can be made
complete, government ought to press for hanging as well as the sea
service. If the sheriff and his bailiffs sallied forth, and seized upon
some hapless wight, thrust the king's money into his hand, and thus
enlisted him into the hanging corps for the benefit of the community,
the resemblance would be perfect. But no one, not even the high-sheriff
himself, has the least desire to obtain a single recruit for this
forlorn service; the members of which force themselves in a most
unwelcome manner upon the state. Still less, if possible, does the
government desire to be at the expense of erecting large buildings, and
maintaining numerous garrisons of all species of felons. "Banishment of
offenders, with a view to example only, _in which they have no concern_,
and to which their individual interests are yet unhesitatingly
sacrificed!" Indeed, but they have! He who is punished for theft has
still his life to be preserved, and may one day have his property also
to be protected by the same law under which he is suffering. One can
imagine the strange effect it would produce upon the ignoble army of
martyrs which throng our jails, to be told that they were sacrifices to
society--victims whom the community was offering up, most unjustifiably,
on the altar of its own interests! At first, the idea would be a little
dim and mysterious; but, after a short time, the flattering nature of
the doctrine would doubtless be sufficient to insure its reception. They
would, thereupon, call in the jailer, and the chief spokesman of the
party would thus address him:--"We perceive, O jailer! that society is
consulting its own interests in our punishment, and not, as it is bound
to do, our especial benefit and advantage. As we have learned that
stripes and bondage are to be inflicted on no man but for his own good,
and as we are all agreed, after considerable experience, that we derive
no benefit whatever from them, and you, O jailer! must be satisfied
that, as medical treatment, they are worse than inefficacious, we
demand, in the name of justice and human reason, our immediate
dismissal."

To those who value no information but such as assumes the shape of
detail of facts, or can be reduced to figures, and exhibited in the
shape of statistical tables, we shall perhaps appear to be wasting time
in examining the mere errors of _reasoning_ on this important subject of
penal discipline. We think otherwise. We apprehend there is nothing more