their tradesmen, while they dare not leave a gambling debt unpaid?  The ‘point of honour’ in the circle to which they belong demands that the one should be paid, because the non-payment would involve a breach of faith in their relations with each other, as in the case of the members of a gang of robbers; but the non-payment of a tradesman’s bill involves only a breach of faith in a gentleman’s relations with a lower order.  At least, some gentlemen do not feel any apprehension of incurring the odium of the circle in which they move by cheating of this kind.  In the same manner the roue, or libertine of rank, may often be guilty of all manner of falsehoods and crimes to the females of the class below him, without any fear of incurring the odium of either males or females of his own circle; on the contrary, the more crimes he commits of this sort, the more sometimes he may expect to be caressed by males and females of his own order.  The man who would not hesitate a moment to destroy the happiness of a family by the seduction of the wife or the daughter, would not dare to leave one shilling of a gambling debt unpaid—­the one would bring down upon him the odium of his circle, but the other would not; and the odium of that circle is the only kind of odium he dreads.  Appius Claudius apprehended no odium from his own order—­the patrician—­from the violation of the daughter of Virginius, of the plebeian order; nor did Sextus Tarquinius of the royal order, apprehend any from the violation of Lucretia, of the patrician order—­neither would have been punished by their own order, but they were both punished by the injured orders below them.

Our own penal code punished with death the poor man who stole a little food to save his children from starvation, while it left to exult in the caresses of his own order, the wealthy libertine who robbed a father and mother of their only daughter, and consigned her to a life of infamy and misery.  The poor victim of man’s brutal passions and base falsehood suffered inevitable and exquisite punishment, while the laws and usages of society left the man himself untouched.  He had nothing to apprehend if the father of his victim happened to be of the lower order, or a minister of the Church of Christ; because his own order would justify his refusing to meet the one in single combat, and the other dared not invite him to it, and the law left no remedy.[26]

Take the two parties in England into which society is politically divided.  There is hardly any species of falsehood uttered by the members of the party out of power against the members of the party in power that is not tolerated and even applauded by one party; men state deliberately what they know to be utterly devoid of truth regarding the conduct of their opponent; they basely ascribe to them motives by which they know they were never actuated, merely to deceive the public, and to promote the interests of their party, without the slightest fear of incurring odium by so