This may sound silly, in the case of two men much nearer three score and
ten than three score, and untrained to gain a livelihood by crime.
Bertillon measurements were not needed to identify us, nor photographs
without mustaches. But, in the first place, prison rules apply to the
mass, not to individuals; and secondly, it has been resolved by the
wisdom of our rulers that a man who reverts to crime after one or more
convictions shall be more severely punished than a first offender.
Nobody stops to question the logic of this ostensibly prudent provision.
But the convict knows that his chances of making an honest livelihood
after a conviction are many times less than before. Spies are on his
trail at every turn, and if ever he succeed in securing legitimate
employment, an officer of the secret service presently informs his
employer that he has a jail-bird on his pay-roll. Naturally he is
promptly paid off and dismissed, and he may go through the same
experience as often as he is foolish enough to try it. But even if he be
inactive, he is not safe--far from it. He is known to the police and
liable to arrest at any moment as a vagrant, without visible means of
support. Nor is this all. Suppose him to be recorded in prison archives
as a safe-blower, and that a safe is blown somewhere and the culprits
escape. The credit of the police department demands that an arrest be
made, if not of the person or persons actually guilty of this particular
crime, then of some one who may be plausibly represented as guilty of
it.
Pages:
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97