We seize a man and deliberately do him a malicious injury : Say , imprison him for years …………. A man breaking into my home and stealing my wife’s diamonds , I am expected as a matter of course to steel ten years of his life ,torturing him all the time . …. But the thought less wickedness with which we scatter sentences of imprisonment , torture in the solitary cell and on the plank bed and flogging or moral invalids and energetic rebels , is as nothing compared to stupid levity with which we tolerate Poverty .                                                            

 The crying need of the nation is not for better morals ,“cheap bread” temperance liberty ,culture , redemption of fallen sisters and erring brothers nor the grace ,love and fellowship of trinity, but simply for enough money. And the evil to be attacked is not Sin, suffering ,greed , priest craft ,kingcraft, demagogy, monopoly ,ignorance , drink, war pestilence , nor any other of the scapegoat which reformers sacrifice but simply poverty .                                                         

But the successful scoundrel is dealt with very difficulty and very Christianity. He is not only forgiven ,he is idolized ,respected made much of all but worshipped.                        

The seven deadly Sins ? Yes the deadly seven ! Food , clothing , firing , rent ,taxes , respectability, and children . Nothing can lift these seven milestones from Man’s neck but ………Poverty . A crime ? Yes………….

crime are virtues besides it all the other dishonors are chivalry itself by comparison . Poverty blights whole cities ; spreads horrible pestilence; strikes dead the very souls of all who come within sight, sound or smell of it . What you call crime is nothing …….. There are not 50 genuine professional criminals in London. But there are millions of poor people , abject people , dirty people, ill fed, ill clothed people.                                       

 “ I had rather be a thief than a pauper. I had rather be murderer than a slave .I don’t want to be either; but if you force ,the alternative on me , then ,by heaven I’ll choose the braver and more moral one .I hate poverty and slavery worse than any other crime what so ever.

Imprisonment as it exists today ,is a worse crime than any of those committed by its victims; for no single criminal can be as powerful for evil, or as unrestrained in its exercise , as an organized Nation.”

…… people who have ascertained the truth about prison have been driven to declare that the most urgent necessity of the situation is that every judge magistrate , and home secretary should serve a six month’s sentence in eoginto ; so that when he is dealing out and enforcing sentences he should at least know that (what) he is doing