Page 105 - erewhon

more questions he wrote a prescription and departed.
I saw the prescription. It ordered a fine to the State of
double the money embezzled; no food but bread and milk
for six months, and a severe flogging once a month for
twelve. I was surprised to see that no part of the fine was
to be paid to the poor woman whose money had been em-
bezzled, but on inquiry I learned that she would have been
prosecuted in the Misplaced Confidence Court, if she had
not escaped its clutches by dying shortly after she had dis-
covered her loss.
As for Mr. Nosnibor, he had received his eleventh flog-
ging on the day of my arrival. I saw him later on the same
afternoon, and he was still twinged; but there had been no
escape from following out the straightener’s prescription,
for the so-called sanitary laws of Erewhon are very rigor-
ous, and unless the straightener was satisfied that his orders
had been obeyed, the patient would have been taken to a
hospital (as the poor are), and would have been much worse
off. Such at least is the law, but it is never necessary to en-
force it.
On a subsequent occasion I was present at an interview
between Mr. Nosnibor and the family straightener, who was
considered competent to watch the completion of the cure.
I was struck with the delicacy with which he avoided even
the remotest semblance of inquiry after the physical well-
being of his patient, though there was a certain yellowness
about my host’s eyes which argued a bilious habit of body.
To have taken notice of this would have been a gross breach
of professional etiquette. I was told, however, that a straight-

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