SPECTATOR COMPETITION No. 122 Report by Guy Kendall A prize

of £5 was offered for a continuation of the'' Musical Banks " catechism in Erewhon Revisited beginning : " My duty towards my neighbour is to be quite sure that he is hot likely to borrow money of me before I let him speak to me at all, and then to have as little to do with him as poss . . ."

In the course of wondering why the entry for this competition was so unusually small only two explanations occurred to me : (1) that the usual competitors were shy of attempting a problem which seemed to invite a parody of the Church Catechism, (2) that the reading world has ceased to be interested in the Erewhon books, which 1 hope is not true. With regard to (1), it will be observed that in the, boy's answer, so far as it goes, Butler does not directly parody the Catechism, though he was quite capable, of doing so. He only suggests the manner of it.

G. E. Assinder writes : " My duty, moreover, is to ensure that no neighbour be indebted to me ; otherwise the spirit of Intrinsic Value will rise again and our money will lose its precious musical character to become once again the cause of sickness and the instrument of slavery." This raises an interesting question. The idea underlying the two currencies is clear—moral and religious versus commercial value ' • but why did Butler state that ''they were called Musical Banks though the music was hideous to an European ear " (Erewhon, chapter 15) ? And if, by introducing the idea of music, he intended to suggest the imaginative and artistic side of religion or the beauty of disinterested morality, why did he burlesque the Musical Banks so violently, especially in the sequel ? More than one explanation Is possible, and no doubt the post might easily become choked with readers' suggestions ; so they must be deprecated. Two writers interpreted " neighbour in the geographical sense, es "the man over the wall." " I must always observe," says Frances Collingwood, " all that my neighbour is up to through closed eyelids, so that he may never suspect that his most intimate secrets are always an open book to me." Political innuendoes, as might be expected, made their appearance, for Douglas Hawson and D. S. Walker both conceived the idea of substituting the State for the Deity, the former's rather short but pointed contribution beginning : "To do all men as they would do me," and ending : "To exert my body and intelligence as little as possible during the time I am constrained to labour at the task to which it has pleased the State to appoint me." Leslie Parris began well with : "My duty towards my father and mother is to let them support me as long as possible and to move to another part of the country when they begin to need support from me." But he did not keep it up. The best entries were those of Granville Garley, N. Hodgson Roger Till and R. Kennard Davis, though the last-named mad rather too close a parody, and Roger Till became a little obscure a the end. I recommend that the prize should be divided betwee the first two.

PRIZES

(GRANVILLE GARLEY)

To be conversationally monosyllabic lest loquacity be taken as a encouragement to confidences " over the garden wall " ; to openl admire the choicest blooms in his hot-house, and to covertly purchas rarer, more expensive and showier varieties for my own ; to profess profound, and if necessary simulated, ignorance of authors he reads o quotes ; to deliberately mispronounce his surname, especially if it be al all distinguished or uncommon ; to use my grass-cutter whenever he hal friends to tea on his lawn, but, when he begins to cut his grass, to retire ostentatiously indoors closing all windows ; to affect to despise suburbiat its snobberies and its parish-pump parochialism, but to take care that 1 preserve " face " and receive the proper deference that is due to rnY, social status in the neighbourhood.

(N. HonusoN)

Never to inflict an injury upon him without ensuring that someone else shall get the blame, but to claim that any good fortune that falls tO his lot is due to my own efforts on his behalf ; to encourage him tO compete with me in all contests where I have the advantage, but scrupu lously to avoid all competition in which I stand to lose ; to laugh politely at all his best stories while pretending that I have heard them before;

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ostentatiously to refill his glass before it is half empty, but to see to l that my own is well drained before he performs a like service for me; in all my dealings with him to qualify my sympathy with condescension, my pity with contempt and my every act of kindness with an expectation of reward ; finally, to make a quick get-away before he finds me out.

HIGHLY COMMENDED (Room TILL) "And what is your duty towards your parents ? " asked Mr. Turvey. " My duty," said the boy, " is to honour my father as long as he honours his cheques and to honour my mother whenever her hamper/ are sent carriage-paid." .

" Go on," said Mr. Turvey, beaming. " My duty to the criminal classes is to wish these invalids a speedyi recovery and a happy balance at the end of all their afflictions."

"And to the lower orders'? " " I believe in the Law of Distance."

"And what is the Law of Distance ? "

" Thou shalt keep thyself as far removed from lower forms of life as is compatible with thy duty towards thyself."

" Recite the terms of this obligation."

" So to think, behave and speculate that all my doings, acts andI speculations shall be acceptable to my purse when my dearest and mosll

sacred aspirations come to maturity in the Musical Banks."

• (R. KENNARD DAvis)

possible. To prevent him from doing even so to me as I

would .do unto him : To become independent of my parents when I ant able, and to inherit from them a decent competence ; To guard myself against the evil wiles of all my governors, teachers, spiritnal pastors and masters ; To seek favour in the eyes of all nice people : To hurt nobody in word-or deed, unless he has first 'hurt me : To be as true and just in my dealings, as reasonable persons expect, but not to make myself them uncomfortable by excess of virtue : To keep my hands from giving to plausible rogues, and my tongue from misquoting (except on purpose), moralising and boring : To look shrewdly after my own investments, and so to mind my own business that I may do the things I like doing, in that slate of life which best suits me.