"Does society take as much pains to prevent the subornation of evidence against him?" asked General Tracy; "does it take pains to prevent or punish the light and wanton, or the ignorant and stupid committal of an honest man to the same infliction of imprisonment and privation which is assigned by the law to a convicted rogue. No, no, Chandos Winslow, it does not. Society is full of evil conventionalities, and the cases of individual hardship are so numerous, that I much doubt whether the benefits of society in its present state compensate for the evils. Nor is this all, my good friend: its operations are all iniquitous--iniquitous in their benefits as well as in their wrongs. One man is as unjustly exalted as another is abased, with a few splendid exceptions, just sufficient to prove the general rule. Society is, in fact, the concentration of the whole world's selfishness. But one sort, even of conventional virtue, is successful at any time, and it is extolled beyond all praise, rewarded beyond all discrimination; but one class of vices is punished, and it is persecuted rather than chastised. The very charge of one of the proscribed sins is sufficient to entail upon a man a punishment fit for a heinous offence, and in every other sort of wickedness, a sinner within convention may revel at his will." "Nay, you are too severe, General," replied Chandos; "I suffer; but yet I do not think that society inflicts more hardships upon individuals than is perhaps inevitable." "You say so because you have been accustomed to look at these things under one aspect alone," answered General Tracy. "Now, think how many committals take place in the course of the year in proportion to the convictions. Those can easily be ascertained; for the reports are published. Then, again, consider how many of the innocent are condemned, and you will find that an amount of punishment has been inflicted upon people who do not deserve it, which is more than should be necessary to chastise proved crime in any well organized state of society for a population of double the extent of that of Great Britain." "But you assume," rejoined Chandos, "that all who are not convicted are innocent, which perhaps may not be exactly the case." "I assume what the rule of society justifies, and no more," replied General Tracy. "Every man must be considered innocent till he is proved guilty." "Besides," said the prisoner, "I hope that few of the innocent are really condemned, even if many of the guilty do not escape."