The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-02-04

that The indulgence of its impulses was abso-
lutely safe The worst feature of all these
crimes is the readiness with which violatOrs
of the law push minor offenses to the enor-
nifty of murder. Here is an old man in Hud-
son street who refuses to harbor rogue that
comes into his house, and this refusal invites
a adeath-blow. He keeps his eye so closely on
the intruder into his little shop that no chance
is afforded for the theft he went to commit.
Ordinarily we might suppose a thief thus
foiled would go away and ply his craft else
where. But no; he stays and murders whore
he cannot steal. To him there is no differ
ence between these crimes He would as
soon commit one as the other. He is equally
ready to extend his hand to take watch or
take life. He would as leave strike as
handy words, and recks not at the thought
that the hand that strikes is armed with what
will make it unnecessary to repeat the blow.
He has a temper so desperate and savage as
not to be appalled, by any consequence Of
what he may do. The men who shot at the
plumber in his doorway the other night sent
the bullet intended to murder him as their
answer to some speech of his. In recent
murder in a rum-shop, never yet investigated,
the fatal bullet was retort in discussion.
1t is so through the catalogue; and this
readiness to kill is so notorious that citizens
hesitate to interfere with lawlessness or vio-
AOASO Va auy bOIt, AOk ~ WOEO may GIIpplo u
man for life, and an ARRAY is certain death.
1t appears to us that the first cause of the
outburst of crime here is the vindictive, vio-
lent, desperate character of the ruffans of this
city, and their readiness to assert and perform
their own outrageous purposes, not only in
defiance of all law and order, but with abso-
lutte disregard TO the extremity of the steps
they may take and the consequences that may
ensue. But what is it that has within few
H. e
numbering wretches? 1t is their conscious
ness Of immunity; their discovery Of the snor-
nous power that they WELD in our corrupt
political system, in virtue Of which power it
is impossible to punish them; the repeated
connivanoe in their escape of all the authori-
ties, from the policeman in the street to the
judge on the bench; the state of the law,
the state of the administration of justice
in this city, and the state of the public
mind with regard to the death penalty.
Scarcely less guilty than the murderers them
selves are the so-called philanthropists who
have unsettled the public mind with regard to
the propriety of capital punishment. These
lunatic teachers of free love, who have broken
down the morality of society in their assaults
on the institution of marriage, have also
broken down the great barrier of safety to
human life in undermining the only penalty
that appalls the thought of the murderer.
WlLnOut Iu0 Wedh0uluS eueCb bnhb Lu6 uOc-
trines of these persons have had on the pub
lie mind it would never have been possible
for judges to so scout justice and for all the
authorities to 30 connive at the escape of MUIR
derers as they have done. Then consider the
direct effect of these lessons on the murderers.
Hanging for murder is played out" there
fore murder on-never stint your will;
keep the tools plying till 'the heart shall be
merely strop for the knife" For murder
there is at worst an imprisonment of few
| years. For theft there is also an imprison-
ment of a few years. Now, the criminal
classes distinguish between crimes only by
| the results to themselves-the penalty; there
fore, they read this-the same punishment
the same crime. Hence the butcher Bream
believes that for what he did in Hudson
street he will have few years in prison, just
the same as he might if he had stolen the
old grocers till. He is ready for that, but
| he "does not want to die
But though the state of the public mind on
this topic has rendered it possible for corrupt
judges to trife with the safety of society
without danger to themselves, yet nothing
excuses, nothing can in the least degree pal
late, the heinous offenses that have been
committed here in shielding murderers by the
very machinery contrived for the administra-
tion of justice. Our city is corrupt and rot.
ten with the guilt of this offense. The
judges ermine is dabbled in the blood of the
citizen, and he holds his place, not to protec
society, but to protect its foes