Page:Upbuilders by Lincoln Steffens.djvu/123



Justice—for several weeks when that woman cried out against his “Justice,” and his “bailee” moved to uphold the decorum of his court, the dignity of the Law. And—the Judge upheld the woman.

“I had noticed her before,” he says now. “As my eye wandered during the evening it had fallen several times on her, crouched there among the back benches, and I remember I thought how like a cave-dweller she looked. I didn’t connect her with the case, any case. I didn’t think of her in any human relationship whatsoever. For that matter, I hadn’t considered the larceny case in any human way. And there’s the point: I was a judge, judging ‘cases’ according to the ‘Law,’ till the cave-dweller’s mother-cry startled me into humanity. It was an awful cry, a terrible sight, and I was stunned. I looked at the prisoner again, but with new eyes now, and I saw the boy, an Italian boy. A thief ? No. A bad boy ? Perhaps, but not a lost criminal. I called him back, and I had the old woman brought before me. Comforting and quieting her, I talked with the two together, as mother and son this time, and I found that they had a home. It made me shudder. I had been about to send that boy to a prison among criminals when he had a home and a mother to go to. And that was the Law!