Quiz: Mutual Aid

12 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. What right do the Caucasian Ossetes allow when the cuckoo announces spring? The folkmote redistributes all the land by lot All debts between neighbours are cancelled for the year Each family may enclose a new field from the common waste Anyone in need may take a neighbour’s hay
2. What did the crew and passengers of a Hansa ship do after the first half-day at sea? Drew lots for their share of the cargo Chose a chaplain to lead daily prayers Elected a Vogt and four scabini to act as judges Swore obedience to the captain as their lord for the voyage
3. What did the British Parliament do in 1799, in Kropotkin’s account? Introduced the eight-hour day Legalized trade unions Restored the property and privileges of the old guilds Prohibited all sorts of workers’ combinations
4. How did the coastguard answer when Kropotkin asked why the lifeboat men made their desperate attempt? He did not know himself; they could not bear the cries He said they hoped to salvage the cargo He said they were paid a reward by the Royal Humane Society He said the captain had ordered them out
5. What does Kropotkin name as the main checks that keep animal species down? Competition for the means of existence Fighting between members of the same species Extermination by man and contagious diseases Lack of breeding grounds
6. Who started the Grand National Consolidated Trades’ Union, which Kropotkin says mustered half a million members in a few months? John Burns Feargus O’Connor Francis Place Robert Owen
7. What, according to chapter 3, was the earliest form of human social life? The isolated family The village community The monogamous couple The band or tribe
8. How, according to Kropotkin, did Veniaminoff actually stop infanticide among his Tchuktchis? By asking the Russian authorities to punish it severely By adopting the children himself By preaching sermons against it in every encampment By supplying them with bread and fishing implements
9. What did the statisticians of Taurida find among the settlers who had first held land individually? That communal ownership had been imposed by the army 161 villages where peasants had themselves introduced communal ownership That nearly all the villages had sold their land to moneylenders That the settlers had petitioned for serfdom
10. What did Savonarola answer when the people of Florence asked him for advice? That they should form a league with Milan That they should elect him head of the Signoria for life, as their prophet That they should call back the Medici That he could not go into State affairs; they should purify their souls
11. To what did Huxley compare the animal world, as quoted in chapter 1? A gladiator’s show A battlefield after the battle A market fair A well-ordered factory
12. What is the “watchword” that, according to Kropotkin, nature teaches? Each for himself, and the State for all Don’t compete; combine, practise mutual aid Struggle, and only the fittest will survive and multiply Multiply without stint

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