though the noxious behaviour of these animals harries the citizens almost
beyond endurance. Occasionally someone goes berserk, kills several baboons and himself.
The post of President is always forced on some particularly noxious and unpopular citizen. To be elected President is the greatest misfortune and disgrace that can befall an Islander. The humiliations and ignominy