But the evil of judgment and punishment does not end with the unfortunate victim. It brutalizes and makes inhuman all who are touched with its power. Under the influence of punishments jailers, policemen, sheriffs, detectives and all who deal with prisons are brutalized and hardened. The iniquities produced upon helpless prisoners leave their effects upon the captor as well as the captives. To witness the constant suffering and indignities of prison life is to destroy the finer sensibilities of the soul. Men who are otherwise kind in the various relations of life do not hesitate at cruelty to these despised prisoners whom the law has placed outside its ban. To underfeed and overwork, to insult, degrade and beat are common incidents of prison life, and this, too, not because jailers are naturally cruel and bad, but because prisons are prisons, and convicts are outcasts. Instead of approaching these unfortunates as brothers in fellowship and love, their only concern is to make them feel that the heavy hand of the state has been laid upon them in malice and violence. * * * * * However thoroughly the futility, cruelty and injustice of punishment may be shown, men will still persist that it must exist. The thought that society could live without prisons and policemen seems to be beyond the conception of the common man. If punishment has no effect to diminish or prevent crime, then no danger would be incurred to dismiss our jailers and jurors and close our prison doors. The results of this policy can, of course, not be proven absolutely in advance, but so sure as the existence of man is consistent with justice, charity and love, so sure is this policy right and would produce good results. It is not necessary to prove the theory of non-resistance to show that this policy is practical to-day. Society, as now organized, rests upon violence and wrong. The non-resistant pleads for a better order, one in which the law of love and mercy will be the foundation of every relationship of man with man. The present unjust system is supported by violence and force. The unjust possessions of the rich are kept in their place by soldiers, guns and policemen’s clubs. If these were withdrawn would the weak at once take the earth and all its fullness from those who for ages have ruled the world?