,« etc. (»My dear sir, it is
five years since I saw you - three years of military service, and two of
misfortune«) - during which last the poor fellow had been in prison. Of moral
sense he showed not so much as a trace. He and his father were now on excellent
terms, and were likely to remain so unless either of them should again have the
misfortune mortally to offend the other.
    In the following chapter I will give a few examples of the way in which what
we should call misfortune, hardship, or disease are dealt with by the
Erewhonians, but for the moment will return to their treatment of cases that
with us are criminal. As I have already said, these, though not judicially
punishable, are recognized as requiring correction. Accordingly, there exists a
class of men trained in soul-craft, whom they call straighteners, as nearly as I
can translate a word which literally means one who bends back the crooked. These
men practise much as medical men in England, and receive a quasi-surreptitious
fee on every visit. They are treated with the same unreserve, and obeyed as
readily, as our own doctors - that is to say, on the whole sufficiently -
because people know that it is their interest to get well as soon as they can,
and that they will not be scouted as they would be if their bodies were out of
order, even though they may have to undergo a very painful course of treatment.
    When I say that they will not be scouted, I do not mean that an Erewhonian
will suffer no social inconvenience in consequence, we will say, of having
committed fraud. Friends will fall away from him because of his being less
pleasant company, just as we ourselves are disinclined to make companions of
those who are either poor or poorly. No one with any sense of self-respect will
place himself on an equality in the matter of affection with those who are less
lucky than himself in birth, health, money, good looks, capacity, or anything
else. Indeed, that dislike and even disgust should be felt by the fortunate for
the unfortunate, or at any rate for those who have been discovered to have met
with any of the more serious and less familiar misfortunes, is not only natural,
but desirable for any society, whether of man or brute.
    The fact, therefore, that the Erewhonians attach none of that guilt to crime
which they do to physical ailments, does not prevent the more selfish among them
from neglecting a friend who has robbed a bank, for instance