in a deplorable social state, if their king
can "spread out" his prime minister in the sun, as formerly described:
but the mercy or cruelty of his subjects can be inferred only from the
liberty they may have and may use to treat one another in the same
manner. In their case, we see that such a power is possessed and put to
use. The creditor exposes his debtor's wife, children, and slaves, to
the same noon-day sun which broils the prime minister. In Austria, it
would be harsh to suppose that subjects have any desire to treat one
another as the Emperor and his minister treat political offenders within
the walls of the castle of Spielburg. The Russians at large are not to
be made answerable for the transportation of coffles of nobles and
gentlemen to the silver mines of Siberia, and the regiments on the
frontier. It is only under a representative government that prisons, and
the treatment of criminals under the law, can be fairly considered a
test of the feelings of the majority.

It is too true, however, that punishments are almost everywhere
vindictive in their character; and have more relation to some supposed
principle of "not letting vice go unpunished," than either to the
security of society, or the reformation of the offender. The few
exceptions that exist are a far more conclusive testimony to an
advancing state of morals than the old methods are to the vindictiveness
of the mind of the society which they corrupt and deform. The
Philadelphia penitentiary is a proof of the thoughtful and laborious
humanity of those who instituted it; but Newgate cannot be regarded as
the expressed decision of the English people as to how criminals should
be guarded. Such a prison would not now be instituted by any civilized
nation. Its existence is to be interpreted, not as a token of the
cruelty and profligacy of the mind of society, but of its ignorance of
the case, or of its bigoted adherence to ancient methods, or of its
apathy in regard to improvements to which there is no peremptory call of
self-interest. Any one of these is enough, Heaven knows, for any
society to have to answer for; enough to yield, by contrast, surpassing
honour to the philanthropy which has pulled down the pillory, and is
labouring to supersede the hangman, and to convert every prison in the
civilized world into an hospital for the cure of moral disease. But the
reform has begun; the spirit of Howard is on its pilgrimage; and
barbarous as is still our tre