been many times in prison." Then, I am glad to say, the judge meted out
justice, and turning to the detective, reproved him most severely. He
told him that he was there to judge present facts and evidence, not to
condemn a man because of his past, and that it did not matter what the
man had been, if there was no evidence that he had perpetrated crime,
no one had any right to hold him or to investigate records that did
not concern the case. The man on his discharge went back to his former
employment, but it had been a severe and bitter trial, for naturally
he felt in his own heart the injustice of the whole incident. He has,
however, courageously fought through his dark days and now for years
has been a successful and prosperous man.
Of course there are men who come out of prison planning to do evil.
They are those who have not learned their lesson, and to whom
imprisonment has proved merely a deterring influence instead of
a reforming one. Some men deliberately go to the first saloon to
celebrate their discharge and some may be found in the old haunts the
first night of freedom. But even with these cases, which are apparently
utterly hardened and careless, there may have been a time before they
drifted so far, when they also longed for the friendly hand, which
might have helped them back from the deep waters to the safe ground
of honest living. Careless and hardened as they may seem to-day, we
have no right to think that there may not be an awakening to better
possibilities to-morrow; so while there is life, we should see to it
that so far as our part of the question is concerned, there is the
possibility of hope also.
VII
WELCOMED HOME
"Home, home, sweet sweet home,
Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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