t be
for a pin or a pound."

"Well, well--people differ in these matters. I never look at the
worst side only. How could Dayton find it in his heart to send that
poor fellow to the State Prison! I wouldn't have done it, if he had
taken all I possess. It was downright vindictiveness in him."

"It was simple justice. He could not have done otherwise. Blake had
not only wronged him, but he had violated the laws and to the laws
he was bound to give him up."

"Give up a poor, erring young man, to the stern, unbending,
unfeeling laws! No one is bound to do that. It is cruel, and no one
is under the necessity of being cruel."

"It is simply just, Mr. May, as I view it. And, further, really more
just to give up the culprit to the law he has knowingly and wilfully
violated, than to let him escape its penalties."

Mr. May shook his head.

"I certainly cannot see the charity of locking up a young man for
three or four years in prison, and utterly and forever disgracing
him."

"It is great evil to steal?" said the neighbor.

"O, certainly--a great sin."

"And the law made for its punishment is just?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Do you think that it really injuries a thief to lock him up in
prison, and prevent him from trespassing on the property of his
neighbors?"

"That I suppose depends upon circumstances. 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 b