The Circles delayed not to push their victory to the uttermost. The working men they spared but decimated. The militia of the Equilaterals was at once called out; and every Triangle suspected of Irregularity on reasonable grounds, was destroyed by court martial, without the formality of exact measurement by the Social Board. The homes of the military and artisan classes were inspected in a course of visitations extending through upwards of a year; and during that period every town, village, and hamlet was systematically purged of that excess of the lower orders which had been brought about by the neglect to pay the tribute of criminals to the schools and University, and by the violation of the other natural laws of the Constitution of Flatland. Thus the balance of classes was again restored.

Needless to say that henceforth the use of colour was abolished, and its possession prohibited. Even the utterance of any word denoting colour, except by the Circles or by qualified scientific teachers, was punished by a severe penalty. Only at our University in some of the very highest and most esoteric classes⁠—which I myself have never been privileged to attend⁠—it is understood that the sparing use of colour is still sanctioned for the purpose of illustrating some of the deeper problems of mathematics. But of this I can only speak from hearsay.

Elsewhere in Flatland, colour is now nonexistent. The art of making it is known to only one living person, the Chief Circle for the time being; and by him it is handed down on his deathbed to none but his successor. One manufactory alone produces it; and, lest the secret should be betrayed, the workmen are annually consumed, and fresh ones introduced. So great is the terror with which even now our aristocracy looks back to the far-distant days of the agitation for the Universal Colour Bill.