“The laws of society,” remarked an educated convict to Mr. Davitt, “are framed for the purpose of securing the wealth of the world to power and calculation, thereby depriving the larger portion of mankind of its rights and chances. Why should they punish me for taking by somewhat similar means from those who have taken more than they had a right to? My dear sir,” said he, “I deny your contention that there is any such thing as honesty in the world at all.” This man, who had a considerable acquaintance with literature and philosophy, maintained soberly that “thieving was an _honourable_ pursuit,” and that religion, law, patriotism, and bodily disease were the real and only enemies of humanity. “Religion,” he would observe, “robbed the soul of its independence, while society’s social laws, in restraining the desires and faculties given by Nature to men for the purpose of gratification, declared war against the manifest spirit of the law of our being.” Patriotism he termed “the idolatry of an idea, in the stupid worship of which the peace of the world, and the wellbeing of its inhabitants, were sacrificed by the lawmakers and others who profit thereby.” Lombroso found the following note written with a piece of iron in a politico-economical work, under the chapter of “Considerations on the Co-operative spirit”: “The best governed nation is that which has fewest thieves. Do you want to abolish thieves? See to it that the working man and the peasant have work to do, and are better paid for it; then they will be content, and will have nothing to say against the government; in consequence they will do their duty, and will not be forced to do evil.” Another, reading a book about an official who had been removed from the administration of taxes, wrote: “I advise you all to be public thieves, and then you will be free citizens and men who are useful to society, and will be decorated with medals and crosses. This man here was a public thief; but I am only a private robber; if I had been a public one I should not have been here.” Again: “Why are those who wear coarse breeches treated in one way, and those who are dressed finely and wear yellow gloves treated in another? Why are the first called thieves while the others are said to have committed undue appropriation? Have not both classes broken the commandment which says simply ‘Thou shalt not steal’?” In a confession made to Gisquet, the prefect of police, a different standpoint is taken up; the criminal justifies himself, not on moral grounds, but as a man of the world: “You regret the robbery that I have committed, and you call it a bad action; the insignificant act for which I have been condemned is the first link in a chain which will not, I hope, finish so soon. If I were not a thief by vocation, I would be one by calculation. I have faced all the good and the evil of other occupations, and I find that this is the best. What would have become of me among