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chapter and in those that follow it I have endeavoured to adhere most
conscientiously to the strictest accuracy, and that I have never
willingly misrepresented, though I may have sometimes failed to
understand all the bearings of an opinion or custom.




CHAPTER X: CURRENT OPINIONS


This is what I gathered. That in that country if a man falls into ill
health, or catches any disorder, or fails bodily in any way before he is
seventy years old, he is tried before a jury of his countrymen, and if
convicted is held up to public scorn and sentenced more or less severely
as the case may be. There are subdivisions of illnesses into crimes and
misdemeanours as with offences amongst ourselves--a man being punished
very heavily for serious illness, while failure of eyes or hearing in one
over sixty-five, who has had good health hitherto, is dealt with by fine
only, or imprisonment in default of payment. But if a man forges a
cheque, or sets his house on fire, or robs with violence from the person,
or does any other such things as are criminal in our own country, he is
either taken to a hospital and most carefully tended at the public
expense, or if he is in good circumstances, he lets it be known to all
his friends that he is suffering from a severe fit of immorality, just as
we do when we are ill, and they come and visit him with great solicitude,
and inquire with interest how it all came about, what symptoms first
showed themselves, and so forth,--questions which he will answer with
perfect unreserve; for bad conduct, though considered no less deplorable
than illness with ourselves, and as unquestionably indicating something
seriously wrong with the individual who misbehaves, is nevertheless held
to be the result of either pre-natal or post-natal misfortune.

The strange part of the story, however, is that though they ascribe moral
defects to the effect of misfortune either in character or surroundings,
they will not listen to the plea of misfortune in cases that in England
meet with sympathy and commiseration only. Ill luck of any kind, or even
ill treatment at the hands of others, is considered an offence against
society, inasmuch as it makes people uncomfortable to hear of it. Loss
of fortune, therefore, or loss of some dear friend on whom another was
much dependent, is punished hardly less severely than physical
delinquency.

Foreign, indeed, as such ideas are to our own, traces of somewhat similar
opinions can be found even in nineteenth-century England. If a person
has an abscess, the medical man will say that it contains "peccant"
matter, and people say that they have a "bad" arm or finger, or that they
are very "bad" all over, when they only mean "diseased." Among foreign
nations Erewhonian opinions may be still more clearly noted. The
Mahommedans, for example, to this day, send their female prisoners to
hospitals, and the New Zealand Maories visit any misfortune with forcible

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