"There was sometimes another reason why I felt unwilling to prosecute: I refer to cases in which I might be taking advantage of the inability of a fellow-creature to establish his own innocence. I want you to remember this--nothing that I have ever said to you is of more importance: a good many years ago I was in Paris. One afternoon I was walking through the most famous streets in the company of a French scholar and journalist, a deep student of the genius of French civilization. As we passed along, he pointed out various buildings with reference to the history that had been made and unmade within them. At one point he stopped and pointed to a certain structure with a high wall in front of it and to a hole in that wall. 'Do you know what that is?' he asked. He told me. Any person can drop a letter into that box, containing any kind of accusation against any other person; it is received by the authorities and it becomes their duty to act upon its contents. Do you know what that means? Can you for a moment realize what is involved? A man's enemy, even his so-called religious enemy, any assassin, any slanderer, any liar, even the mercenary who agrees to hire out his honor itself for the wages of a slave, can deposit an anonymous accusation against any one whom he hates or wishes to ruin; and it becomes the duty of the authorities to respect his communication as much as though it came before a court of highest equity. An innocent man may thus become an object of suspicion, may be watched, followed, arrested and thrown into prison, disgraced, ruined in his business, ruined in his family; and if in the end he is released, he is never even told what he has been charged with, has no power of facing his accuser, of bringing him to justice, of recovering damages from the State. While he himself is kept in close confinement, his enemy may manufacture evidence which he alone would be able to disprove; and the chance is never given him to disprove it." The Judge turned and looked at Barbee in simple silence. Barbee sprang to his feet: "It is a damned shame!" he cried. "Damn the French! damn such a civilization." "Why damn the French code? In our own country the same thing goes on, not as part of our system of jurisprudence, but as part of our system of--well, we'll say--morals. In this country any man's secret personal enemy, his so-called religious enemy for instance, may fabricate any accusation against him. He does not drop it into the dark crevice of a dead wall, but into the blacker hole of a living ear. A perfectly innocent man by such anonymous or untraceable slander can be as grossly injured in reputation, in business, in his family, out of a prison in this country as in a prison in France. Slander may circulate about him and he will never even know what it is, never be confronted by his accuser, never have power of redress.