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Every Step in the Progress of Humanity Opposed by
Prosecutors
I know that every step in the progress of humanity has been met
and opposed by prosecutors, and many times by courts. I know that when
poaching and petty larceny was punishable by death in England, juries refused
to convict. They were too humane to obey the law; and judges refused to
sentence. I know that when the delusion of witchcraft was spreading over
Europe, claiming its victims by the millions, many a judge so shaped his
cases that no crime of witchcraft could be punished in his court. I know
that these trials were stopped in America because juries would no longer
convict. I know that every step in the progress of the world in reference
to crime has come from the humane feelings of man. It has come from that
deep well of sympathy, that in spite of all our training and all our conventions
and all our teaching, still lives in the human breast. Without it there
could be no human life on this weary old world.
