Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/59

Rh For, after all, what should be the test of the amount of coercion or control which law has a right to exert over individual liberty? Does it desire the moral death of the sinner, or that he be converted and live? Should the main purpose of punishment be retaliation against a criminal, or reformation?

Drawing near any one of the great American cities, the traveller meets little to impress him with his approach to a centre of wealth and power until he reaches the immediate suburbs; or, if the entrance be lengthened, it is more like that of a back way than a front portal. It is the tattered fringe of the imperial mantle, the spots of blemish and dirt which gather in the wear and tear of mighty interests, that first meet the eye, strained to catch a glimpse of the beauty beyond. A utilitarian age and a business people have neither time nor money to waste on fine settings for the jewelled centres of their wealth and power. Prosperity is the touchstone of beauty; having that, they care for no other. The Midas touch which transmutes every thing it reaches into gold cannot spare such simple things as hedgerows and lanes, which add only treasures to the soul, and none to the pocket.