wn to you? Do you suppose we practice the antiquated
and ineffective method of shutting up the rascals? Sir, the growth of
the criminal element has, as I said, compelled the erection of more and
larger prisons. We have enough to hold comfortably all the honest men
and women of the state. Within these protecting walls they carry on all
the necessary vocations of life excepting commerce. That is necessarily
in the hands of the rogues, as before."

"Venerated representative of Reform," I exclaimed, wringing his hand
with effusion, "you are Knowledge, you are History, you are the Higher
Education! We must talk further. Come, let us enter this benign edifice;
you shall show me your dominion and instruct me in the rules. You shall
propose me as an inmate."

I walked rapidly to the gate. When challenged by the sentinel, I turned
to summon my instructor. He was nowhere visible. I turned again to look
at the prison. Nothing was there: desolate and forbidding, as about the
broken statue of Ozymandias.

The lone and level sands stretched far away.

IMMORTALITY

The desire for life everlasting has commonly been affirmed to be
universal--at least that is the view taken by those unacquainted with
Oriental faiths and with Oriental character. Those of us whose knowledge
is a trifle wider are not prepared to say that the desire is universal
nor even general.

If the devout Buddhist, for example, wishes to "live always," he has not
succeeded in very clearly formulating the desire. The sort of thing that
he is pleased to hope for is not what we should call life, and not what
many of us would care for.

When a man says that everybody has "a horror of annihilation," we may
be very sure that he has not many opportunities for observation, or that
he has not availed himself of all that he has. Most persons go to sleep
rather gladly, yet sleep is virtual annihilation while it lasts; and if
it should last forever the sleeper would be no worse off after a million
years of it than after an hour of it. There are minds sufficiently
logical to think of it that way, and to them annihilation is not a
disagreeable thing to contemplate and expect.

In this matter of immortality, people's beliefs appear to go along with
their wishes. The man who is content with annihilation thinks he will
get it; those that want immortality are pretty sure they are immortal;
and that is a very comfortable allotment of faiths. The few of us that
are left