Similarly, a bullying minority in a diet, parliament or skupshtina would be prosecuted for treason to the most sacred institutions when fists or flying inkwells replace rhetoric. That the mere suggestion of such alawsounds ludicrous shows how remote we are from civilized institutions, and hence how gradual should be our departure from the severity of judicial homicide.
同样，在国会、议会或其他最高立法机关中若出现少数以拳代口、认力不认理的强横不法分子的话，他们也会因叛逆罪而被起诉。只要一提出这样的法律就会使人们觉得荒唐可笑。这种情形恰好说明，我们的社会距离真正的文明还很遥远，因此，也就只能朝着摆脱严刑峻法的目标逐步前进。
I say gradual and I do not mean standing still. For there is one form of barbarity in our law that I want to see mitigated before any other. I mean imprisonment. The enemies of capital punishment - and liberals generally - seem to be satisfied with any legal outcome so long as they themselves avoid the vicarious guilt of shedding blood. They speak of the sanctity of life, but have no concern with its quality. They give no impression of ever having read what it is certain they have read, from Wilde's De Profundis to the latest account of prison life by a convicted homosexual. Despite the infamy of concentration camps, despite Mr. Charles Burney's remarkable work, Solitary Confinement, despite riots in prisons, despite the round of escape, recapture and return in chains, the abolitionists' imagination tells them nothing about the reality of being caged.
我说的逐步前进并不意味着停步不前。我认为在目前的刑罚方式中确实有一种是极其残酷的，必须优先予以缓解。我这里提的是监禁。那些反对实行死刑的人--他们多半为自由主义鼓吹者--似乎以为只要他们能逃避流血的罪责，任何其他法律上的后果都尽可不计。他们只顾痴谈人的生命的神圣性，根本不管那究竟是一种什么样的生命。从王尔德的《惨痛的呼声》到最近由一个同性恋者所作的对狱中生活的描述，他们似乎都没有读过，尽管事实上他们也可能都读过。尽管集中营的声名已人人皆知，尽管有查尔斯·伯尔尼先生写的《单独监禁》这样一部影响突出的大作，尽管我们知道监狱中常常发生犯人暴动、越狱逃跑、再度被捕并重新入狱这样的事实，废除派却丝毫想象不出被关在牢笼里究竟是个什么样的滋味。