There is no question of how you came to be wicked, but
only this--namely, are you wicked or not? This has been decided in the
affirmative, neither can I hesitate for a single moment to say that it
has been decided justly. You are a bad and dangerous person, and stand
branded in the eyes of your fellow-countrymen with one of the most
heinous known offences.
"It is not my business to justify the law: the law may in some cases have
its inevitable hardships, and I may feel regret at times that I have not
the option of passing a less severe sentence than I am compelled to do.
But yours is no such case; on the contrary, had not the capital
punishment for consumption been abolished, I should certainly inflict it
now.
"It is intolerable that an example of such terrible enormity should be
allowed to go at large unpunished. Your presence in the society of
respectable people would lead the less able-bodied to think more lightly
of all forms of illness; neither can it be permitted that you should have
the chance of corrupting unborn beings who might hereafter pester you.
The unborn must not be allowed to come near you: and this not so much for
their protection (for they are our natural enemies), as for our own; for
since they will not be utterly gainsaid, it must be seen to that they
shall be quartered upon those who are least likely to corrupt them.
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