From the nature of things there can be no justice in punishment. Justice imposes relation between act and consequence. The judgment of man is utterly powerless to pass upon the merits or elements of a human soul. But justice from the state to its citizens imports some ratio between the rewards, opportunities and punishments meted out to each. As to rewards and opportunities, the state does nothing except to assist the strong to despoil the weak. It furnishes no opportunity for its helpless, no chance for development and life, and gives no rewards for meritorious conduct, and makes no allowance for resisting temptation from crime. But aside from all this, within the realm where the state pretends to do justice, there is no equality meted out between its various members. The code is unyielding, the positive dead letter of the law is man’s highest and profoundest judgment as to the conduct of his fellows. * * * * * Each human soul is a separate entity, with its own hopes, desires and fears; some impassive and stolid, some sensitive and shrinking. To be accused of crime means more to some natures than years of imprisonment to others. The body is not alone the subject of punishment. Man, with his tortures and cruelties, seeks to reach the mind even more than the body. Striped clothes furnish the same warmth as other garments, but to some the stripes are an ever-consuming flame. To others, properly educated and hardened by the state, this consciousness does not add to the punishment involved. One day of forced confinement, or one moment of the indignity of handcuffs, means more to some than a year of hard labor. The terms of imprisonment are not the same to all. To some a term, however short, means the blighting of a life, and the destruction of a family—perchance a wife and child, a father or a mother, whose sorrow and shame are greater for being indirect. With a sensitive soul no punishment ends when the prison gates are opened up. Its consciousness lives as long as life endures. No day is so bright, and no prospect so pleasing, but the black shadow is ever present, blighting life, and driving hope and sunshine from the soul.