H.

THE LAST HOURS OF THE CONDEMNED IN SKITZLAND--I AM EXECUTED.

The period which intervenes between the sentence and execution of a
criminal in Skitzland, is not longer than three hours. In order to
increase the terror of death by contrast, the condemned man is suffered
to taste at the table of life from which he is banished, the most
luscious viands. All the attainable enjoyment that his wit can ask for,
he is allowed to have, during the three hours before he is shot like
rubbish off the fields of Skitzland.

Under guard, of course, I was now to be led whithersoever I desired.

Several churches were open. They never are all shut in Skitzton. I was
taken into one. A man with heart and life was preaching. People with
hearts were in some pews; people with brains, in others; people with
ears only, in some. In a neighboring church, there was a popular
preacher, a skeleton with life. His congregation was a crowd of ears,
and nothing more.

There was a day-performance at the Opera I went to that. Fine lungs and
mouths possessed the stage, and afterward there was a great bewilderment
with legs. I was surprised to notice that many of the most beautiful
ladies were carried in and out, and lifted about like dolls. My guides
sneered at my pretense of ignorance, when I asked why this was. But they
were bound to please me in all practicable ways, so they informed me,
although somewhat pettishly. It seems that in Skitzland, ladies who
possess and have cultivated only their good looks, lose at the age of
twenty-one all other endowments. So they become literally dolls, but
dolls of a superior kind; for they can not only open and shut their
eyes, but also sigh; wag slowly with their heads, and sometimes take a
pocket handkerchief out of a bag, and drop it. But as their limbs are
powerless, they have to be lifted and dragged about after the fashion
that excited my astonishment.

I said then, "Let me see the poor." They took me to a Workhouse. The
men, there, were all yellow; and they wore a dress which looked as
though it were composed of asphalte; it also had a smell like that of
pitch. I asked for explanation of these things.

A Superintendent of Police remarked that I was losing opportunities of
real enjoyment for the idle purpose of persisting in my fable of having
dropped down from the sky. However, I compelled him to explain to me
what was the reason of these things. The information I obtained was
briefly this: that Natur