series ranging from the lightest breath of disapproval or the least perceptible chill of manner up to ostracism and mob-murder. The punishment mildest and most suited to slight faults appears in social intercourse and takes the form of coldness, constraint or avoidance. The offender is not greeted so warmly, his hand not clasped so cordially, his presence not sought so often. Men evade breaking bread with him and he meets with less hospitality. Customary and merited precedence in church or lodge or club is denied him. Though avoiding formal expression, the public displeasure deprives the offender of his outer circle of associates and so contracts the horizon of his social life.
If the transgression is graver all these effects are intensified. There now appears an active section of the public aggressively propagating their disapproval and seeking to detach from the wrong-doer his adherents. Greater inroads are made upon his social life. The cut direct, the open snub, the patent slight, the thinly veiled sarcasm, the glancing witticism are the order of the day. The confidence of his intimates is shaken and another zone of friends falls away. If he exercises authority as chairman, officer, foreman or schoolmaster, obedience is more grudgingly rendered. If he has been first, he is ignored and placed last. Expected tokens of confidence or esteem are withheld and services for others fail of their usual acknowledgment.
In the next degree of punishment the mass organizes. Hitherto the members of the public, though swayed by a common impulse, have acted each on his own motion. They have punished the offender as bees punish an intruder—by a thousand separate stings. Each as feeling has prompted has cast a stone, uttered a hiss, flung a gibe or offered an insult. But now collective manifestation of feeling is sought. The resources of different communities and different social strata are, of course, extremely varied. The jeers of a crowd, the cat-calls of the street, the taunts of the corner loafers, the hoots of the mob, the groans of the regiment, the hiss of the audience, or the stony silence of the after-dinner company recall familiar modes of jointly expressing disapproval.
