PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

412 Of Crimes and Punl'ShmelltJ.
gratify the offender, and to expose the laws to mlJck ..
ery and insult. In the second plac~, the delinquents
who receive this se~ence art', for the most part, such
as have long ceased either to value reputation, or to
fear shame; of whose happiness, and of whose enjoyments,
character makes no part. rrhus the low ministersof
libertinism, the keepers of bawdy or disorderl,Y
houses, are threatened in vain with a punisllment that
c.ffects a sense \~/hjch they have not; tllat applies solely
to the imagination~ to the virtue and tIle pride of liuman
nature. The pillory, or any other infamou~ distinction,
might be employed rightly, and with effect,
in the punishmellt of some offences of higher life, as
of frauds and peculation in office; pf collusions and
connivances, by wh:ch the public treasury is defraud.
ed; of breaches of trust; of perjury, Bnd suborna=
tion of perjury; of the clandestine and forbidden sale
of places; of flagrant abuses of authority, or neglect
of duty; and, lastly, of corruption in the exercise of
confidental or judicial offices. In all which, the more
elevated was the station of the criminal~ the more ~ig.
nal and conspicuous would be the triumph of justice.
r The certainty of puni