But most of the living who are accessory can no more be discovered
and summoned than can the dead who also were accessory. You have
left the third criminal; and the State is forced to single him out
and let the full punishment fall upon him alone. Thus it does not
punish the guilty--it punishes the last of the guilty. It does not
even punish him for his share of the guilt: it can never know what
that share is. This is merely a feeling of mine, I do not uphold
it. Of course I often declined to defend also."
They returned to this subject another afternoon as the two sat
together a few days later:
"There was sometimes another reason why I felt unwilling to
prosecute: I refer to cases in which I might be taking advantage of
the inability of a fellow-creature to establish his own innocence.
I want you to remember this--nothing that I have ever said to you
is of more importance: a good many years ago I was in Paris. One
afternoon I was walking through the most famous streets in the
company of a French scholar and journalist, a deep student of the
genius of French civilization. As we passed along, he pointed out
various buildings with reference to the history that had been made
and unmade within them. At one point he stopped and pointed to a
certain structure with a high wall in front of it and to a hole in
that wall. 'Do you know what that is?' he asked. He told me. Any
person can drop a letter into that box, containing any kind of
accusation against any other person; it is received by the
authorities and it becomes their duty to act upon its contents.
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