Connecticut western news., 1879-03-12

up it's nose, ostentatious charity be- moaned his wicked nature, but Jean Valjean hid himself from the hypocrisy of all simulated saintship. Conscious of his own desire to do good, he did all his life would permit him to do-to re- ieve ant, to soften expression, to aid honest effort. The law said he was criminal starvation had made him so. Society pointed to him as galley slave society drove him to his letters. Re spectability denounced him as 8 curse responsibility had forced him to steal.
 when this man, whose life for twenty yours had been 8 long, living hell, curse, and a sacrifice to all the inhu-; manities of criminal law, came out into the world which had 50 outraged all justice upon him, he did not undertake to revenge himself against the law or against society. What did he do? I said he became rich by industry he be- came respected by his devotion topublic welfare; he became loved for his human ity and charity and goodness; he be- came honored for his integrity and his intelligence. .....
 Then, when he was honored, loved, and occupied the first position, socially, politically and financially, he learned that poor laborer was charged with theft, and at the same time charged with being the old-time Jean Vatican, the guilty slave, hardened criminal. This would make the crime double criminal,
 and the perpetrator of it would be sent to the galleys-that hell to which human cruelty consigns human nature. This man, Jean Vatican, who under the name of M. Madeline, had become all that 1 was honored, left his home in haste, hurried to the courtroom, fifty miles i distant, reached there in time to see the
 poor man about to be condemned to the | galleys for life as the old criminal, Jean Vatican, on the evidence of the police who had arrested him. Then this man,
 who had been nineteen years in the gal leys for no crime but stealing loaf of
 bread, to save children from starvation who had lost his youth, almost his life, victim to the wrongs of society, but
 who had risen into wealth, honor and
 station by integrity under an assumed name, stepped forth into the courtroom
 to save fellow-being from the criminal
 torture of the criminal law, announced
 himself as the old criminal, Jean Val jean. It was an act so sovereignty
 great, self-abnegation so sublime, tha
 the criminal court was silenced. The
 accused was liberated, but the hero wen
 forth to be tracked, and spied, and
 bounded by the merciless devils of the
 police. ..-
 Jean Vatican had done a great act, he
 had rescued innocence, he had sustained
 the poor, he had been just, but his grea
 act had made him criminal. In rescu ing the innocent he had condemned him self in aiding the poor he had raised { barrier between himself and respecta bility by being just, he had made tn world become unjust. By doing unt others as he would that others shoul' do unto him. he had made himself al outcast. By putting robes of innocenc 7 and justice on felIow-man, he had pu 7 robes of shame and crime on himself. l From the hour of this great act of jus , tice, Jean Vatican was spied as a crimi B nal, denounced as galley slave, an l followed to his grave by the remorselea 5 officers of law. And yet he lived in tn 8 shadow of this terrible wrong but to d good, be charitable to the poor, and fol a giving to his prosecutors.