JIMMY VIRTUE. Bob puts it plainly, doesn't he?
Mr. MERRYWHISTLE. But these cases must be rare.
ROBERT TRUEFIT. They are very common; and these two cases that I have put side by side, are two of the mildest. Listen to this--another wife-beating case: Husband comes home at noon. What kind of man he is may be guessed from his first words to his wife: 'I've something to tell thee, you----! I'm going to murder thee, you----!' He takes off his jacket, calls his bulldog, and sets it at his wife. As the dog flies at the woman, her husband hits her in the face; the dog drags her from the sofa, with its teeth in her flesh (it is almost too horrible to tell, but it is true, every word of it), and the husband jumps upon her, and kicks her on the head and shoulders. Imploring him to have mercy upon her, crying for help, the woman is dragged by the dog from room to room, tearing flesh out of her. The frightful struggle continues for some time, until the woman manages to make her escape from the house. It is dreadful to read the doctor's description of the state of the woman, and how he feared, for three or four days, that mortification would set in. The man is sentenced to--what do you think? Six months' hard labour. About the same time, a very young man is found guilty of stealing twenty shillings' worth of metal, and he gets seven years' penal servitude. But I could multiply these instances. You may say, that such cases as these have nothing to do with the broad question of misgovernment; but I maintain that they have. You get your criminal material from such places as Stoney-alley, where poor Blade-o'-Grass lives; and yet Stoney-alley is as bad now--ay, and worse than it was fifty years ago. The law knows of its existence, has its wakeful eye upon it; but what has the law done for its good, or for the good of those who live there? Take the case of Blade-o'-Grass. What does the law do for her?--and by the law you must understand that I mean the governing machinery for keeping society in order and for dispensing justice to all--out of our police-courts as well as in them. Think of the story she told, and the way in which she told it. There is capacity for good, in that child--ay, and in Tom Beadle, too. Can you doubt that, but for your charity, she might have died of hunger?