Introductory Lecture Before The Medical Class Of The University Of Pennsylvania

Author : William Gibson
Publisher : Forgotten Books
ISBN 13 : 9780331055016
Total Pages : 32 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (55 download)

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Download or read book Introductory Lecture Before the Medical Class of the University of Pennsylvania written by William Gibson and published by Forgotten Books. This book was released on 2017-11-14 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Introductory Lecture Before the Medical Class of the University of Pennsylvania: Delivered Nov. 4, 1844 Far be it from me to offer any extenuation for such offences, criminal, in the highest degree, in the eyes of God and of man, and deserving of the severest punishment, to both parties, that laws, divine and human, can inflict. But, why should our fair and beautiful and hitherto quiet and exemplary city, be singled out for insult and degradation, and become a proverb for misrule and vio lence, as if Baltimore and Boston and Brooklyn and New York and Nauvoo, and some other cities and even villages, had never enacted similar scenes and been equally guilty of mob law and lynch law and mob violence. The truth is, such occurrences are not peculiar to this city, or to other cities, or to our country at large; they are common to European cities and to the world; and it is absurd and ridiculous to throw the odium of such mishaps and misdemeanours upon any one of our communities to-day, when another shall be equally liable to be visited by them to-mor row. I truly believe, however, that nothing has contributed, in the case of Philadelphia, so largely, to the revolting and disgrace ful scenes which have recently stained the fair pages of her his tory, as the acts of leniency and humanity, which for years have been advocated by many of her most pious and exemplary citizens, towards culprits and ofi'enders - by diminishing the severity of the laws, by interfering with prison discipline, by attempts to abrogate capital punishment, and thus assuring rogues and disturbers of the peace and murderers that, if convicted, they will speedily be set at liberty and pardoned by executive clemency. If such be the fact, as there is too much reason to believe, it is, at last, resolved into this - that the very acts of kindness and humanity for which so many of our most peaceable and humane and religious citizens have been so long renowned, and which have shed a lustre upon the city and its benevolent founders, have been the means, through mistaken policy and' the purest intentions, of tarnishing her fair fame. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.