The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-11-15
IxAMpLrs SHOULD b MADE.

Killing, as a means of resisting arrest, and
killing by chance medley in drunken brawls,
are crimes that have become scandalously
frequent Of late in this city. Not long since
one of the most faithful policemen in the
Fourth District lost his life in the courageous
discharge of his duty, and the desperate ruff
fan who murdered him has not yet been
brought to justice. Only the other day q
similar murder occurred in the First District,
and the perpetrator, though in prison awaiting
trial, laughs, it is said, at the idea of suffer-
ing any serious penalty for ''only killing q
policeman" There is, in fact, in New Or
leans, as in other large Cities class of gay
desperadoes who delight in practicing on po-
icemen parody of the anecdote about the
position of schoolmasters in Kentucky. A
stranger sojourning in rural district of that
State, SO runs the anecdote, while out hunt
ing, had occasion to ask a lad if he
''knew of anything to shoot around there"
"well, game is pretty scarce,
just now, was the reply; "but if you 60 over
the hill yonder you'll find the school master
you can take crack at him." Now it is
about time that our criminal gentry of all
denominations should cease to look upon po-
icemen as legitimate game, to be dispatched
with knife or pistol at pleasure and with i'm
punity. The moral strength of the law for
the protection of life, is in the certainty Of
penal infection. And this certainty must
vanish, and the machinery of justice utterly
break down, if the officers appointed to repress
criminal violence and to bring malefactors to
justice, can not invoke in their own behalf the
moral strength of the law. Without this in
visible panoply, indeed, for all persons, there
can be no police efficiency, and no personal
safety except what the otherwise defenseless
may gain by taking the law in their own
hands.
The killing of Miss Lavalle, on Orleans
street, and the killing of Mr. Sinnott, on st.
Charles street, wore not the less an aspect of
murder, because the victims were not the OBJ.
jects of assault And the fact that both oc-
Cured in drunken brawls rather aggravates
their horror than miigates their atrocity. A
man who kills in drunken fury may not
know the crime he is committing, or may be
oblivious of it soon afterwards. But this does
not relieve him of the responsibility; for the
act of getting drunk, and thus opening the door
to all the possibilities of drunkenness, was the
actof sober man. Unless. tr 'refore, he is to be
treated as an incurable m.-dman, and as a
dangerous as well as incurable mailman is to
be consigned for life to madhouse, there is
no other way to meet his case with justice to
sociefv than tn hold him accountable for his
criminal misdoings when drunk, precisely as
though he were sober.
Surely it is time that examples should be
made, without detriment to one legitimate
plea of either justification or extenuation, to
show that desperadoes are not licensed to
take the lives of conservators of the peace
and agents of justice, and that all things no
matter how scandalous or atrocious, are not
to be pardoned to drunkenness.