Neither does punishment affect any two alike; the sensitive and proud may suffer more from a day in jail or even from conviction than another would suffer from a year.  The various courts and juries of the different states fix different penalties.  Even in the same state there is no sort of resemblance to the punishments generally given for similar crimes.  Some jurisdictions, some juries and some courts will make these three or four times as severe as others for the same things.  Some days the same judge will give a longer sentence than on other days.  In this judges are like all of us.  We have our days when we feel kindly and sympathetic toward all mankind.  We have our days when we mistrust and dislike the world in general and many people in particular.  Largely the weather influences those feelings.  Therefore, the amount of time a person spends in prison may depend to a great extent on the condition of the weather at the time of conviction or when sentence is passed.  The physical condition of judge or jury, and above all, their types of mind, are all-controlling.  No two men have the same imagination:  some are harsh and cruel; others kind and sympathetic; one can weigh wheat and corn and butter and sugar; one can measure water and molasses and gasoline.  When one measures or weighs, one can speak with exactness regarding the thing involved.  Justice and mercy and punishment cannot be measured or weighed; in fact there is even no starting point.  The impossibility of it all makes many of the humane and wise doubt their right to pass judgment upon their fellow man.  Society no doubt is bound by self-protection to resist certain acts and to restrain certain men, but it is in no way bound to pass moral judgments.

Under any system based on a scientific treatment of crime, men would be taken care of as long as it was necessary to restrain them.  It would be done in the best possible way for their own welfare.  If they ever were adjudged competent to enter society again, they would be released when that time came.  Neither under a right understanding, and a humane, scientific and honest administration, would it be necessary that places of confinement should be places of either degradation or misery.  In fact the inmate might well be put where he could enjoy life more than he did before he was confined.  It might and should be the case also that he could produce enough to amply take care of himself and provide for those who would naturally look to him for support, and perhaps make compensation for the injury he had caused to someone else.

It is obvious that this cannot be done until men have a different point of view toward crime.  In the last hundred years much has been done to make prisons better and to make more tolerable the life of the inmates.  This has been accomplished by men who looked on criminals as being at least to a certain extent like other men.