Pagina 128 de 896

It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that

inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent;

also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very

humanising and softening to behold in action; also, for extensive

transactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral

wisdom, systematically leading to the most frightful mercenary

crimes that could be committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old

Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept,

that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism that would be as final

as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence,

that nothing that ever was, was wrong.