E MISTRESS. I don't believe there was ever before diffused everywhere
such an element of good-will, and never before were women so much
engaged in philanthropic work.

THE PARSON. It must be confessed that one of the best signs of the times
is woman's charity for woman. That certainly never existed to the same
extent in any other civilization.

MANDEVILLE. And there is another thing that distinguishes us, or is
beginning to. That is, the notion that you can do something more with a
criminal than punish him; and that society has not done its duty when
it has built a sufficient number of schools for one class, or of decent
jails for another.

HERBERT. It will be a long time before we get decent jails.

MANDEVILLE. But when we do they will begin to be places of education and
training as much as of punishment and disgrace. The public will provide
teachers in the prisons as it now does in the common schools.

THE FIRE-TENDER. The imperfections of our methods and means of selecting
those in the community who ought to be in prison are so great, that
extra care in dealing with them becomes us. We are beginning to learn
that we cannot draw arbitrary lines with infallible justice. Perhaps
half those who are convicted of crimes are as capable of reformation as
half those transgressors who are not convicted, or who keep inside the
statutory law.

HERBERT. Would you remove the odium of prison?

THE FIRE-TENDER. No; but I would have criminals believe, and society
believe, that in going to prison a man or woman does not pass an
absolute line and go into a fixed state.

THE PARSON. That is, you would not have judgment and retribution begin
in this world.

OUR NEXT DOOR. Don't switch us off into theology. I hate to go up in a
balloon, or see any one else go.

HERBERT. Don't you think there is too much leniency toward crime and
criminals, taking the place of justice, in these days?

THE FIRE-TENDER. There may be too much disposition to condone the crimes
of those who have been considered respectable.

OUR NEXT DOOR. That is, scarcely anybody wants to see his friend hung.

MANDEVILLE. I think a large part of the bitterness of the condemned
arises from a sense of the inequality with which justice is
administered. I am surprised, in visiting jails, to find so few
respectable-looking convicts.

OUR NEXT DOOR. Nobody will go to jail nowadays who thinks anything of
himself.

THE FIRE-TENDER. When society seriously takes hold