“The best preventives against crime are a well trained mind, industrious habits and a good moral life. And the power of a good example and a pure conversation is incalculable in leading young people into steady habits and a noble life such as they should everywhere follow. Let New York follow out the teaching of Solomon, and there is sure to be less crime in the future than in the past: ‘Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.’” [Illustration: The only Man on Record who is known to have Pardoned himself out of Prison. He began life as a School Teacher, Clerk in a Law Office, full fledged Lawyer and Treasurer of a Political organization in New England, with whose funds he decamped. He has been in Prison a dozen times under as many aliases, where he has spent twenty-five years. When he pardoned himself out of prison he was in Nashville, Tenn., under the name of Henry B. Davis. He is now supposed to be dead.] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER VIII LEAVES FROM THE HISTORY OF A CHECKERED CAREER The Remarkable Confessions of One of the Brightest, Brainiest and Smartest Crooks of His Day—How He Pardoned Himself Out of Prison. “Naturally I shrink from publishing my sins to the world. I prefer speaking of the shortcomings of others. Like most of the human family I can see the mote in my brother’s eye, but am blind to the beam in my own eye. That I am a son of Belial the journals of the country have not for the past twenty-five years permitted me to forget. I am viewed as all that is bad—as one whom it were folly to try to reform—as an incorrigible, morally deformed. If I am not totally depraved, society is not to be blamed. I rejoice that I am far better than society knows, that I know God and His love for me, and that in my inner life abides a faith that assures me I am but a wanderer from my Father’s house, to which I shall some day return and be numbered among the ransomed.” “Often have I looked heavenward and exclaimed: ‘Oh, God, I thank Thee that Thou knowest me, and that Thou wilt never misjudge me. Thou knowest why I wandered from the path of righteousness, and when I shall return thereto. I pray for the grace that will enable me to return—that will so fortify me that I may depart from evil and cleave unto Thee.’