hat in our country this
individual has a kind of prerogative of detestation. All other ranks
and conditions of men may find a sympathy, or at least a pity,
somewhere, but for him there is none. No one is sufficiently debased
to be his companion,--no one so low as to be his associate! Like a
being of another sphere, he appears but at some frightful moments of
life, and then only for a few seconds. For the rest he drags on
existence unseen and unheard of, his very name a thing to tremble at.
Yet this man, in the duties of his calling, has neither will nor
choice. The stern agent of the law, he has but one course to follow;
his path, a narrow one, has no turning to the right or to the left,
and, save that his ministry is more proximate, is less accessory to
the death of the criminal than he who signs the warrant for execution.
In fact, he but answers the responses of the law, and in the loud amen
of his calling, he only consummates its recorded assertion. How then
can you reconcile yourself to the fact, that while you overwhelm the
advocate who converts right into wrong and wrong into right, who
shrouds the guilty man, and conceals the murderer, with honour, and
praise, and rank, and riches, and who does this for a brief marked
fifty pounds, yet have nothing but abhorrence and detestation for the
impassive agent whose fee is but one. One can help what he does--the
other cannot. One is an amateur--the other practices in spite of
himself. One employs every energy of his mind and every faculty of his
intellect--the other only devotes the ingenuity of his fingers. One
strains every nerve to let loose a criminal upon the world--the other
but closes the grave over guilt and crime!

The king's counsel is courted. His society sought for. He is held in
high esteem, and while his present career is a brilliant one in the
vista before him, his eyes are fixed upon the ermine. Jack Ketch, on
the other hand, is shunned. His companionship avoided, and the only
futurity he can look to, is a life of ignominy, and after it an
unknown grave. Let him be a man of fascinating manners, highly gifted,
and agreeable; let him be able to recount with the most melting pathos
the anecdotes and incidents of his professional career, throwing light
upon the history of his own period--such as none but himself could
throw;--let him speak of the various characters that have _passed
through his hands_, and so to say, "dropped off before him"--yet the
prejudi