f
that circle is the only kind of odium he dreads. Appius Claudius
apprehended no odium from his own order--the patrician--from the
violation of the daughter of Virginius, of the plebeian order; nor
did Sextus Tarquinius of the royal order, apprehend any from the
violation of Lucretia, of the patrician order--neither would have
been punished by their own order, but they were both punished by the
injured orders below them.

Our own penal code punished with death the poor man who stole a
little food to save his children from starvation, while it left to
exult in the caresses of his own order, the wealthy libertine who
robbed a father and mother of their only daughter, and consigned her
to a life of infamy and misery. The poor victim of man's brutal
passions and base falsehood suffered inevitable and exquisite
punishment, while the laws and usages of society left the man himself
untouched. He had nothing to apprehend if the father of his victim
happened to be of the lower order, or a minister of the Church of
Christ; because his own order would justify his refusing to meet the
one in single combat, and the other dared not invite him to it, and
the law left no remedy.[26]

Take the two parties in England into which society is politically
divided. There is hardly any species of falsehood uttered by the
members of the party out of power against the members of the party in
power that is not tolerated and even applauded by one party; men
state deliberately what they know to be utterly devoid of truth
regarding the conduct of their opponent; they basely ascribe to them
motives by which they know they were never actuated, merely to
deceive the public, and to promote the interests of their party,
without the slightest fear of incurring odium by so doing in the
minds of any but their political opponents. If a foreigner were to
judge of the people of England from the tone of their newspapers, he
would say that there was assuredly neither honour, honesty, nor truth
to be found among the classes which furnished the nation with its
ministers and legislators; for a set of miscreants more atrocious
than the Whig and Tory ministers and legislators of England were
represented to be in these papers never disgraced the society of any
nation upon earth.

Happily, all foreigners who read these journals know that in what the
members of one party say of those of the other, or are reported to
say, there is often but little truth; and that th