we hate lawyers and loathe spies, pimps, and informers of all
descriptions and the hangman with all our soul. For the Soul of Man
says: Thou shalt not refuse refuge to the outcast, and thou shalt not
betray the wanderer.

And those who do it we make outcast.

So we form Prisoners' Aid Societies, and Prisoners' Defence Societies,
and subscribe to them and praise them and love them and encourage them
to protect or defend men from the very laws that we pay so dearly to
maintain. And how many of us, in the case of a crime against
property--and though the property be public and ours--would refuse
tucker to the hunted man, and a night's shelter from the pouring rain
and the scowling, haunting, threatening, and terrifying darkness? Or
show the police in the morning the track the poor wretch had taken? I
know I couldn't.

The Heart of Man says: Thou shalt not.

At country railway stations, where the trains stop for refreshments,
when a prisoner goes up or down in charge of a policeman, a native
delicacy prevents the local loafers from seeming to notice him; but at
the last moment there is always some hand to thrust in a clay pipe and
cake of tobacco, and maybe a bag of sandwiches to the policeman.

And, when a prisoner escapes, in the country at least--unless he be a
criminal maniac in for a serious offence, and therefore a real danger
to society--we all honestly hope that they won't catch him, and we
don't hide it. And, if put in a corner, most of us would help them
not to catch him.