Page:Execution, or, The affecting history of Tom Bragwell.pdf/15

 "How would you have been pleased, if this field had been yours, and a parcel of boys (at the time you were at home reading your book) had come out to it, and, not content with filling their pockets, bad trodden down and injured a considerable part of the corn besides?

"Who knows but Sutherland, Macdonald, and Mackintosh, were among the bean-stealers of last autumn! The approaches to vice are easy and almost imperceptible. A boy begins by stealing a marble from his play-fellow—his plea is the same as yours, it was only a marble!—this passes without detection, and he next proceeds to carry off trifles from his parents, and divides them with his school-fellows:—they, in their turn, do the same, and they have a joint stock of juvenile plunder;—With his little associates he next sallies out into the open fields, where they fill their pockets with turnips or beans:—one degree farther, and doors and walls are not proof against their depredations; for they find means to rob gardens and orchards;—a little more advanced, a sense of shame forsakes them, and they do not scruple, in the confusion of mobs and fairs, to catch and carry off what they can lay hold of—By this time they advance in years, grow up and get entangled in dissolute company, who, for more regular supplies, encourage them to advance still farther in the ways of iniquity,—they now proceed to rob their masters or mistresses, and break into shops and houses,—till, at last, grown hardened in wickedness, they throw off all restraint, bid defiance to the laws, betake