ha’pennies to rub together, off you go to Old Bailey.” She had been on an even keel, but began to waver. “Mattie, they could make it more difficult to avoid paying for what you steal or damage. They could make victims whole, without additional punishment.” Her voice then rose, and I winced. “But that’s not what this is about!” She spat: “It’s that having so many poor people about offends Charlie’s taste!”
I shushed her severely. Only a few nearby in Mme. Graveau’s had heard above the low murmur. Only one or two had reacted, both grinning. “Charlie Scott,” I said, loudly. “Her brother-in-law. The banker!” Susan looked chastised, a rare sight.
Very well: I told her that the property of the poor had exactly the status as the property of the rich did, under the Bloody Code. Was that not equal justice under the law? “Equal justice! Let us also tax each red hair on everybody’s head, Mattie,” she suggested. I agreed with her before she could slander the King again.
I told her that rich English without fear their property would be stolen or damaged, without needing to spend time and coin protecting it, improved England for everyone – including the poor. Restitution was not a deterrent to property crime – but the threat of death surely was. We would see that, after there had been enough criminals made into examples.
Susan remained collected. I could see in her fidgets that it was an effort on her part. “How is that different from slavery?” My eyebrows arched. Go on… “How isn’t it worse, Mattie?” She dropped out of character for a moment. “You want me to convince you, correct? Not the public at large, or heaven forbid, the Aldermen?” Yes, convince me. It would be my livelihood at stake. “Well, then, I know how you feel about slavery. Slavery uses one person to make things better for another, without the slave’s consent. Right? But execution-as-a-deterrent uses one person – all of him, ends one person – to, we are supposed to believe, make things better for others. And as with slavery, it is not confined to just one person – it is a plague upon an entire class of persons.” She was right about slavery. Slavery shamed England, and when I thought on it, it made me ashamed to be English.
Whether the comparison to slavery was apt or not, executing the poor, essentially for the crime of being poor, shamed England, too. I was coming to understand that more clearly the longer I listened to Susan. And somehow, she sensed it – that she nearly had me.