"
"But how," said I, "if a Man feigns a Woman's voice with one of his
two voices, or so disguises his Southern voice that it cannot
be recognized as the echo of the Northern? May not such deceptions
cause great inconvenience? And have you no means of checking frauds
of this kind by commanding your neighbouring subjects to feel one another?"
This of course was a very stupid question, for feeling could not have
answered the purpose; but I asked with the view of irritating the Monarch,
and I succeeded perfectly.
"What!" cried he in horror, "explain your meaning." "Feel, touch,
come into contact," I replied. "If you mean by FEELING," said the
King, "approaching so close as to leave no space between two individuals,
know, Stranger, that this offence is punishable in my dominions by death.
And the reason is obvious. The frail form of a Woman, being liable
to be shattered by such an approximation, must be preserved by the State;
but since Women cannot be distinguished by the sense of sight from Men,
the Law ordains universally that neither Man nor Woman shall be
approached so closely as to destroy the interval between the approximator
and the approximated.
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