If----"
"No, but my friend, we must fix the principle yea or nay. The law
that punishes theft is a good law--you admit that--very well. If the
law is good. it must be because its effect is good. A thief, will,
under such law, he really more benefitted by feeling its force than
in escaping the penalty annexed to its infringement. No distinction
can or ought to be made. The man who, in, a sane mind, deliberately
takes the property of another, should be punished by the law which
forbids stealing. It will have at least one good effect, if none
others and that will be to make him less willing to run similar
risk, and thus leave to his neighbor the peaceable possession of his
goods."
"Punishment, if ever administered, should look to the good of the
offender. But, what good disgracing and imprisoning a young man who
has all along borne a fair character, is going to have, is more than
I can tell. Blake won't be able to hold up his head among
respectable people when his term has expired."
"And will, in consequence, lose his power of injuring the honest and
unsuspecting. He will be viewed in his own true light, and be cast
off as unworthy by a community whose confidence he has most
shamefully abused.
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