One day when I was dining with him there happened to be at table one of the English lawyers, who took occasion to run out in high commendation of the severe execution of justice upon thieves, "who," as he said, "were then hanged so fast that there were sometimes twenty on one gibbet!" and upon that he said, "he could not wonder enough how it came to pass, that since so few escaped there were so many thieves left, who were still robbing in all places." Upon this, I (who took the boldness to speak freely before the cardinal) said, "there was no reason to wonder at the matter, since this way of punishing thieves was _neither just in itself nor good for the public_; for as the severity was too great, so the remedy was not effectual; simple theft not being so great a crime, that it ought to cost a man his life: no punishment, how severe soever, being able to restrain those from robbing who can find no other way of livelihood. In this (said I) not only you in England but a great part of the world, imitate some ill masters, that are readier to chastise their scholars than teach them. There are dreadful punishments enacted against thieves, _but it were much better to make such good provisions by which every man might be put in a method how to live and so be preserved from the fatal necessity of stealing, and of dying for it._"' Socialism would try to obtain a remedy for the evils which judges go round year by year lamenting; Socialism would suggest a means of affording employment, and thus mitigate the crime which judges and juries are called to punish. Such objects may be declared chimerical, but surely it is not criminal to hope that they can be carried out, and to feel that they ought. I could read many other passages to show that under no circumstance Socialism merits that character which has been ascribed to it But I do not deem it necessary, as I think I have said enough to prove that. Nor do I want to instil my sentiments, but merely to disabuse your minds of a prejudice which has been disseminated to my disadvantage.