You may say that it is your misfortune
to be criminal; I answer that it is your crime to be unfortunate.
"Lastly, I should point out that even though the jury had acquitted you--a
supposition that I cannot seriously entertain--I should have felt it my
duty to inflict a sentence hardly less severe than that which I must pass
at present; for the more you had been found guiltless of the crime
imputed to you, the more you would have been found guilty of one hardly
less heinous--I mean the crime of having been maligned unjustly.
"I do not hesitate therefore to sentence you to imprisonment, with hard
labour, for the rest of your miserable existence. During that period I
would earnestly entreat you to repent of the wrongs you have done
already, and to entirely reform the constitution of your whole body. I
entertain but little hope that you will pay attention to my advice; you
are already far too abandoned. Did it rest with myself, I should add
nothing in mitigation of the sentence which I have passed, but it is the
merciful provision of the law that even the most hardened criminal shall
be allowed some one of the three official remedies, which is to be
prescribed at the time of his conviction.
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