It was not considered disgraceful or wrong, if a bank cashier had stolen enough to ruin his bank, for the directors to accept his offer to repay half the amount stolen, in consideration of their agreement not to prosecute him. Public sentiment admitted that this compounding felony was objectionable, but refused to condemn the directors who committed the crime for trying to save some of their property from complete wreck. It was taken for granted that men cared more for their wealth than for their honor or the public weal. Even such embezzlers as were actually imprisoned seldom failed to secure from pliant pardoning boards such commutations as rendered their punishment farcical. It came to be a common saying that it was safer to rob a bank of a million dollars than to steal five dollars from a merchant’s till to buy food for a starving wife or child. The courts, which should have remained the trust and reliance of the people, became as untrustworthy as public sentiment itself. Lawyers adopted the rule that it was their part to win causes for their clients, right or wrong. “Get money! honestly if you can; but get money,” was the motto of the business element. “Win your case! by fair means, if possible; but win your case,” was the motto of the legal guild. The advocate who won his client’s case by taking advantage of technicalities or by securing an incapable or prejudiced jury, or by the introduction of false witnesses whose perjuries could not be exposed at the moment, was sure to attain wealth and a high position at the bar. Actual jury-bribing was suspected in many cases; but those who should have been the first to ferret out such offences cared not enough about the purity of the courts to trouble their leisure with the matter. The judges aided in many States to make the courts over which they presided inefficient and to bring them into public contempt by their blind adherence to outworn precedent and their indiscriminating affection for technical pleadings. Though generally men of the highest personal probity, they might be relied upon in any trial to ignore the spirit of the law and the interests of society if a clever attorney could point out in the letter of the law or in some century-old precedent anything to justify them in so doing. A misplaced comma was sufficient to overthrow the intent of an entire statute.