Accordingly, our friend is apprehended and charged with the crime;
there is his record, and it is easy to secure "evidence" that he was on
the spot at the time, though he may have been, in fact, a hundred or two
miles away from it. Detectives are experts at providing this sort of
evidence; and it frequently happens that they get the corroboration of
the victim himself by assuring him that, if he will confess, the judge
will let him off with a light sentence, whereas if he prove "stubborn,"
it will go hard with him--a matter of ten years or so. Ten years in jail
for something you did not do! Six months or a year if you confess!
Perjury is wrong no doubt; but, were you who read this placed in that
predicament, which horn of the dilemma would you select? If you have
never served an actual jail term, you might virtuously hesitate; but it
is the world against a mustard seed that you wouldn't hesitate if you
had. The crisp of the joke is, however,--and of course it serves you
right,--that the judge, after all, gives you the ten years, and that
means life, for you will never be long out of jail afterward. As I write
this, I have in mind several instances of it among my personal
acquaintances at Atlanta.
If then our convict, upon his release, cannot keep himself in any honest
employment, and cannot avoid arrest even when he is doing nothing at
all, good or bad, it seems plain that he must either hunt out a quiet
place where he may starve to death before the officer can arrest him for
starving, or commit suicide in some more sudden and active manner, or he
must accept the opportunity which is always at hand in "revert to a
career of crime," as the saying is.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98