ing to the ordinary calculations of chance? Such
as it is and has been, my life is vowed to the law, and the law will
have the offering. Could I escape from this indictment, I know that
seven others await me, and that by one or the other of these my
conviction and my sentence must come. Life may be sweet to all of us, my
lord; and were it possible that mine could be spared yet a while, that
continued life might make a better atonement for past actions than a
death which, abrupt and premature, calls for repentance while it forbids
redress.

"But when the dark side of things is our only choice, it is useless
to regard the bright; idle to fix our eyes upon life, when death is at
hand; useless to speak of contrition, when we are denied its proof. It
is the usual policy of prisoners in my situation to address the feelings
and flatter the prejudices of the jury; to descant on the excellence of
our laws, while they endeavour to disarm them; to praise justice, yet
demand mercy; to talk of expecting acquittal, yet boast of submitting
without a murmur to condemnation. For me, to whom all earthly interests
are dead, this policy is idle and superfluous. I hesitate not to tell
you, my lord judge,--to proclaim to you, gentlemen of the jury,--that
the laws which I have broken through my life I despise in death! Your
laws are but of two classes; the one makes criminals, the other punishes
them. I have suffered by the one; I am about to perish by the other.

"My lord, it was the turn of a straw which made me what I am. Seven
years ago I was sent to the house of correction for an offence which I
did not commit. I went thither, a boy who had never infringed a single
law; I came forth, in a few weeks, a man who was prepared to break all
laws! Whence was this change? Was it my fault, or that of my condemners?
You had first wronged me by a punishment which I did not deserve; you
wronged me yet more deeply when (even had I been guilty of the first
offence) I was sentenced to herd with hardened offenders, and graduates
in vice and vice's methods of support. The laws themselves caused me
to break the laws: first, by implanting within me the goading sense
of injustice; secondly, by submitting me to the corruption of example.
Thus, I repeat,--and I trust my words will sink solemnly into the hearts
of all present,--your legislation made me what I am; and it now destroys
me, as it has destroyed thousands, for being what it made me! But for
this, t