Trial of the Century There was great excitement in the streets. People were hurrying along. The streets were so crowded that some people were walking through the old garden routes--even with the obligatory pause at the rows of conifers, they made better time and hoped to get better seats in the courtroom. The trial was not strictly speaking a trial but more like a parole hearing. It had been scheduled for weeks. This was the third time the woman would be considered for release. It was unheard of. Appeals like this happened only every ten years. No native Erewhonian had ever survived in jail long enough for a second round; few made it through the first decade of imprisonment. Mr. Ewith and I secured seats in the third row just as they brought the prisoner in. She was a thin woman, with short fair hair almost completely grey. She walked tall and proud. Not like other Erewhonian prisoners. I would have guessed that she was in her 50's, save that her age was well known to be 70. Her extraordinary health and physical condition were the grounds for the appeal. The prosecution went first with the history of her case. Perhaps the most famous one in all of Erewhonian jurisprudence. She and her male companion, both subjects of King Howable and his two Queens, had come from the north and crashed on the plain just 75 km from the capital. Yes, crashed. In a flying machine. Not a balloon like that used in the first escape from the land and that ruined the powerful Nosnibor family eight generations ago. But a silver metal flying machine. It was beyond repair, of course. But the Erwhonians broke it up into even smaller sections--just to be on the safe side--and only half of it ever made it to the museum. The rest was rumoured to have been destroyed in fire by orders of the King himself. This initial offense was great enough to have both the woman, called here 'Meelie', and her male companion, sentenced to life imprisonment. The death penalty had been stricken from the books some years before--as being too great a misfortune to visit on anyone. The man had died within months, from liver disease so it was whispered, rather than as a direct result of dipsomania. What made the case so unusual was the woman's stubborn insistence on trying to invent new things. Her constant belief in the value and worth of machines and what she saw as progress. This led to her accumulating a great list of new offenses even while in a prison environment. In her two previous hearings, they had more than overbalanced her good health and so she had remained in prison. But 30 years! To have survived that long! The crowd outside of the courthouse had been equally divided as to whether she would be released or not. There the buzz of overhead conversation indicated the opinions. Here the seven judges displayed only quiet intent faces as the prosecutor read aloud each conviction on a count of Machinery and Invention. The defense rose. He started with the expected formal plea based on the health of Meelie. Then, in a surprise move, he made a direct attack on her previous convictions. He pointed out how some of her earliest offenses were now common products: The cranked peeler for potatoes. The fast corer for apples. These machines had not resulted in the overthrow of man's dominion. They had not led to the enslavement of man by machine. The third judge from the left began to frown and sweat broke out on the defense attorney's forehead. He knew he was treading on dangerous grounds, sacrilegious, almost treasonous. He rushed on to detail Meelie's incredible health and good attitude. She had been useful and productive in the prison--helping to set up a clothing industry that had resulted in longer lives for prisoners actively engaged in work. Then there were the nursing skills that Meelie had demonstrated in many critical cases. The overall reduction in misfortune, gloom and disease among the prisoners was surely worthy of the court's consideration. At this point, several elderly men in the audience, old death penalty advocates, began to mutter about the expense of maintaining prisoners. The chief justice banged his gavel and nodded to the defense to continue. Finally--the defense's voice rang out as clear as the Liberty Bell back home--Meelie's individual health, so much better than that of her companion, Redoonan, must not be ignored. Then it was time for the vote. Each judge reached for a marble--black or white according to prison or freedom--and dropped it into the hole in the bench directly in front of him. The first marble rolled out onto the table of decision. White. But he was known to be a liberal. The second. White again. The third marble came out and there was a gasp in the courtroom. Justice Ushb had voted for freedom! He had never done so in his entire term on the bench. The fourth marble--white The fifth marble--white. Then there was a long pause and the sixth rolled out--black. It didn't matter what the seventh was. One nay vote was enough to keep her in prison. People were leaving the courtroom already. I stood up and climbed onto my chair to see over the heads of the crowd. Meelie rose and turned to look at the people once more before being taken back to prison. Her eyes widened to see me. Blonde and obviously not an Erewhonian. Her head lifted even higher and proudly she mouthed the word 'Courage'." Off the Flight Path: Adventures in Erewhon, Tasmania and Kerguelen - Eta Sonnok, 1967