The state furnishes no machinery for arriving at justice. Even if it were possible under any circumstances to judge, and even though men were really criminals, the state has no way of arriving at the facts. If the state pretends to administer justice this should be its highest concern. It should not be interested in convicting men or punishing crime, but administering justice between men. It is obvious to the most casual observer that the state furnishes no machinery to accomplish this result. The penal law simply takes a man into its hopper and grinds out a criminal at the end. A force of able-bodied, well fed, well paid men are kept busy in their search for crime. These find pecuniary reward in the crime of their fellows. An indictment is easily returned against a friendless man—a suspicion is enough in any case where the victim has no friends. If he is poor he is at once lodged in jail. Later he is placed on trial in the courts. When he steps into the dock both judge and jurors look on him as a guilty man—believe he has committed crime. He is carefully guarded by officers, like a guilty, hunted thing. Arrayed against him is an able prosecutor, well paid, and having personal and political ambitions dependent on the number of men he grinds into criminals. The prosecutor has ample means for the conduct of the case. The prisoner, helpless enough at best, is rendered absolutely powerless to prepare his case by being lodged in jail. Without money he has no advocate with either the learning, influence or ability to help his cause. If he is silent he is convicted. If he speaks no one believes his words. Innocent or guilty, it is a miracle if he escapes, and in this miracle the fact of his innocence or guilt plays but the smallest part. Given a few suspicious circumstances, a helpless prisoner, an indictment, and another victim is the sure result. And in the hands of a shrewd lawyer, or under the belief of guilt, any circumstances are suspicious circumstances. Almost all acts are subject to various interpretations, and the guilt or innocence of a circumstance depends not upon the act but upon the mind that passes judgment on the act. We look back with horror at the criminal courts of England, of Spain, of Italy, even upon our own Puritan judges who sentenced witches to death. These judges were doubtless as intelligent as our own. Their brutal, cruel judgments did not grow from a wicked perverted heart, but from the fact that they were passing judgment on their fellow man. These unjust judgments are the fruit of the cruel system of force and barbarism which clothes one man with the authority and power to condemn his fellow. All prosecutions are malicious, and all judgments are meted out in anger and hatred. Our own judges are constantly showing this. In nearly every instance they condemn a prisoner to a term of servitude, and when passion has fled and the sane and holy feelings of mercy, of charity, of humanity once more regain