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Among them " nimak-harami " or " faithlessness to their salt " would soon come to be regarded as a. crime of the first water.
(e) The inducement for thieving would be largely gone. Very few steal for the sake of stealing. A man usually, steals to fill his own stomach, or some one else's, whom, he loves. But- here all would be provided for.
(/),, Besides he would feel that all he could earn was for the-common good and was not going to.make any individual rich at his-expense.
(#)• Our experience in the- Prison Gate Homes contradicts it. True, we have had some thefts especially at the beginning, but when I was last visiting our Colombo Home, the Officers in^ charge assured me that they were now of the rarest occurrence, while the gentleman who owned the tempting cocoanuts that were hanging overhead told me that he had never had such good crops from his trees, as since our colony of thieves and. criminals had been settled there !
(4.) Some one else may perhaps object that we shall have thrown upon our hands a swarm of helpless, useless, cripples and infirm. Well, and what if we do ? Are they not our fellow human beings, and ought not somo one to care for them, ?. We shall, look upon it as a precious responsibility, and I speak fearlessly on behalf of our devoted officers .when I say, that they would rather spend and be spent for such than for the richest in the land. If, as I have already shown, the effort can be made self-supporting and self-propagating, the mere fact of their misery or poverty only impels us to love them the more and to strive the more earnestly for their emancipation.