Massachusetts has lately witnessed a similar instance of
misplaced clemency in the case of a vile woman who had poisoned eight or
ten persons, including some of her own children, in order to profit
by their life insurance. Such instances help to explain the prolonged
vitality of "Judge Lynch," and sometimes almost make one regret the days
in old England when William Probert, after escaping in 1824 as "king's
evidence," from the Thurtell affair, got caught and hanged within a
twelvemonth for horse-stealing. Any one who wishes to study the results
of allowing criminality to survive and propagate itself should read
Dugdale's The Jukes; Hereditary Crime, New York, 1877.
[35] Weeden, _Indian Money as a Factor in New England Civilization_,
Johns Hopkins University Studies, II. viii., ix. p. 30.
[36] Doyle, ii. 253.
[37] Doyle, _Puritan Colonies_, ii. 254.
[38] The quotation is from an unpublished letter of Rev. Robert
Ratcliffe to the Bishop of London, cited in an able article in the
_Boston Herald_, January 4, 1888. I have not seen the letter.
[39] Doyle, _Puritan Colonies_, ii. 379, 380.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Beginnings of New England, by John Fiske
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BEGINNINGS OF NEW ENGLAND ***
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