_Twenty-seven_
His first step was to have Caxton look up and abstract for him the
criminal laws of the State. They were bad enough, in all conscience.
Men could be tried without jury and condemned to infamous punishments,
involving stripes and chains, for misdemeanours which in more
enlightened States were punished with a small fine or brief detention.
There were, for instance, no degrees of larceny, and the heaviest
punishment might be inflicted, at the discretion of the judge, for the
least offense.
The vagrancy law, of which the colonel had had some experience, was an
open bid for injustice and "graft" and clearly designed to profit the
strong at the expense of the weak. The crop-lien laws were little more
than the instruments of organised robbery. To these laws the colonel
called the attention of some of his neighbours with whom he was on
terms of intimacy. The enlightened few had scarcely known of their
existence, and quite agreed that the laws were harsh and ought to be
changed.
But when the colonel, pursuing his inquiry, undertook to investigate
the operation of these laws, he found an appalling condition. The
statutes were mild and beneficent compared with the results obtained
under cover of them. Caxton spent several weeks about the State
looking up the criminal records, and following up the sentences
inflicted, working not merely for his fee, but sharing the colonel's
indignation at the state of things unearthed.
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