judge give vent to the most cruel truisms about him. The judge
himself was a kind and thoughtful person. He was a man of magnificent
and benign presence. He was evidently of an iron constitution, and his
face wore an expression of the maturest wisdom and experience; yet for
all this, old and learned as he was, he could not see things which one
would have thought would have been apparent even to a child. He could
not emancipate himself from, nay, it did not even occur to him to feel,
the bondage of the ideas in which he had been born and bred. So was it
with the jury and bystanders; and--most wonderful of all--so was it even
with the prisoner. Throughout he seemed fully impressed with the notion
that he was being dealt with justly: he saw nothing wanton in his being
told by the judge that he was to be punished, not so much as a necessary
protection to society (although this was not entirely lost sight of), as
because he had not been better born and bred than he was. But this led
me to hope that he suffered less than he would have done if he had seen
the matter in the same light that I did. And, after all, justice is
relative.

I may here mention that only a few years before my arrival in the
country, the treatment of all convicted invalids had been much more
barbarous than now; for no physical remedy was provided, and prisoners
were put to the severest labour in all sorts of weather, so that most of
them soon succumbed to the extreme hardships which they suffered; this
was supposed to be beneficial in some ways, inasmuch as it put the
country to less expense for the maintenance of its criminal class; but
the growth of luxury had induced a relaxation of the old severity, and a
sensitive age would no longer tolerate what appeared to be an excess of
rigour, even towards the most guilty; moreover, it was found that juries
were less willing to convict, and justice was often cheated because there
was no alternative between virtually condemning a man to death and
letting him go free; it was also held that the country paid in
recommittals for its overseverity; for those who had been imprisoned even
for trifling ailments were often permanently disabled by their
imprisonment; and when a man has been once convicted, it was probable he
would never afterwards be long off the hands of the country.

These evils had long been apparent and recognised; yet people were too
indolent, and too indifferent to suffering not their own, t