The city piled itself high in the center, tower on tower for a
nucleus, and spread itself out over the plain, mile after mile; and
in its vitals, like benevolent bacilli contending with malevolent in
the body of a man, missions and refuges offered what resistance they
might to the saloons and all the hells that cities house and shelter.
Temptation and ruin were ready commodities on the market for purchase
by the venturesome; highwaymen walked the streets at night and
sometimes killed; snatching thieves were busy everywhere in the dusk;
while house-breakers were a common apprehension and frequent reality.
Life itself was somewhat safer from intentional destruction than it
was in medieval Rome during a faction war--though the Roman murderer
was more like to pay for his deed--but death or mutilation beneath
the wheels lay in ambush at every crossing.

The politicians let the people make all the laws they liked; it did
not matter much, and the taxes went up, which is good for politicians.
Law-making was a pastime of the people; nothing pleased them more.
Singular fermentation of their humor, they even had laws forbidding
dangerous speed. More marvelous still, they had a law forbidding
smoke! They forbade chimneys to smoke and they forbade cigarettes
to smoke. They made laws for all things and forgot them immediately;
though sometimes they would remember after a while, and hurry to make
new laws that the old laws should be enforced--and then forget both
new and old. Wherever enforcement threatened Money or Votes--or
wherever it was too much to bother--it became a joke. Influence was
the law.

So the place grew. And it grew strong.

Straightway when he came, each man fell to the same worship: