F. Colburn (Francis Colburn) Adams
Chapter 33
against which vice is least effectual. To think of changing the
natural inclination of such natures with punishment, or harsh
correctives, is as useless as would be an attempt to stop the ebbing
and flowing of the tide. You must nurture the feelings, he thought,
create a susceptibility, get the heart right, by holding out the
value of a better state of things, and make the head to feel that
you are sincere in your work of love; and, above all, you must not
forget the stomach, for if that go empty crime will surely creep
into the head. You cannot correct moral infirmity by confining the
victim of it among criminals, for no greater punishment can be
inflicted on the feelings of man; and punishment destroys rather
than encourages the latent susceptibility of our better nature. In
nine cases out of ten, improper punishment makes the hardened
criminals with which your prisons are filled, destroying forever
that spark of ambition which might have been fostered into a means
to higher ends.
And as the young man thus muses, there recurs to his mind the
picture of old Absalom McArthur, a curious old man, but excessively
kind, and always ready to do "a bit of a good turn for one in need,"
as he would say when a needy friend sought his assistance. McArthur
is a dealer in curiosities, is a venerable curiosity himself, and
has always something on hand to meet the wants of a community much
given to antiquity and broken reputations.
The young theologian will seek this good old man. He feels that time
will work a favorable revolution in the feelings of Tom's mother;
and to be prepared for that happy event he will plead a shelter for
him under McArthur's roof.
And now, generous reader, we will, with your permission, permit him
to go on his errand of mercy, while we go back and see how Tom
prospers at the old prison. You, we well know, have not much love of
prisons. But unless we do now and then enter them, our conceptions
of how much misery man can inflict upon man will be small indeed.