Chapter XI: Some Erewhonian Trials
In Erewhon as in other countries there are some courts of justice
that deal with special subjects. Misfortune generally, as I have
above explained, is considered more or less criminal, but it admits
of classification, and a court is assigned to each of the main
heads under which it can be supposed to fall. Not very long after
I had reached the capital I strolled into the Personal Bereavement
Court, and was much both interested and pained by listening to the
trial of a man who was accused of having just lost a wife to whom
he had been tenderly attached, and who had left him with three
little children, of whom the eldest was only three years old.
The defence which the prisoner's counsel endeavoured to establish
was, that the prisoner had never really loved his wife; but it
broke down completely, for the public prosecutor called witness
after witness who deposed to the fact that the couple had been
devoted to one another, and the prisoner repeatedly wept as
incidents were put in evidence that reminded him of the irreparable
nature of the loss he had sustained. The jury returned a verdict
of guilty after very little deliberation, but recommended the
prisoner to mercy on the ground that he had but recently insured
his wife's life for a considerable sum, and might be deemed lucky
inasmuch as he had received the money without demur from the
insurance company, though he had only paid two premiums.
I have just said that the jury found the prisoner guilty. When the
judge passed sentence, I was struck with the way in which the
prisoner's counsel was rebuked for having referred to a work in
which the guilt of such misfortunes as the prisoner's was
extenuated to a degree that roused the indignation of the court.
"We shall have," said the judge, "these crude and subversionary
books from time to time until it is recognised as an axiom of
morality that luck is the only fit object of human veneration. How
far a man has any right to be more lucky and hence more venerable
than his neighbours, is a point that always has been, and always
will be, settled proximately by a kind of higgling and haggling of
the market, and ultimately by brute force; but however this may be,
it stands to reason that no man should be allowed to be unlucky to
more than a very moderate extent."
Then, turning to the prisoner, the judge continued:- "You have
suffered a great loss. Nature attaches a severe penalty to such
offences, and human law must emphasise the decrees of nature. But
for the recommendation of the jury I should have given you six
months' hard labour. I will, however, commute your sentence to one
of three months, with the option of a fine of twenty-five per cent.
of the money you have received from the insurance company."
The prisoner thanked the judge, and said that as he had no one to
look after his children if he was sent to prison, he would embrace
the option mercifully permitted him by his lordship, and pay the
sum he had named. He was then removed from the dock.
The next case was that of a youth barely arrived at man's estate,
who was charged with having been swindled out of large property
during his minority by his guardian, who was also one of his
nearest relations. His father had been long dead, and it was for
this reason that his offence came on for trial in the Personal
Bereavement Court. The lad, who was undefended, pleaded that he
was young, inexperienced, greatly in awe of his guardian, and
without independent professional advice. "Young man," said the
judge sternly, "do not talk nonsense. People have no right to be
young, inexperienced, greatly in awe of their guardians, and
without independent professional advice. If by such indiscretions
they outrage the moral sense of their friends, they must expect to
suffer accordingly." He then ordered the prisoner to apologise to
his guardian, and to receive twelve strokes with a cat-of-nine-
tails.
But I shall perhaps best convey to the reader an idea of the entire
perversion of thought which exists among this extraordinary people,
by describing the public trial of a man who was accused of
pulmonary consumption--an offence which was punished with death
until quite recently. It did not occur till I had been some months
in the country, and I am deviating from chronological order in
giving it here; but I had perhaps better do so in order that I may
exhaust this subject before proceeding to others. Moreover I
should never come to an end were I to keep to a strictly narrative
form, and detail the infinite absurdities with which I daily came
in contact.
The prisoner was placed in the dock, and the jury were sworn much
as in Europe; almost all our own modes of procedure were
reproduced, even to the requiring the prisoner to plead guilty or
not guilty. He pleaded not guilty, and the case proceeded. The
evidence for the prosecution was very strong; but I must do the
court the justice to observe that the trial was absolutely
impartial. Counsel for the prisoner was allowed to urge everything
that could be said in his defence: the line taken was that the
prisoner was simulating consumption in order to defraud an
insurance company, from which he was about to buy an annuity, and
that he hoped thus to obtain it on more advantageous terms. If
this could have been shown to be the case he would have escaped a
criminal prosecution, and been sent to a hospital as for a moral
ailment. The view, however, was one which could not be reasonably
sustained, in spite of all the ingenuity and eloquence of one of
the most celebrated advocates of the country. The case was only
too clear, for the prisoner was almost at the point of death, and
it was astonishing that he had not been tried and convicted long
previously. His coughing was incessant during the whole trial, and
it was all that the two jailors in charge of him could do to keep
him on his legs until it was over.
The summing up of the judge was admirable. He dwelt upon every
point that could be construed in favour of the prisoner, but as he
proceeded it became clear that the evidence was too convincing to
admit of doubt, and there was but one opinion in the court as to
the impending verdict when the jury retired from the box. They
were absent for about ten minutes, and on their return the foreman
pronounced the prisoner guilty. There was a faint murmur of
applause, but it was instantly repressed. The judge then proceeded
to pronounce sentence in words which I can never forget, and which
I copied out into a note-book next day from the report that was
published in the leading newspaper. I must condense it somewhat,
and nothing which I could say would give more than a faint idea of
the solemn, not to say majestic, severity with which it was
delivered. The sentence was as follows:-
"Prisoner at the bar, you have been accused of the great crime of
labouring under pulmonary consumption, and after an impartial trial
before a jury of your countrymen, you have been found guilty.
Against the justice of the verdict I can say nothing: the evidence
against you was conclusive, and it only remains for me to pass such
a sentence upon you, as shall satisfy the ends of the law. That
sentence must be a very severe one. It pains me much to see one
who is yet so young, and whose prospects in life were otherwise so
excellent, brought to this distressing condition by a constitution
which I can only regard as radically vicious; but yours is no case
for compassion: this is not your first offence: you have led a
career of crime, and have only profited by the leniency shown you
upon past occasions, to offend yet more seriously against the laws
and institutions of your country. You were convicted of aggravated
bronchitis last year: and I find that though you are now only
twenty-three years old, you have been imprisoned on no less than
fourteen occasions for illnesses of a more or less hateful
character; in fact, it is not too much to say that you have spent
the greater part of your life in a jail.
"It is all very well for you to say that you came of unhealthy
parents, and had a severe accident in your childhood which
permanently undermined your constitution; excuses such as these are
the ordinary refuge of the criminal; but they cannot for one moment
be listened to by the ear of justice. I am not here to enter upon
curious metaphysical questions as to the origin of this or that--
questions to which there would be no end were their introduction
once tolerated, and which would result in throwing the only guilt
on the tissues of the primordial cell, or on the elementary gases.
There is no question of how you came to be wicked, but only this--
namely, are you wicked or not? This has been decided in the
affirmative, neither can I hesitate for a single moment to say that
it has been decided justly. You are a bad and dangerous person,
and stand branded in the eyes of your fellow-countrymen with one of
the most heinous known offences.
"It is not my business to justify the law: the law may in some
cases have its inevitable hardships, and I may feel regret at times
that I have not the option of passing a less severe sentence than I
am compelled to do. But yours is no such case; on the contrary,
had not the capital punishment for consumption been abolished, I
should certainly inflict it now.
"It is intolerable that an example of such terrible enormity should
be allowed to go at large unpunished. Your presence in the society
of respectable people would lead the less able-bodied to think more
lightly of all forms of illness; neither can it be permitted that
you should have the chance of corrupting unborn beings who might
hereafter pester you. The unborn must not be allowed to come near
you: and this not so much for their protection (for they are our
natural enemies), as for our own; for since they will not be
utterly gainsaid, it must be seen to that they shall be quartered
upon those who are least likely to corrupt them.
"But independently of this consideration, and independently of the
physical guilt which attaches itself to a crime so great as yours,
there is yet another reason why we should be unable to show you
mercy, even if we were inclined to do so. I refer to the existence
of a class of men who lie hidden among us, and who are called
physicians. Were the severity of the law or the current feeling of
the country to be relaxed never so slightly, these abandoned
persons, who are now compelled to practise secretly and who can be
consulted only at the greatest risk, would become frequent visitors
in every household; their organisation and their intimate
acquaintance with all family secrets would give them a power, both
social and political, which nothing could resist. The head of the
household would become subordinate to the family doctor, who would
interfere between man and wife, between master and servant, until
the doctors should be the only depositaries of power in the nation,
and have all that we hold precious at their mercy. A time of
universal dephysicalisation would ensue; medicine-vendors of all
kinds would abound in our streets and advertise in all our
newspapers. There is one remedy for this, and one only. It is
that which the laws of this country have long received and acted
upon, and consists in the sternest repression of all diseases
whatsoever, as soon as their existence is made manifest to the eye
of the law. Would that that eye were far more piercing than it is.
"But I will enlarge no further upon things that are themselves so
obvious. You may say that it is not your fault. The answer is
ready enough at hand, and it amounts to this--that if you had been
born of healthy and well-to-do parents, and been well taken care of
when you were a child, you would never have offended against the
laws of your country, nor found yourself in your present
disgraceful position. If you tell me that you had no hand in your
parentage and education, and that it is therefore unjust to lay
these things to your charge, I answer that whether your being in a
consumption is your fault or no, it is a fault in you, and it is my
duty to see that against such faults as this the commonwealth shall
be protected. You may say that it is your misfortune to be
criminal; I answer that it is your crime to be unfortunate.
"Lastly, I should point out that even though the jury had acquitted
you--a supposition that I cannot seriously entertain--I should have
felt it my duty to inflict a sentence hardly less severe than that
which I must pass at present; for the more you had been found
guiltless of the crime imputed to you, the more you would have been
found guilty of one hardly less heinous--I mean the crime of having
been maligned unjustly.
"I do not hesitate therefore to sentence you to imprisonment, with
hard labour, for the rest of your miserable existence. During that
period I would earnestly entreat you to repent of the wrongs you
have done already, and to entirely reform the constitution of your
whole body. I entertain but little hope that you will pay
attention to my advice; you are already far too abandoned. Did it
rest with myself, I should add nothing in mitigation of the
sentence which I have passed, but it is the merciful provision of
the law that even the most hardened criminal shall be allowed some
one of the three official remedies, which is to be prescribed at
the time of his conviction. I shall therefore order that you
receive two tablespoonfuls of castor oil daily, until the pleasure
of the court be further known."
When the sentence was concluded the prisoner acknowledged in a few
scarcely audible words that he was justly punished, and that he had
had a fair trial. He was then removed to the prison from which he
was never to return. There was a second attempt at applause when
the judge had finished speaking, but as before it was at once
repressed; and though the feeling of the court was strongly against
the prisoner, there was no show of any violence against him, if one
may except a little hooting from the bystanders when he was being
removed in the prisoners' van. Indeed, nothing struck me more
during my whole sojourn in the country, than the general respect
for law and order.
Erewhon : Chapter XII - Malcontents
Erewhon