o bestir
themselves about putting an end to them, until at last a benevolent
reformer devoted his whole life to effecting the necessary changes. He
divided illnesses into three classes--those affecting the head, the
trunk, and the lower limbs--and obtained an enactment that all diseases
of the head, whether internal or external, should be treated with
laudanum, those of the body with castor-oil, and those of the lower limbs
with an embrocation of strong sulphuric acid and water. It may be said
that the classification was not sufficiently careful, and that the
remedies were ill chosen; but it is a hard thing to initiate any reform,
and it was necessary to familiarise the public mind with the principle,
by inserting the thin end of the wedge first: it is not therefore to be
wondered at that among so practical a people there should still be some
room for improvement. The mass of the nation are well pleased with
existing arrangements, and believe that their treatment of criminals
leaves little or nothing to be desired; but there is an energetic
minority who hold what are considered to be extreme opinions, and who are
not at all disposed to rest contented until the principle lately admitted
has been carried further.

THE MUSICAL BANKS. (CHAPTER XIV. OF EREWHON.)

On my return to the drawing-room, I found the ladies were just putting
away their work and preparing to go out. I asked them where they were
going. They answered with a certain air of reserve that they were going
to the bank to get some money.

Now I had already collected that the mercantile affairs of the
Erewhonians were conducted on a totally different system from our own; I
had however gathered little hitherto, except that they had two distinct
commercial systems, of which the one appealed more strongly to the
imagination than anything to which we are accustomed in Europe, inasmuch
as the banks conducted upon this system were decorated in the most
profuse fashion, and all mercantile transactions were accompanied with
music, so that they were called musical banks though the music was
hideous to a European ear.

As for the system itself I never understood it, neither can I do so now:
they have a code in connection with it, which I have no doubt they
themselves understand, but no foreigner can hope to do so. One rule runs
into and against another as in a most complicated grammar, or as in
Chinese pronunciation, wherein I am told the slightest chang