. 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 apologize 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,
