288 Analyses of Books. [May, 
perfedtly within the control of the rogue or the ruffian. No 
person can say that he has a diredt vested interest in his neigh- 
bour’s health, save in the case of infectious diseases. Every 
man has a distindt interest in the absence of crime from the 
community. He has, so to speak, a diredt personal quarrel with 
the criminal, which, in civilised society, he hands over to judge, 
jury, gaoler, and if needful to the hangman. But who can say 
that he is in the remotest aggrieved if some one in the next 
street suffers from neuralgia, or bronchitis, or asthma, or gout ? 
Again, even if for argument’s sake we admit the sick man to 
be a nuisance, we find that he either recovers — and in that case 
ceases to be a nuisance — or dies prematurely, and then equally 
troubles us no longer. But the criminal does not cease to com- 
mit crime, nor does he, save for the interference of the law, die 
sooner than he otherwise would have done. The sick man, 
again, craves to be restored to health ; the criminal does not 
crave to become a law-abiding citizen, though he may be de- 
sirous to escape detection and its consequences. Lastly, we 
can in most cases ascertain whether the invalid is restored to 
health or not ; but we have no means of judging whether the 
criminal is really “ cured,” or if he is merely biding his time. 
This subjedt, however, cannot be here pursued further, from 
want of space. 
The “ Colleges of Unreason ” in “ Erewhon ” are perhaps not 
such exceptional institutions as the author imagines. For what 
else, after all, are all our institutions for cram and examinations ? 
Of examinations, indeed, Mr. Butler is not enamoured, though 
he unfortunately believes that all universities are necessarily 
examinational. 
Turning to the end of the book we find the “ Psalm of 
Montreal,” a poem, and one with which we can have little sym- 
pathy. Mr. Butler, it seems, visiting the Montreal Museum of 
Natural History, found a statue of the Discobolus “ banished from 
public view to a room where were all manner of skins, plants, 
snakes, insedts, &c., and in the midst of these an old man, 
stuffing an owl,” — in other words, the curator’s workroom. Mr. 
Butler was wroth, and “ a dialogue, perhaps true, perhaps 
imaginary, perhaps a little of one and a little of the other,” gave 
rise to the author’s lines. To his protest the curator is repre- 
sented as replying : — 
“ The Discobolus is put here because he is vulgar, 
He hath neither vest nor pants with which to cover his limbs ; 
I, sir, am a person of most respedable connexions, 
My brother-in-law is haberdasher to Mr. Spurgeon.” (Sic.) 
Now the proper reply of the curator would have been that the 
Discobolus, in a Museum of Natural History, however beautiful 
in itself, is simply “ matter in the wrong place,” i.e., dirt. It is 
also hard for us to believe that any naturalist would bring forward 
a connedtion with Mr. Spurgeon as a claim to consideration. 
