situation, I remarked to the
chairman: "I held that audience well; there wasn't an interruption." To
which the chairman replied: "Interruption? Well, I guess not! Seth had
sent round word that if any son of a gun peeped he'd kill him!"

There was one bit of frontier philosophy which I should like to see
imitated in more advanced communities. Certain crimes of revolting
baseness and cruelty were never forgiven. But in the case of ordinary
offenses, the man who had served his term and who then tried to make
good was given a fair chance; and of course this was equally true of
the women. Every one who has studied the subject at all is only too
well aware that the world offsets the readiness with which it condones
a crime for which a man escapes punishment, by its unforgiving
relentlessness to the often far less guilty man who _is_ punished,
and who therefore has made his atonement. On the frontier, if the man
honestly tried to behave himself there was generally a disposition to
give him fair play and a decent show. Several of the men I knew and whom
I particularly liked came in this class. There was one such man in my
regiment, a man who had served a term for robbery under arms, and who
had atoned for it by many years of fine performance of duty. I put him
in a high official position, and no man under me rendered better service
to the State, nor was there any man whom, as soldier, as civil officer,
as citizen, and as friend, I valued and respected--and now value and
respect--more.

Now I suppose some good people will gather from this that I favor men
who commit crimes. I certainly do not favor them. I have not a
particle of sympathy with the sentimentality--as I deem it, the
mawkishness--which overflows with foolish pity for the criminal and
cares not at all for the victim of the criminal. I am glad to see
wrong-doers punished. The punishment is an absolute necessity from the
standpoint of society; and I put the reformation of the criminal second
to the welfare of society. But I do desire to see the man or woman
who has paid the penalty and who wishes to reform given a helping
hand--surely every one of us who knows his own heart must know that he
too may stumble, and should be anxious to help his brother or sister who
has stumbled. When the criminal has been punished, if he then shows a
sincere desire to lead a decent and upright life, he should be given the
chance, he should be helped and not hindered; and if he makes goo