[112]
In my
view, no punishment could be too severe for a man who, when some market-clerk,
or street-inspector, or judge of a local court,—some poor, unskilled
man, without experience, and appointed to his office by lot,—has been
found guilty of peculation at the audits, demands from him a tenfold
restitution, and has no new law to propose for the relief of such delinquents,
and then, when ambassadors, elected by vote of the people, men of substance,
have embezzled and long retained large sums of money, the property in part of
the temples, in part of the treasury, is at great pains to invent for them a way
of escape from penalties ordained both by decree and by statute.
Demosthenes. Demosthenes with an English translation by A. T. Murray, Ph.D., LL.D. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1939.
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