CONCLUSION. 439 



A very large class of ' good ' people are restrained from 

 evil by fear of future punishment a restraint not so strong 

 as a hair to the larger class of the ignorant and callous, to 

 whom a year in the penitentiary has more terrors than 

 an eternity of hells as preached from the pulpit. Take 

 from the ' dangerous classes ' of New York City the fear 

 of police, troops, gaols, and penitentiaries in a word, of 

 punishment ; how long would that city stand ? There 

 are in every community vicious people enough to over- 

 turn the whole fabric of society, were it not for the 

 salutary restraint of fear. 



Our boasted civilisation, our enlightenment, the result 

 of ages ; our religion, the most perfect yet given to or 

 devised by man : we hold them all, humiliating as may 

 be the admission, by means of the gaol, the penitentiary, 

 and the gallows. 



If this can be truly said of a society of which a large, 

 though not the largest, part is composed of educated, 

 moral, and religious people, how much more true is it of 

 a society made up entirely of persons ignorant of any 

 moral or religious restraint, and whose whole standard of 

 action is each his own will. Civilisation has many re- 

 straining influences religion, morality, honour, pride, and 

 fear. The Indian has but one. This solitary influence 

 is fear. Eelieve him of this most salutary restraint, and 

 there would be no limit to his crimes, depredations, out- 

 rages, and cruelties. 



In an advanced state of society there are always a 

 number of persons of ample means, abundance of time, 

 and kind, sympathetic natures, whose benevolence and 

 philanthropy are only satisfied when exercised at ex- 

 tremes ; men who would do nothing for a poor devil who 

 stole a loaf of bread from hunger, but would move heaven 

 and earth to obtain the pardon of a felon who murders 

 whole families in cold blood, or of a boy fiend who play- 

 fully assassinates half a dozen of his companions. This 

 class of persons is always influential : first, because only 



