eagerness for
justice executed one innocent person every three years, on the average,
as Sir James Mackintosh tells us.

I do not know in what shape the practical question may present itself to
you; but I will tell you my rule in life, and I think you will find it a
good one. Treat bad men exactly as if they were insane. They are
in-sane, out of health, morally. Reason, which is food to sound minds,
is not tolerated, still less assimilated, unless administered with the
greatest caution; perhaps, not at all. Avoid collision with them, so far
as you honorably can; keep your temper, if you can,--for one angry man is
as good as another; restrain them from violence, promptly, completely,
and with the least possible injury, just as in the case of maniacs,--and
when you have got rid of them, or got them tied hand and foot so that
they can do no mischief, sit down and contemplate them charitably,
remembering that nine tenths of their' perversity comes from outside
influences, drunken ancestors, abuse in childhood, bad company, from
which you have happily been preserved, and for some of which you, as a
member of society, may be fractionally responsible. I think also that
there are special influences which work in the brood lake ferments, and I
have a suspicion that some of those curious old stories I cited may have
more recent parallels. Have you ever met with any cases which admitted
of a solution like that which I have mentioned?

Yours very truly,
_____________ _____________

Bernard Langdon to Philip Staples.
MY DEAR PHILIP,--

I have been for some months established in this place, turning the main
crank of the machinery for the manufactory of accomplishments
superintended by, or rather worked to the profit of, a certain Mr. Silas
Peckham. He is a poor wretch, with a little thin fishy blood in his
body, lean and flat, long-armed and large-handed, thick-jointed and
thin-muscled,--you know those unwholesome, weak-eyed, half-fed creatures,
that look not fit to be round among live folks, and yet not quite dead
enough to bury. If you ever hear of my being in court to answer to a
charge of assault and battery, you may guess that I have been giving him
a thrashing to settle off old scores; for he is a tyrant, and has come
pretty near killing his principal lady-assistant with overworking her and
keeping her out of all decent privileges.

Helen Darley is this lady's name,--twenty two or three years old,