The south-western. [volume] (Shreveport, La.) 1852-1870, 1858-10-13

5 WoIsey, that Corruption wins not more thai
$ honesty" Corruption does win! It wins NOR
: and more every year. Practices from whicl
: parties shrunk with instructive horror, in th
earlier days OF the republic, are now, openl,
boosted of and gloried in as the offspring @
. modern progress" We have passed throngl
r our golden age, with anything but eheerin!
e prospect for the future.
. The RIGHT V1EW.-The Commercial Bulle
tin publishes an able commentary on the abus
of the pardoning power, induced by the gov
ernor of Texas having RENTED fine imposed
= by the court at San Antonio upon captain Bar
ton, of the United States army, for having or
= dered a squad of his command to lash to Ire,
Mr.. Head, a private citizen Of San Antonio, ane
making them fog him in the most cruel man
ner. For this outrage, strict justice would have
cashered the captain and sent him to prison te
learn better manners. But the governor does
net appear to think that he outraged the law
and the rights of those in the private walks o
life, therefore RENTED the paltry fine imposed
by the court upon the captain. The Bulletin
very justly says:
The wanton and scandalous exercise of this
pardoning power has done much to unhnge the
frame work of society and to int1ict upon it evils
neither few nor small So confidently do the
friends Of deep-dyed villains frequently count
upon executive clemency that they sometimes
boast they will soon have them out of the pen
ltentlary, to which they may have been con-
signed by the verdicts of juries.
So much false, cruel sympathy is shown for
crime and criminals in this country, and so ma
ny are the loop-holes through which adroit
knavery escapes justice, and there is, conse-
quently so much difficulty in the way of con-
victng persons who have committed crime that
when all these things have been surmounted
and the laws at last INDICATED, to have the ex-
ecutive step in and nuIlify the whole proceed
ings by a dash of his pen, seems to be bitter
mockery, shameless trifing with the hottest
instincts of elfpreservation. 1t is indeed SO
gross and wholly indelensble an exercise of
power-somemes for political purposes, and
upedeemed gwen by the tiimsy pretext of
good mOtiye-that some means ought to be de-
vised to put an etfectual stop to it. Otherwise,
the whole machinery of courts for the protec-
ton Of persons and property might as well be
abandoned at once as useless farce, a parody
upon justice, as refined, expensive and intense
y cruel irony.
The rapid increase of rascality and crime, in
all their varied degrees, during the past ten or
fifteen years, is owing mainly to the indspos-
ton On the part Of jures, swayed by a false pity
or sympathy, to convict and punish criminals
They forget that they are sworn and empan,
eled to faithfully execute the laws, and not to
extenuate and excuse those who dave Outraged
them. Another great incentive to crime, is the
facility with which free pardons for the most
heinous offences can be obtained of the execu-
tive. We have good laws enough, which if
promptly carried out would fully protect society
and the rights of the people; but, mainly from
causes enumerated above, they are nullity or
mere burlesque on justice and equity. A radi-
cal change must speedily take place, or the
whole country will fall a victim to unbridled
license and unbushing crime.
The South Carolina Guardian takes cxcep-
tons to the manner in which the captured Afr-
cans were returned from Charleston to their
native land, and states that, in addition to the |
subsidy of fifty thousand dollars paid to a semi
abolition colonization society to act as mission
aries among said Africans, northern ''phian-
thropist'' was appointed by the president as
agent to take care Of the benighted savages dur
ing their passage to Liberia One would sup
pose that the officers, sailors, marines and crew
of the steam -frigate Niagara, numbering 800
persons, could have performed that Job. The
law empowers the president to appoint an agent
to receive the negroes on the coast of Africa;
but as his excelency had contracted to deliver
them to the colonization society, in Liberia, we
with the Guardian, perceive what ne
cessity existed for the appointment of special
guardian to accompany them. Surely, Capt.
Chauncey would have had the A. leans proper
ly cared for during the outward voyage and
safely delivered them to the authorised agent
in Liberia, and thus saved the expense of
special agent, one too totally unacquainted with
the Disposition habits and wants Of the negro.
But some hungry democrat of the north must
have grab at the treasury fat and the phi
|anthropic Mr. Ramey proved the lucky man.
Of all the little absurdities committed by those
in power, the idea fappointing a raw northern
er to take care of a cargo of wild Africans is
the greatest.
The Paris leterwrters announce the advent
Of an entire new fashion amongsthe haut- ton
nothing less than that the South Sea Island and
American Indian custom of ''tattoong'' is fast
becoming srage with the Partisan upper ten"
A certain Bohemian woman, who has great
skill in the operation, is daily overrun with more
air customers than she can attend to- 1t must ,
De understood this new "agony" is not the out ,
side painting Of the checks and Of false lines {
upon the face, which was so common in the
line of Louis lppG-turning down Or up the !
ave- brOwS and nm or down tho corporc IF III,