but that the other eye, having escaped,
identified me, and brought to his brain intelligence
of the calamity which had befallen. He
deposed further, that having received this
information, he despatched his uncrushed eye
with arms from the police-office, and
accompanied with several members of the detective
force, to capture the offender, and to procure
the full proofs of my crime. A sub-inspector
of Skitzton Police then deposed that he sent
three of his faculties, with his mouth, eye,
and ear, to meet the coach. That the driver,
consisting only of a stomach and hands, had
been unable to observe what passed. That
the guard, on the contrary, had taxed me
with my deed, that he had seen me rise from
my seat upon the murdered eye, and that he
had heard me make confession of my guilt.
The guard was brought next into court, and
told his tale. Then I was called upon for my
defence. If a man wearing a cloth coat and
trousers, and talking excellent English, were
to plead at the Old Bailey that he had broken
into some citizen's premises accidentally by
falling from the moon, his tale would be
received in London as mine was in Skitzton.
I was severely reprimanded for my levity,
and ordered to be silent. The Judge summed
up and the Jury found me Guilty. The
Judge, who had put on the black cap before
the verdict was pronounced, held out no hope
of mercy, and straightway sentenced me to
Death, according to the laws and usage of the
Realm.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH.

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 neighbouring 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 afterwards 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
pretence 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 some times 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 had also a smell like that of pitch.
I asked for explanation ot 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 Nature, in Skitzland, never removes the
stomach. Every man has to feed himself;
and the necessity for finding food, joined to the
necessity for buying clothes, is a mainspring
whereby the whole clockwork of civilised life
is kept in motion. Now, if a man positively
cannot feed and clothe himself, he becomes
a pauper. He then goes to the Workhouse,
where he has his stomach filled with a
cement. That stopping lasts a life-time,
and he thereafter needs no food. His body,
however, becomes yellow by the superfluity
of bile. The yellow-boy, which is the Skitzland
epithet for pauper, is at the same time
provided with a suit of clothes. The clothes
are of a material so tough that they can be
worn unrepaired for more than eighty years.
The pauper is now freed from care, but were
he in this state cast loose upon society, since
he has not that stimulus to labour which ex-
cites industry in other men, he would become
an element of danger in the state. Nature no
longer compelling him to work, the law
compels him. The remainder of his life is forfeit
to the uses of his country. He labours at
the workhouse, costing nothing more than
the expense of lodging, after the first
inconsiderable outlay for cement wherewith
to plug his stomach, and for the one suit of
apparel.

When we came out of the workhouse, all
the bells in the town were tolling. The
Superintendent told me that I had sadly
frittered away time, for I had now no more
than half an hour to live. Upon that I leaned
my back against a post, and asked him to
prepare me for my part in the impending
ceremony by giving me a little information
on the subject of executions.

I found that it was usual for a man to be
executed with great ceremony upon the spot