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 Mohammedans, for example, to this day, send their female
prisoners to hospitals, and the New Zealand Maoris visit any misfortune with
forcible entry into the house of the offender, and the breaking up and burning
of all his goods. The Italians, again, use the same word for disgrace and
misfortune. I once heard an Italian lady speak of a young friend whom she
described as endowed with every virtue under heaven, »ma,« she exclaimed,
»povero disgraziato, ha ammazzato suo zio.« (»Poor unfortunate fellow, he has
murdered his uncle.«)
    On mentioning this, which I heard when taken to Italy as a boy by my father,
the person to whom I told it showed no surprise. He said that he had been driven
for two or three years in a certain city by a young Sicilian cabdriver of
prepossessing manners and appearance, but then lost sight of him. On asking what
had become of him, he was told that he was in prison for having shot at his
father with intent to kill him - happily without serious result. Some years
later my informant again found himself warmly accosted by the prepossessing
young cabdriver. »Ah, caro signore,« he exclaimed, »sono cinque anni che non lo
vedo - tre anni di militare, e due anni di disgrazia