Before thou proceedest further into this small account of Diggers, Protectors, Common Bins, and cries of No Monarchs, it may profit thee first to acquaint thyself somewhat with the tumults of England in the 1640s.
For there shalt thou find already populists and zealots, Commonwealth men and would-be monarchs, Levellers, Diggers, and keepers of public order; pamphleteers crying liberty whilst magistrates cried stability; merchants fearing disorder whilst radicals proclaimed the people awakened at last.
Thou shalt also discover that the common people loved and hated their rulers almost equally, and that every faction believed itself defender of the nation against corrupt elites, dangerous agitators, lying presses, hidden powers, and the ruinous schemes of their adversaries.
Therefore if, whilst reading this little tale, thou findest resemblance unto present controversies, be not over-hasty in assigning villains.
For- INDEED- there is nothing new under the sun.
In the Ninth Year of the Commonwealth of Ashes, when every public tower bore the painted words NO Monarchs, there arose a contention in the Lower Ward concerning a waste-bin of uncommon size.
The bin (some call 'a dumpster') stood behind the old market arches where the rain-water gathered black beneath the stone. It belonged formerly to the Provisioners’ Guild, yet after the Fires and the many Revisions no charter could be found proving ownership thereof. Into it were cast spoiled grain-packs, broken machine parts, outlawed pamphlets, cracked tablets, wilted greens, and once, the bronze head of a king.
The folk of the Ward called it simply:
The Common Bin
And though the Councils took little notice of it at first, many poor souls lived by its bounty.
There came then a small company who named themselves Diggers.
They built no walls. They carried no banners. They wore plain coats stained with grease and soot. Each morning they sorted the castaways into careful heaps:
food apart from poison, metal apart from ash, books apart from fuel.And whatsoever remained useful they laid freely upon old wooden tables beneath the arches.
Above the tables they painted these words:
WHAT IS CAST OFF BELONGS AGAIN TO THE PEOPLE!
Many mocked them. And many travelled many miles to either mock or see- widows, children, veterans, even clerics
Soon the place prospered strangely.
A woman found medicine there for her coughing son.
A machinist rebuilt a heat-engine from discarded coils.
A preacher recovered pages of forbidden sermons.
A child made a lantern from shattered screen-glass.
And each evening the Diggers shared broth from cracked bowls while the people argued pleasantly beneath the arches concerning liberty, waste, and whether the Commonwealth had grown too mighty for remembrance.
Now among the rulers of that district was a man who, through very legal and forceful means, required others to call him "Protector", who had risen during the Disorders and was much beloved for restoring peace after the Fires. His likeness appeared nowhere publicly, for such honors had been forbidden after the Fall of the Last Executive, yet many households kept small portraits of him hidden behind their cupboards.
Protector’s officers observed the gatherings beneath the arches and grew uneasy.
“Where men gather freely,” said Captain Hume, “there factions breed.”
“And where refuse is ungoverned,” said another, “there pestilence follows.”
But an old clerk spoke softly:
“It is only one dumpster, why the fuss?”
Still, reports multiplied.
Pamphlets appeared bearing dangerous phrases:
'THE POOREST HE' HATH A LIFE TO LIVE AS 'THE GREATEST HE'
Children chalked upon the market stones directly beneath the silent surveillance lamps.
NO MONARCHS- though no one ever told them what a monarch was.....
Suddenly- The Councils therefore decreed- and the message went everywhere at once- even sounding the alarm in Princetown where no dumpster even existed....
All refuse within the Commonwealth belonged solely to the Office of Civic Sanitation, and that no citizen should gather or distribute discarded goods without license.
When this decree was read aloud beneath the arches, the Diggers listened courteously.
At length their eldest member, a bent woman called Mother Flint, asked:
“If the food be rotten, why fear who eats it?”
“Because order must be preserved,” answered the officer.
“And if the machine parts be broken?”
“All materials belong first unto the Commonwealth.”
“And if a man be broken?”
The officer hesitated.
“Then he belongs unto himself,” he said carefully.
At this- the people grew exceedingly uneasy.
The next morning barriers were raised round the Common Bin.
Yet by dawn someone had written upon them in white paint:
NO MONARCHS OVER REFUSE
No man confessed to it. Thereafter the Ward grew troubled.
Some declared the Diggers enemies of stability.
Others called them the last honest souls in the city.
Merchants complained of lost revenues.
Preachers warned of rebellion.
Children played at “Diggers and Protectors” in the alleys.
The Protector himself at last came secretly to view the matter.
He walked among the arches at dusk clothed in a worker’s coat, and there he saw:
the patched tables, sorted scraps, the hungry gathered quietly with bowls in hand,and above them all the fading words:
WHAT IS CAST OFF BELONGS AGAIN TO THE PEOPLE
For a long while he stood without speaking.
At last he asked Mother Flint:
“And if every ward claimed every cast-off thing as common?”
“Then perhaps,” she answered, “fewer men would hunger.”
“And if disorder followed?”
“Then perhaps the disorder was already here.”
Protector looked then upon the gathered folk, and upon the towers beyond where NO MONARCHS glowed in giant letters against the smoke.
When he departed he gave no command.
But before sunrise the barriers remained standing.
And before noon the Common Bin was emptied by officers of Sanitation.
And before evening the Diggers were gone.
Some said they fled. Some said they were taken northward. Some said they simply removed themselves to another Ward where refuse still gathered freely beneath the acid rain.
Yet afterward strange sayings persisted among the people.
When bread ran short, they muttered:
“What is cast off belongs again to the people.”
And when officials spoke too proudly, children still scratched upon the stones:
NO MONARCHS
Though no king had ruled there for many years.
“Every people that destroys a throne discovers at last how many small kings slept there.”
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