LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
•
THE C01'LhiIICATION OF THE SENTENCES.
LT0 VIZ EDITOR or Inc " BFECT•TOR."1 Sin,—Allow me to express my deep sense of the value of your article under this head in the Spectator of August 8th. I would fain hope that many share with me in that convic- tion. Every line of that article is weighty. I trust that it may serve to arouse the British public even yet to a sense of the enormity—no feebler word will suffice—of the crime of which Dr. Jameson and his associates were found guilty. The sentences were too lenient at first. Such as they were, they were the very least that could have followed the charge of the Lord Chief Justice. It was in the power of the Bench when pronouncing sentence to have ordered the treatment of first- class misdemeanants. It was not so ordered. That showed the estimate of the Court of their guilt.
In addition to all you so clearly adduce of the probable evil results of this misguided clemency, there is the ground which it gives for the charge that there is one law for the poor and another for the rich and high-born. It is said that these criminals—it will not be denied that they are criminals, and, as you have shown, heinous criminals—were indignant,
forsooth, that they should have been subjected to the same
treatment as other offenders !—I am, Sir, FL.; , J. P.
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