SOME STRANGE AMERICAN 'COMMUNITIES.'

Temuka Leader, Issue 170, 16 August 1879, Page 3

SOME STRANGE AMERICAN 'COMMUNITIES.'

Scattered through 13 States, brandies of eight main.bodies, arc 72 communities, whose central ideas is that of holding all thing? in common. They number some 5000 persons, owning, perhaps, 180,000 acres of land and 12,000,000 dollars of property. The Icarians are French ; the Shakers and Perfectionists are Americans, although the former were organised by an Englishwoman ; the remainder are German. The Ebcn-Kzers of Aurora call ■ themselves ‘ Inspirationists,’ their present leader—a woman —claiming to speak by Divine aspiration, and. this claim runs back over a century with them in Germany, before they became communal. The Separatists came from Wurtemberg, under stress of persecution on account of their religious views. The Shakers, who are the .oldest and most numerous of all these groups, were organised by an Englishwoman named Ann'Lee, who, while in prison for her religious manifestations in 1770, claimed to have had a special revelation from God, and was directed to come to America. The Shakers and the Rappists or Harmonists, are celibates. The Perfectionists at Oneida, New York, and Wallingford, Connecticut, applying their doctrine of communism, go beyond the Mormons. The Communists unite provisions for the wants of flu's life with peculiar religious notions which might bo called fanatical, but they are entirely free from a spirit of intolerance. Some are Spiritualists in the ordinary sense of that word ; some look very soon for the second coming of Christ and the end of all things, while others believe the coming already past,; they believe in a special nearness of God to themselves ; they have their own hynins, literature, and observances, and seemed to be moved by a desire to separate themselves frem the world. The Oneida people are manufacturers mainly, agriculturists incidentally ; the rest are agriculturists mainly. All have shown an extraordinary aptitude for invention and for economising labour. The Shakers, who are particularly well known by reason of their numbers and their many colonies, have a largo variety of trades, and the work of all communistic societies has an established reputation for both uniform excellence, of quality and honesty of quantity. None of the communes are rich in the ordinary sense of the word, and they do not try to be. They take work easily, being content with a little more than subsistence. In the societies in Oregon there is an utter lack of what are called the amenities of life. They have few books and care nothing for the news. The celibate societies —the Shakers , and Rappists——have long been decreasing in numbers, and "the neighbours of the latter are wondering what will become of their property when the old people pass away, but they profess to expect a sign from the Lord. The Shakers take children to bring up, bat do not succeed in keeping many of them after ’ matvriry. Ot the other societies only the Ebcn-Ezers and Perfectionists are increasing in numbers. The latter are exceptional in assiduously seeking to make their life attractive by systematic amusements. An institution which after so many years numbers only 5000 persons in all must be viewed as a social phenomenon rather than as a leaven likely to spread.