But you did not scruple to put this diseased or unfortunate version of
yourself into the jail cauldron, to stew there with others like or worse
than himself, for doing what, in most cases, he actually could not help
doing; and when at last he was ejected like stale refuse, you were
indignant because his looks did not please you, because he bore upon him
the stains and the stench which the cauldron had fastened on him,
because he did not, in the teeth of the secret service, the postoffice
inspectors, the detective bureaus and the police, at once begin to lead
an honest life and support the commonwealth. Do you say that none of
this was your doing? But it is your doing, in just so far as you have
not striven in every way open to you to extirpate the doing of it by
this representative government.
The wonderful thing--the unexpected and pathetic thing--is, that so many
convicts come out of jail in a kindly and inoffensive state of mind.
They are men who were born weak, humble and yielding, never esteemed
themselves, were always ready to take a back seat and give precedence to
others. They do not understand the rights of the matter, but suppose it
must be all right, that penal servitude is the proper thing for them,
that laws were made by wise men and must be enforced. They admit their
stealings and their trickery, and blame themselves, observing
regretfully that they didn't seem able to help it.
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