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218 REMARKS ON VICTOR HUGO'S a !LES MIS^...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
¦ « By Frances Power Cobbe. It Is Either...
never treat crime as JEsehylus or Shakespeare treated it . They must be inspired either by the false latitudinarianism of which we
have spoken , or by another and very different spirit , the true and Divine spiritwhich sees all the horror of guiltand yet never loses
either pity or , hope for the criminal . , a Very important is the question then , when any new work appears
treating of this matter , whether it will do so in one way or the otherwhether it will helforward or retard the progress of the
world , towards a just sentiment p regarding crime . For one individual who reads reports of gaols and similar documents , there are ten
thousand who read books like " Never too Late to Mend , " and whose future conception of a criminal and his proper treatment will be
thenceforth modified thereby . Victor H ' s " Miserables" as everybody knowsis a grand appeal
for for ugo the wretchedfor , convicts and fallen , women . Much of it mercy applies especially to t , he code and social condition of France ,
but the moral is for all the world . " We do not contemplate a review of the two volumes in this brief paperbut only to notice
the principles involved , so far as they regard this , question of the true treatment of crime . The plot of the book necessarily takes
up exclusively the negative side of the matter . There are no -theories suggested of how crime ought to be repressed , only very
overwhelming reasons why it ought not to be punished as it is now . Thus the drift of the whole book belongs to the merciful side .
But it is no mawkish sentimental compassion , no indifference to the distinction of good and evil , which inspires the appeal . The
convict here is a real criminal , and commits hateful actions , and even after his reformationbecomes no paragon of converted
respect-. ability . Never ( so it seems , to us ) has the true and Divine view . of human offence been more perfectly illustratedor the causes of
man ' s crime and woman ' s degradation more po , werfully exposed , than in this wonderful book .
" How to make a man into a wild beast . " Such it would appear must be the problem set themselves by the authorities at Toulon .
A wretched peasant breaks a baker ' s window and steals bread , " _vol avec _effractionP He is sent to the Bagne for five years .
Before his time exj _> ires he tries to escape , is recaptured , recondemned , tries again and again , and finally leaves his bullet and
chain after eighteen years of punishment . How ? reformed ? brought to penitence for stealing the loaf and cracking the shop
window ? Very much the reverse ; a hardened and cruel ruffian , hating his kind and blaspheming his Makerwho have caused
and awkward suffered and him ignorant to endure labourer such wrong he comes . Onl out y strong , , instead 1 ag of ile a taug weak ht ,
to read and , writeand with his , mind filled with the , wickedness , of the comrades to whom , he has been chained like a dog .
is horri this ble be in deed true and presentation for folly and of the cruelty French to convict be compared system , to it
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218 Remarks On Victor Hugo's A !Les Mis^...
218 REMARKS ON VICTOR HUGO ' S _! LES MIS _^ _RABLES . "
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Dec. 1, 1862, page 218, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01121862/page/2/
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