ful not to mention my
voluntary connection with my father's crime for fear that should I do so
I might be compelled to make a statement which might increase the
severity of his punishment. For this reason I did not dare to make
inquiries concerning the child in whom I had taken such an interest,
and whose little life I had, perhaps, imperilled. I never knew, ladies,
whether that infant grew up or not.

"But I, alas! grew up to a life of hardship and degradation. It would be
impossible for persons in your sphere of life to understand what I now
was obliged to suffer. Suitable employment I could not obtain, because I
was the son of a burglar. With a father in the State prison, it was of
no use for me to apply for employment at any respectable place of
business. I laboured at one thing and another, sometimes engaging in the
most menial employments. I also had been educated and brought up by my
dear mother for a very different career. Sometimes I managed to live
fairly well, sometimes I suffered. Always I suffered from the stigma of
my father's crime, always in the eyes of the community in which I
lived--a community, I am sorry to say, incapable, as a rule, of making
correct judgments in delicate cases like these--I was looked upon as
belonging to the ranks of the dishonest. It was a hard lot, and
sometimes almost impossible to bear up under.

"I have spoken at length, ladies, in order that you may understand my
true position; and I wish to say that I have never felt the crushing
weight of my father's disgrace more deeply than I felt it last evening.
This man," nodding toward the stout burglar, "came to me shortly after I
had eaten my supper, which happened to be a frugal one, and said to
me:--

"'Thomas, I have some business to attend to to-night, in which you can
help me if you choose. I know you are a good mechanic.'

"'If it is work that will pay me,' I answered, 'I should be very glad to
do it, for I am greatly in need of money.'

"'It will pay,' said he; and I agreed to assist him.

"As we were walking to the station, as the business to be attended to
was out of town, this man, whose name is James Barlow, talked to me in
such a way that I began to suspect that he intended to commit a
burglary, and openly charged him with this evil purpose. 'You may call
it burglary or anything else you please,' said he; 'property is very
unequally divided in this world, and it is my business in life to make
wrong things right a