THE TYRANNY OF THE STATE. 627 



writers, and a full discussion of the subject here is unnecessary. 

 Attention, however, may be called to the fact that a citizen who 

 fails to observe the nice distinction laid down may find himself a 

 vile criminal, with illegitimate children, because he failed, when 

 the marriage ceremony was performed, to cross a river or step 

 over a border line. This neglect of uniformity is a crime on the 

 part of society toward its members that in this age of the world 

 should not be tolerated. 



Again, take the instance of a man accused by the state of 

 crime who is innocent. All the power of the social body is ex- 

 erted to make him out a criminal. He is put to enormous expense 

 in the employment of counsel, the obtaining of evidence, and all 

 the incidental expenses of a trial ; his business may be broken up, 

 and his hopes and happiness in life wrecked. Yet, even if he is 

 proved innocent, the whole burden falls on him, for the state 

 makes no compensation for mistakes. At the last session of the 

 American Bar Association a resolution looking to the correction 

 of this evil was presented and referred to a committee, and it is to 

 be hoped that the influence of this body may not be without effect. 

 The forms of verdicts should be modified so as to express fully 

 and distinctly the guilt or innocence of the accused, and in cases 

 where it is clear that the defendant is entirely without blame, he 

 should be compensated for the wrong done him. 



If the citizen is convicted of crime, what shall be said of his 

 treatment ? He is looked upon as one who has run contrary to 

 the currents of society and involved it in disorder ; yet, truly, he 

 is rather an index of the civilization that holds him. He has 

 fallen, not because he was worse than his fellows, but because 

 bad influences surrounded his weaknesses. Between those who 

 are out and those who are in there is often no more than the 

 thickness of the prison doors. But the fact that a criminal who 

 is caught is safely confined is deemed enough; his reform is a 

 matter to which the state pays but small attention. How little 

 has been done the records speak. In some places the unfortunates 

 are bound in chain-gangs and hired out as slaves ; in others, they 

 are driven insane by solitary confinement ; and, again, the young 

 and innocent are herded with vicious age. For these wards of 

 the state, for whose condition it is largely responsible, there is 

 seldom any effort at improvement. Yet the thoughtful man will 

 find in the study of criminals and their ways the courses of crime, 

 and a partial solution of the problems of social disorder. There 

 should be an opportunity given them to work out their freedom 

 under conditions more hopeful than those found in the confine- 

 ments of our prisons. 



Almost all the States have provided in their Constitutions that 

 no human authority shall interfere with the rights of conscience. 



