They had begun, ten years before, with one hundred and
twenty-five families; as after the second year they had bred no
children, and as they then lost some members who left on account of
their aversion to a celibate life, it is probable that they had not
increased in numbers. If they had property worth one hundred and fifty
thousand dollars, they would then have been able to divide, at the end
of ten years, at the rate of twelve hundred dollars to each head of a
family--a considerable sum, if we remember that they began with probably
less than five hundred dollars for each family; and had not only lived
comfortably for the greater part of ten years, but enjoyed society, had
a good school for their children, a church, and all the moral and civil
safeguards created by and incident to a well-settled community or town.
Setting aside these safeguards and enjoyments of a thoroughly organized
society, it seems to me doubtful if the same number of families,
settling with narrow means at random in the wilderness, each
independently of the others, could at that period, before railroads were
built, have made as good a showing in mere pecuniary return in the same
time. So far, then, the Harmony Society would seem to have made a
pecuniary success--a fact of which they may have made but little account,
but which is important to a general and independent consideration of
communistic experiments.
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