( 137 )
¬institutions ?" " Oh, no," he said, " they are only books of very local jurisdiction — t/ici/ are our own laws only. — Those on your right hand," pointing as far as we could see, " are our decisions — and those on your left are our statutes." I stood silent for a while, and then broke out with an astonishment I could not con- ceal — " If this be really so, how are your peo- ple to know by what rules they are to govern themselves, what duties they are to perform, or how to avoid the penalties annexed to disobe- dience ?" " Nothing so easy," replied my learned conductor; " Nothing in either of our worlds so perfectly plain and simple," laying his hand, at the same time, on what seemed to cor- respond with some of the indexes in our own books — "what shall I find for you? — I will turn to it in a second." — "Turn then," I said, " to your law for preventing infection from the plague." — For I had been told they had regula- tions for quarantine. " Here it is," said the Ar- matan counsellor, as he read the title ; but he had not proceeded ten lines in the enacting-part ¬when ¬
