"I say that although I am bound to administer justice with an impartial hand, I feel it to be incumbent upon me in this particular instance, in consequence of these extenuating circumstances, to mete it out so that, while the law will be vindicated, you may be taught that it is not cruel or unkind, but rather is capable of giving the first generous impulse to reformation."
"He certainly means to let me off altogether," exclaimed Busby.
"In view, then, of these mitigating circumstances of your youth, your previous good character, your happy prospects, your afflicted parents and your own sincere repentance, the sentence of the court is: That you, George Washington Busby, the prisoner at the bar, do pay seventy-five cents restitution money and the costs of this trial, and that on Saturday next you be whipped with twenty lashes on the bare back, well laid on; that you be imprisoned for six months in the county jail, and that you wear a convict's jacket in public for one year after your release. Sheriff, remove the prisoner from the court."
Then the judge beamed a mournful but sympathetic smile upon Busby, secured the loan of another atom of tobacco, spat on the floor and called up the next case.
Mrs. Adeler, you laugh and say that I have indulged in gross exaggeration in reproducing the sentence. Not so. I tell you that I have known a boy of thirteen to have that condemnation, couched in almost precisely those words, hurled at him from the bench of the New Castle court-house because he stole a bit of iron said to be worth seventy-five cents. And I was present among the spectators in the jail yard when the sheriff lashed the lad until he writhed with pain. It was infamous—utterly infamous. I cannot, perhaps, justly accuse the judge who imposed the sentence upon the boy of indulging in the lecture which has just been quoted. That, as I have said, may be attributed to a magistrate who lived ten centuries ago. But the sentence is genuine, and it was given recently. I do not blame the judge. He acted under the authority of statutes which were created by other hands. But the law is savagery itself, and the humane men of this State should sweep it from existence.
