“Our project would at least secure her from the risk of being run over by some vehicle.”

“Pray, why should the dear lady not choose to be run over?  Surely she can please herself?  It would be an appropriate ending to a brief and merry career.  It would be more than this.  We spoke, just now, of her example as a deterrent to others.  Well, this example, so far as we spectators are concerned, would lose its point and pungency if she died as you propose—­a half-reclaimed inebriate in some home.  She must be run over, or otherwise violently destroyed, if we are to have the full benefit of the example.  It is only then that we shall be able to say to ourselves:  Ah, we always thought it was risky to drink strong waters, but now we know.”

“A fatal accident of this kind, quite apart from other considerations, would involve her relatives in all kinds of trouble with the legal authorities of this country.”

“I am glad you mentioned the legal aspects of the case; I had nearly forgotten them.  They are most important.  In electing to be crushed under a vehicle she acts on her own initiative.  What you propose is nothing less than a curtailment of her liberty of action.  How do you think the local authorities would envisage such an arbitrary step?  I imagine it may cost you dear to arrogate to yourselves a power which, in this country at least, is vested in the proper authorities.  You may well find yourselves in collision with the penal code of Italy which has been framed, and is now administered, by men of uncommonly wide views—­men who reverence personal freedom above gold and rubies.  I should not be surprised if our magistrate in Nepenthe were to take, on legal grounds, the same view of the case as I hold on purely moral ones, namely, that your action towards Miss Wilberforce would amount to an unwarranted persecution.  He would regard it, very likely, as the unjustifiable incarceration of a perfectly harmless individual.  Signor Malipizzo, I may say, has pronounced views as to his duties towards society.”

This was too much for one of the respectable members of the deputation.  He asked: 

“Are you referring to that blackguard, that pestilential hog, who calls himself a judge?”

“Perhaps you do not know him as well as I do.  I wish you knew him better.  I wish you knew him as well as I do!  He is worth knowing.  Let me tell you something about him—­something new and characteristic.  Like many natives, he is scrupulously fair minded and honest.  Now I can get on, at a pinch, even with an upright man.  That is because I always try to discover the good side of my fellow-creatures.  But other people cannot.  Accordingly, being an incorruptible magistrate, he is liable to encounter hostility among a certain disreputable section of the populace.  His conscientious methods expose him to the accusation of harsh dealing.  This has happened more than once.  It happened only two days ago, when he sentenced to prison a batch