The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-04
THE HOMICIDE CASES IN THE
COURT OF 0 YER AND T'ERMLNER.

COURT OF OYER AND IERMINbR.
ONF of the docks of the new Court House |
Yesterday contained ten men, Nrraigned in
nine different cases, for killing nine citizens
of Philadelphia, and the Assistant District
Attorney announced that eighteen persons
were now held for trial in homicide cases.
This is an unusual spectacle in this locality.
All the imputed crimes were perpetrated dur
ing the last few months, none of them
dating back further than July, and most of
them having been committed during Septem-
Der and October. Mr. Dwight announced
that zone of the cases would be taken
up out of order, because 1t was
represented to be one of more than
ordinary aggravation," and this statement,
while it was entirely appropriate and neces-
sary under the circumstances, indicates one
of the reasons why murders of an inferior
degree of criminality are becoming so fright
fully common in this city. Experience has
repeatedly demonstrated that the extreme
penalty of the law is rarely enforced against
murderers except those who are incapable of
adducing any extenuating circumstances
whatever to palilate their guilt. Homicide
cases occur by scores, while there are but a
few executions in any given year. Juries are
10th to convict for murder any prisoners
whose villainy is not of the deepest dye, and
Governors are slow to afix their signat ure to
the death warrant Of convicts whose offenses
are less heinous than those of
Probst or Twitchell. If plausi-
BILE excuse can be given, if any allegation
is made with an apparent show of truth that
the murderer had suffered real or imaginary
wrong at the hands of his victim, or that the
fatal blow was inflicted in the heat of passion
the prisoner has so many chances of escaping
the extreme penalty of the law, that those
who contemplate crimes of this description
are no longer impressed with wholesome
dread of the gallows. Our present courts are
50 much overrun with business that many
trials are necessarily postponed from time to
time, and these continued postponements
afford another important loophole of escape
by the opportunities they afford for dimin-
ishing the force of damaging testimony Yes
terday prisoner charged with larceny, who
had obtained bail after his arrest and then
fed from the city, but who was subsequently
recaptured and arraigned, was acquitted be-
cause the chief witness for the Commonwealth
had died during the nine months intervening
between the perpetration of the crime and
the day of trial SO in homicide cases of an
inferior grade, delays are often fatal to the
prosecution, and they add greatly to the
chances of securing immunity from punish
ment However ready our courts may
be to do their full duty to the COM
munity, they cannot accomplish impossi-
bilities. 1t is beyond their power
to try promptly the innumerable criminal
cases that are constantly arising, and to avoid
delays in all instances They cannot control
the predisposition of juries to make too large
an allowance for extenuating circumstances,
and after they have finished their work it is
beyond their province to prevent an injudi-
dious exercise of the pardoning power, or to
fix the period when death warrant shall be
issued.
1t is one of the most imperative duties of
the State and municipal governments to pro-
tect life, and the most striking difference
between barbarous and civilized communities
is displayed in the contrast between the reck-
less brutality with which it is sacrificed in the
former and the care displayed in preserving
it in the latter. The frequency of homicides
in our midst painfully indicates that there are
defects in our system, which month after
month and year after year grow more danger
GUS and alarming, and it behoOvss all who
have at heart the general welfare to provide
the most effective remedies and safeguards
that can be devised. So far as the courts
are concerned, no pains should be spared to
insure the inhiction of prompt and certain
punishment to all who are clearly guilty. If
too much business is imposed upon the pre-
sent Judges, additional Judges should should
be appointed; and it has become momentous
question whether additional restrictions
should not be thrown around the pardoning
power.
Independent of the Courts, however, the
people must look for protection to the police,
and it is O crying shame that body of men
for whose maintenance they must pay mil
lion of dollars, are organized without refe-
renee to their efficiency. The best body of
police in the world will not entirely suppress
crime, but an inferior, unframed, or partially
vicious police force is necessarily incompe-
tent to discharge the important duties in
trusted to it. There is no better gauge for
the security of property and safety of life in
large modern cities than the efficiency of the
police departments; and the unhappy munich
palities which are bereft of the protection
that only first-rate force can give, from par
tisan motives, can justly impute to the au-
thors of such injudicious and dangerous