40 DEFENCE OF CRIMINALS: 



mals which on the whole is approved be our educated classes (though 

 not by the healthier sentiment of the uneducated) would have been 

 stigmatised as one of the most abominable crimes by the ancient Egyp- 

 tians if, that is, they could have conceived such a practice possible at 

 all. 



But not only do the moral judgments of mankind thus vary from age 

 to age and from race to race, but what is equally remarkable they vary 

 to an extraordinary degree from class to class of the same society. If the 

 landlord class regards the poacher as a criminal, the poacher as already 

 hinted looks upon the landlord as a selfish ruffian who has the police on 

 his side ; if the respectable shareholder, politely and respectably subsist- 

 ing on dividends, dismisses navvies and the frequenters of public-houses 

 as disorderly persons ; the navvy in return despises the shareholder as a 

 sneaking thief. And it is not easy to see, after all, which is in the right. 

 It is useless to dismiss these discrepancies by supposing that one class in 

 the nation possesses a monopoly of morality and that the other classes 

 simply rail at the virtue they cannot attain to, for this is obviously not 

 the case. It is almost a commonplace, and certainly a fact that cannot 

 be contested, that every class however sinful or outcast in the eyes of 

 others contains within its ranks a large proportion of generous, noble, 

 self-sacrificing characters ; so that the public opinion of one such class, 

 however different from that of others, cannot at least be invalidated on 

 the above ground. There are plenty of clergymen at this moment who 

 are models of pastors true shepherds of the people though a large and 

 increasing section of society persist in regarding priests as a kind of wolves 

 in sheep's clothing. It is not uncommon to meet with professional thieves 

 who are generous and open-handed to the last degree, and ready to part 

 with their last penny to help a comrade in distress ; with women living 

 outside the bounds of conventional morality who are strongly religious in 

 sentiment, and who regard atheists as really wicked people ; with aristo- 

 crats who have as stern material in them as quarry-men ; and even 

 with bondholders and drawing-room loungers who are as capable of 

 bravery and self-sacrifice as many a pitman or ironworker. Yet all these 

 classes mentioned have their codes of morality, differing in greater or 

 lesser degree from each other ; and again the question forces itself upon 

 us : Which of them all is the true and abiding code ! 



It may be said, with regard to this variation of codes within the same 

 society, that though various codes may exist at the same time, one only 

 is really valid, namely that which has embodied itself in the law that the 

 others have been rejected because they were unworthy. But when we 

 come to look into this matter of law we see that the plea can hardly be 

 maintained. Law represents from age to age the code of the dominant 

 or ruling class, slowly accumulated, no doubt, and slowly modified, but 

 always added to and always administered by the ruling class. To-day 

 the code of the dominant class may perhaps best be denoted by the word 



