ept in studied ignorance of the real difficulties of the system.
But this did not make their position the less a false one, and its bad
effects upon themselves were unmistakable.

Few people would speak quite openly and freely before them, which struck
me as a very bad sign. When they were in the room every one would talk
as though all currency save that of the musical banks should be
abolished; and yet they knew perfectly well that even the cashiers
themselves hardly used the musical bank money more than other people. It
was expected of them that they should appear to do so, but this was all.
The less thoughtful of them did not seem particularly unhappy, but many
were plainly sick at heart, though perhaps they hardly knew it, and would
not have owned to being so. Some few were opponents of the whole system;
but these were liable to be dismissed from their employment at any
moment, and this rendered them very careful, for a man who had once been
cashier at a musical bank was out of the field for other employment, and
was generally unfitted for it by reason of that course of treatment which
was commonly called his education. In fact it was a career from which
retreat was virtually impossible, and into which young men were generally
induced to enter before they could be reasonably expected, considering
their training, to have formed any opinions of their own. Few indeed
were those who had the courage to insist on seeing both sides of the
question before they committed themselves to either. One would have
thought that this was an elementary principle,--one of the first things
that an honourable man would teach his boy to do; but in practice it was
not so.

I even saw cases in which parents bought the right of presenting to the
office of cashier at one of these banks, with the fixed determination
that some one of their sons (perhaps a mere child) should fill it. There
was the lad himself--growing up with every promise of becoming a good and
honourable man--but utterly without warning concerning the iron shoe
which his natural protector was providing for him. Who could say that
the whole thing would not end in a life-long lie, and vain chafing to
escape?

I confess that there were few things in Erewhon which shocked me more
than this.

BIRTH FORMULAE. (CHAPTER XVII. OF EREWHON.)

I heard what follows not from Arowhena, but from Mr. Nosnibor and some of
the gentlemen who occasionally dined at the house: th