"Men don't forget their money so easily."
"So I found to my cost."
"What did you do with the money?"
"I spent it for things that I wanted."
"You will hardly try that again if you ever have the chance."
"No, ma'am! I could have earned the two hundred and eighty dollars that I took in half the time I have been here, and had my liberty too."
"You knew it was wrong when you took the money and used it?"
"Yes, ma'am; but I wanted the things, and the money was in my hand to buy 'em. The things would be of use; and I knew that drunken fellow would waste it if he had it."
Another specimen of specious reasoning; nor is that kind of reasoning confined to convicts.
"It was not yours; you had no right to it, and that ought to have been sufficient for you. If he wasted it in drunkenness that was his sin, not yours. You could have restrained him through the laws that punish drunkenness. You could have told him how wrong he was doing, and set him a better example. Instead of that you stole, and he got drunk. You made yourself as bad as he."