The fine is an alternative to imprisonment, and in practice it is a peculiarly striking example of our whole system of punishment. The magistrate on behalf of the public says to the offender, in effect, "You have transgressed the laws of the state in which you live and must therefore be punished. I do not wish to be too hard on you, but you must either pay us five shillings or we shall keep you for three days." Now as people cannot be kept in prison without cost being thereby incurred, the effect of the sentence is that if the offender does not pay to the police five shillings on his own account the taxpayer pays the prison five shillings. The culprit is injured by being sent to prison; but the public is also injured by having to pay. It is remarkably like the operation known as cutting off the nose to spite the face. This is indeed the effect of most of our punishments; they injure others besides the criminal, and there is room for grave doubt as to whether they benefit anybody. Once the punishment has been undergone, the offender is supposed to have expiated his offence; but as there is no positive expiation for past wrongdoing, except it may be future welldoing, this is a fiction. It is not a wise thing to teach the ignorant that they can pay for any harm they do; least of all to teach them that they atone by imprisonment for injuries inflicted on others. It is no compensation to a man who has been hurt to know that his assailant is being lodged and fed at his expense, and that some day he will come out no better than when he went into his place of retreat. When a man is disabled by injuries he has received his family is likely to suffer, and if he be a working man they may be in peril of becoming destitute. His assailant is shut up, and his family too may suffer in a similar way and to an equal degree. The law will see that the offender is taken care of, but the injured person and the families of both the parties are left to struggle as best they may. What harm have they done? They are neglected, and may suffer hunger unless they also do harm, while the offender is "expiating" his offence at the public expense. In so far as punishment is retributive it is foolish and indefensible, harming not only those on whom it is inflicted, but those who inflict it. If as individuals we are not justified in fostering a spirit of revenge, we are as little entitled to encourage such a spirit in our corporate capacity. Their actions show that some men are capable of doing very wicked things, and that is a very good reason for interfering with them; but it is no reason for interfering in such a way that we are all burdened by it, while there is no reasonable expectation that they are being brought to a better frame of mind.