m. They are held in great odium by the
generality of the public, and are considered as subverters of all
morality whatever. The malcontents, on the other hand, assert that
illness is the inevitable result of certain antecedent causes, which, in
the great majority of cases, were beyond the control of the individual,
and that therefore a man is only guilty for being in a consumption in the
same way as rotten fruit is guilty for having gone rotten. True, the
fruit must be thrown on one side as unfit for man's use, and the man in a
consumption must be put in prison for the protection of his
fellow-citizens; but these radicals would not punish him further than by
loss of liberty and a strict surveillance. So long as he was prevented
from injuring society, they would allow him to make himself useful by
supplying whatever of society's wants he could supply. If he succeeded
in thus earning money, they would have him made as comfortable in prison
as possible, and would in no way interfere with his liberty more than was
necessary to prevent him from escaping, or from becoming more severely
indisposed within the prison walls; but they would deduct from his
earnings the expenses of his board, lodging, surveillance, and half those
of his conviction. If he was too ill to do anything for his support in
prison, they would allow him nothing but bread and water, and very little
of that.

They say that society is foolish in refusing to allow itself to be
benefited by a man merely because he has done it harm hitherto, and that
objection to the labour of the diseased classes is only protection in
another form. It is an attempt to raise the natural price of a commodity
by saying that such and such persons, who are able and willing to produce
it, shall not do so, whereby every one has to pay more for it.

Besides, so long as a man has not been actually killed he is our fellow-
creature, though perhaps a very unpleasant one. It is in a great degree
the doing of others that he is what he is, or in other words, the society
which now condemns him is partly answerable concerning him. They say
that there is no fear of any increase of disease under these
circumstances; for the loss of liberty, the surveillance, the
considerable and compulsory deduction from the prisoner's earnings, the
very sparing use of stimulants (of which they would allow but little to
any, and none to those who did not earn them), the enforced celibacy, and
above all,