Persons in the situation of the prisoner I have just described are of course very differently affected on entering Newgate as compared with the great mass of criminals who pass through its sullen portals every year. When the sensibilities of the heart are drawn forth by the early culture of the mind, and by the endearing excitements which social and refined intercourse produces, the loss of character entailed by a reverse of fortune or the ignominy of a public condemnation, to say nothing of the stings of conscience, is far more severely felt than it could possibly be by one who had never tasted the pleasures of society, whose education had been mainly acquired in the schools of vice, and whose life had been spent in the dissipations of idleness. It has often been said that the uncertainty of the law, and the mist that still envelops the fate of the criminal even when condemned, are great encouragements to delinquency. Even in capital offences the chances of escape are so many. But this, I conceive, is only half the evil effect of the uncertainty or gambling, as it may well be called, of the law. For by the same rule on which the criminal calculates the chances of escape, he frames his mind at the same time to the alternative of the last punishment. Common-sense tells us that this is only the simple process of cause and effect, operating on the material of human nature.