And from this same
vantage ground it also gradually dawns upon us that, in one respect at
least, the aggregate in a jail is better than the same number of men
taken haphazard from the city streets. For the former have now laid
aside self-righteousness and dissimulation, which are of the essence of
our unrestrained civil life: "I killed a man, yes; I robbed a bank, I
picked a pocket, I lived off a woman, I swindled my stockholders, I
counterfeited a banknote." No disguise here--no evasion.
But when you go into the details of the transaction, weigh the causes
which led up to it, consider the conditions surrounding it, realize the
temptations or provocations that precipitated it, you step into your
confessional: "Lord, my nature and heart are not different from this
sinner's, and but for accidents and good fortune which were none of my
providing, I should stand accountant to-day as he does!" You bring the
whited sepulcher home to you, and find that you have been living in it
yourself. And if you have a little intelligence you will acknowledge in
your convict the scapegoat who--not more and perhaps less blameworthy
than you--is bearing your iniquities as well as his own.
So, instead of condescending, with supercilious eyebrows and spotless
broadcloth, to concede that these unfortunate members of a non-human
class sometimes betray traces of saving grace after all, it might better
become you to wish that some of their saving graces appertained to
yourself.
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