Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1857-02-25

to bear God knows, it is sufficiently trying
to sec the ignorant and hard hearted specula-
tor on the misfortunes of his fellows, pass
long in his gilded equipage, while virtue and
honest industry go foot but crime has
gone so far that something must be done; our
lives are unsafe.
The garotte, the brain-club, and the slung-
shot, fellow citizens, what say you TO them p
Are you content, especially do l address you,
my medical brethren, TO leave your evening
and midnight patients to their fate, for very
fear of leaving your homes to seek them p
Are you willing that any summons TO the bed
side Of suffering may be your own to eternity
VIII you consent to leave your wife and
your children palpitating with terror all night
long, because you return not, and perhaps
your body be exposed in the morning for re-
coguition, at station-house, before your clo
ven skull shall be decently covered, and your
dead body brought to your desolate home ,
WHAT avails the law Juries are in league
with Iobbers and muIderers there is proof e
nough of it quite enough; the impossibility
of furnishing the murderer of Poole proves it.
Huntington was imprisoned to the surprise of
every one who had studied the usual course of
such events it was subject OF universal con-
graduation from its rarity; our own profession
did the best it could to shield him; but the
jury happened to be honest, and it was only q
failure, once. What then is the remedy p
We answer: first, the pistol, for personal de-
fence, and then, lynch-law, if that Will not
answer.
1t was a grand triumph of justice over law,
when the committee of vigilance in California
took the affairs of their community in hand.
Averse as we are to any administration Of pun
ishment as such, without special reference to
the reformation of the criminal, we yet believe
that we are on the very verge Of the necessity
for just such a committee; we expect to see
one in this city; nay, we advise If now; not
yet, notquite yet for the execution of the muir
derer, but to watch the court, the jury, and the
Judge, and see that justice is done if that
falls, we must go the whole extent. SIN ex-
treme diseases extreme remedies are indica-
ted; whilst society protects the horde of Ii
censed commercial, religious, legal, and med
ical swindlers and hypocrites, that foster the
more palpable crimes of murder and robbery
on the highway, there is no probability that
full justice will be done to those who commit
crime; therefore, until we can turn the cur
rent of villainy, till enough of public spirit is
awakened to give US some hope of an uncor-
rupt bench and unbiased juries, we fear that
the great questions OF instant trial and punish
ment, either by death or the lash, is only de-
ferred for awhile, and we shall yet see the
melancholy exhibition in our public streets
=, Ia L.
hope our fellow-citizens win not be deferred
FROM arming themselves and using the pistol
should their safety require it. Let allwho be-
lieve themselves dogged at night, give the
supposed toot-pad wide berth and clear
and distinct challenge; cross the street if nee
essary; then, if he persist in approaching, fire,
before his associate may attack you from
no ther quarter. We give this advice unhesi-
tatingly, and intend fully to carry it out to
the letter.
A few examples, and we quite sure the
wretches will abandon their practices and
take up the safer ones of pocket-picking and
thimbe-rigging, and our judges find their
trade of straw-bail at a discount; their game
will be too poor to pay for their release.
The Shiny pools when flooded by the noun
tain torrents swollen by the descending clouds.
seek the ocean burdened with the accumula-
ted filth of the plains. Received in its vast
and surging depth, it is tossed and agitated
till il subsidies to its bed of rest and the an
CRY wave as it dashes the feathery foam and
sounds its awfnl music on the rocky shore, is
like the note of exuItation that will arise to
heaven when the law shall return for purifica-
ton to the heart of the People who made it.
The polluted ernine must be torn from the
shoulders of the scoundrels who have so long
dsgraced the bench in this city, and purified
by the surging billows of popular indignation.