are recorded in the newspapers. He is made the hero of the hour, and every circumstance of his life, whether real or fictitious, becomes the subject of general conversation. Petitions and deputations without number incessantly pour in upon the minister of justice, demanding his pardon or at least the remission of his sentence. Such is the weight of public opinion brought to bear upon the minister that he generally yields to the solicitations of the humanitarians, and either liberates the prisoner or lets him off with an insignificant punishment.
The rarity of crime in this curiously constituted society, and the great amount of leisure of the people, conspire to give an undue interest in the criminal, and in place of exciting an excessive horror in the public, rather lead them to doubt the possibility of the crime unless it be proved to the utmost degree of certainty. Hence the great amount of sympathy always raised on behalf of the criminal. Every case is as it were tried over again by the public, and as a large section of the people are convinced that every case is got up by the police and that the condemned prisoner is really innocent, the pressure they exercise on the minister of justice proves irresistible, and the object of their compassion is spared the punishment he perhaps richly merits.
