The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-10-06


upon the restoration of peace and order here,
which result they attribute solely to that just and
necessary measure 1t is important that the pub
lie should consider at this juncture whe. her the
charge was well founded, and whether the COM
munity is under any obligation to the party now
in power for the reorganization of that tribunal.
We need not review at length the history of the
past for the purpose of showing how utterly
unfounded are the bold assertions and hypocriti-
cal pretensions which are now so confidently
paraded before the people by those whose course
in reference to this subject has been simply dis
graceful. A moments reflection will satisfy any
one that we do not n term harsh without
the amplest justification. That justice was in
suited, and not administered, in the Criminal
Court and that by the conduct and bearing of its
Judge the laws were brought into contempt, and
decency itself was outraged, no man will, we
presume, deny. Nor will any one who ever saw
it in session, or who was habtualy cognlzant of
its proceedings, hesitate to admit that so long as
its existence, in its then condition, was tolerated,
so long would lawlessness find encouragement,
and grow stronger. But whatever may have
been Judge STUMP's denquences, he will never
be held accountable for all the nquites which the
city authorities are trying to shift from their
shoulders upon his. The villainies 10 which the
Mayor and his police endeavored to shut their
eyes-they, and they alone, must answer for.
The coops in which dozens of wretched beings
were confined for days. and the armores which
with scarcely an attempt at concealment were
established within easy reach of the polls it was
the duty of Mr.. SWAMI and his police to have
broken up; the street fights which have more
than once ragged for hours, it was his business to
have checked; the intimidation 10 which armed
DULLES subjected voters, within stones throw of
his Office, he was bound to have prevented; the
capture of the polls by gangs of noted out
laws he was under an obligation TO have re-
sisted at every hazard; and the taking Of straw
bail, day after day, by magistrates whom he
appointed TO take cognizance of cases at the
station-houses, he could and should have de-
nounced and put stop to. And yet
all these atrocities have been perpetrated
not once but many times-not on a solitary
and unforeseen occasion, but at stated pc
RODS as regularly as the years rolled round
That neither he nor any of his three hundred and
fifty officers ever knew of what was going on, or
that they were unable to protect the people from
such wrongs, few save himself will assert, and
still fewer will believe We submit, therefore,
| that Judge STUMP is not altogether responsible for
the black catalogue of crimes which the records of
the last four years contain. 1t is not against him
that the blood of Kyle cries from the ground
During all these years, however, the necessity for
| Judge STUMPs removal was generally conceded
and none were, apparently, more anxious TO bring
| about that result than the leaders of the party
which is now opposing the Reform movement
But not one solitary step did they ever take to
wards that end A dozen Grand Juries, all of
the most partisan character had assembled, ut in
tervas, in the Court House, and though Mr.
| WHITNEY affected now and then TO complain
grievously of Judge STUMPs proceedings, he never
asked that he might be indicted. A Legislature
was in session in 1858, in which Mr.. SwANN's
friends were largely in the majority, and though
he went TO Annapolis to induce it to call
| a Convention to change the Constitution,
upon the ground that the laws were not
enforced by Judge STUMP, he did not ven
ture to suggest that the Grand Inquest of the
State should petition the Governor to remove the
unworthy official. The delegation from this city
49, PSi'NN'f
shortcomings, and had full knowledge of his in
| efficiency, and they contented themselves with de-
tending the fraud and the violence to which they
owed their own election, and made no effort to
remedy the wrongs which, through the Criminal
| Court were being hourly inflicted on this commu-
nifty. Year after year that tribunal presented a
shameful spectacle to the public and not one hon.
est or manly effort made to reform it by those
| who had the power to do so, and who pretended
| to deplore its condition. When we made repeat
ed efforts to induce successive Grand Juries to dc
what was so clearly their duty, appeal;
were disregarded. But who can doubt that Judge
STUMP would have been indicted, tried and con-
victed, long before the last Legislature met if the
Mayor and States Attorney, backed by the evil
dence they then controlled, had preferred theil
complaints against him in the proper quarter
But nothing was done, and Judge STUMp's
Court was used as the convenient shield behind
which politicians might practice rascalities with
out detection
When the Legislature met last winter
the Reformers, although defeated in this
city, stood forth to redeem the pledge they
had given to the people. They demanded
from the Legislature the removal of the
JUDGE, knowing at the same time that his
successor would he selected from the party which
even then had a score of rufian clubs in paw
Where then was the MAYOR, who says his police
were ''powerless," while Judge STUMP was in
authority? Where was the States Attorney,
who had protested that he could not bring often
ders to trial because the JUDGE took straw bail,
and refused to take up the when the prosecu-
tor called them2 Where were the respectable and
yirtuous adherents of the American party, who
thought il so slanderous to blame the authorities
when nobody but Judge STUMP was in fault?-
The case, as it appears upon the record is not
favorable to their present claim TO be considered
| the retormers of the Criminal Court Unfortu-
nately too, for them, the most important testimo-
| ny which Judge STUMP could procure in his be-
halt, was that of the political and personal friends
OF Messrs. SWAMI and WHITNEY; and his loudest
and most earnest defender was the Senator who
claimed torepresent Baltimore through the votes of
| the American party. The press which represented
1t refused its cooperation, and about three-ourths
of the witnesses who strove to vndcate him,
| were prominently actively connected with
that organization. Mr.. HINDEs, the present
candidate for the Mayoralty was conspicu-
GUS among them and furnished the Judge
with an affidavit intended to facilitate his acquit,
tai, in which he adrotly avoided touching
upon what he knew to be the chief points under
investigation, and thereby failed to present the
whole outspoken truth And the name of the
same gentleman subsequently figures among those
of the officers of a meeting which was called to
denounce the action of the Legislature. We re-
publish its proceedings in another column that our
readers may see for themselves the resolutions
which Mr.. HINDEs continues to approve, and whose
violent condemnation of the Legislature and full
some endorsement of Judge STUMP, he permitted to
go before the world under the sanction of his name
But notwithstanding all these facts we still hear
his partisans attributing to Judge STUMP s inca
paciy all the frauds and outrages of the past four
years; and they continually point with self-com-
placent satisfaction TO the reformation which has
been effected in the Criminal Court
This too is one of the issues which the people
should decide on Wednesday next Let them de-
termne who has the best claim to their respect and
sympathy, Mr.. HINDEs partisans or his opponents
Let them, then, say whether they will entrust the
prosecution of the work of reform to the hands
which have heretofore wrought at it with such
diligence aud faiihfuIness; or whether they will
conflde the task TO those who have steadily