
year; and I find that though you are now only twenty-three years old, you have
been imprisoned on no less than fourteen occasions for illnesses of a more or
less hateful character; in fact, it is not too much to say that you have spent
the greater part of your life in a jail.
    It is all very well for you to say that you came of unhealthy parents, and
had a severe accident in your childhood which permanently undermined your
constitution; excuses such as these are the ordinary refuge of the criminal; but
they cannot for one moment be listened to by the ear of justice. I am not here
to enter upon curious metaphysical questions as to the origin of this or that -
questions to which there would be no end were their introduction once tolerated,
and which would result in throwing the only guilt on the tissues of the
primordial cell, or on the elementary gases. There is no question of how you
came to be wicked, but only this - namely, are you wicked or not? This has been
decided in the affirmative, neither can I hesitate for a single moment to say
that it has been decided justly. You are a bad and dangerous person, and stand
branded in the eyes of your fellow-countrymen with one of the most heinous known
offences.
    It is not my business to justify the law; the law may in some cases have its
inevitable hardships, and I may feel regret at times that I have not the option
of passing a less severe sentence than I am compelled to do. But yours is no
such case; on the contrary, had not the capital punishment for consumption been
abolished, I should certainly inflict it now.
    It is intolerable that an example of such terrible enormity should be
allowed to go at large unpunished. Your presence in the society of respectable
people would lead the less able-bodied to think more lightly of all forms of
illness; neither can it be permitted that you should have the chance of
corrupting unborn beings who might hereafter pester you. The unborn must not be
allowed to come near you; and this not so much for their protection (for they
are our natural enemies), as for our own; for since they will not be utterly
gainsaid, it must be seen to that they shall be quartered upon those who are
least likely to corrupt them.
    But independently of this consideration, and independently of the physical
guilt which attaches itself to a crime so great as yours, there is yet another
reason why we should be unable to show you mercy, even if we were inclined to do
so.
