Memorials of John A. Torrance, agent for thirty years of the Patients' and Prisoners' Aid Society, with portrait / Edited, with biographical sketch, by Jas. Chisholm.

  • Torrance, John Ainslee, 1832-1908?
Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Memorials of John A. Torrance, agent for thirty years of the Patients' and Prisoners' Aid Society, with portrait / Edited, with biographical sketch, by Jas. Chisholm. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    difference between the habit and repute and the man once in the position of a condemned transgressor should not be ignored. The face is generally a fair index of character. Tell me which man you think the worst, said the gaoler to a visiting friend as they looked from a window into a prison exercise yard. The latter ran his eye over the group and singled out a creature with a long record of dark deeds, who had escaped the gibbet only by turning Queen's evidence against his fiend-mates. He was, as he looked, far and away the worst. The visitor was next asked to say which face he liked best, and he pointed to a man in his early thirties, who, with hands joined behind and eyes bent on the ground, walked by himself. He was Richard Dale. He was a member of a good family, and had a good wife and loveable little girl and happy home. He also held an honourable position in a large establishment, and it goes without saying that he attained to it by his conspicuous effectiveness in previous positions, both in respect of ability and the discharge of the duties en- trusted to him as step by step he ascended the rungs of the ladder. As I write from memory I cannot speak with preciseness as to all the facts and details. Suffice it to say that gambling—worst and most pernicious of all vices—was the cause of his downfall. I have before me a piece written by another man who may further on form the subject of a paper, and in it he says-— I have gambled and lost That priceless pearl—name.