The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-03-28
SPIRIT or TIE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIos-ooMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
MONEY REWARDS FOR CATCHING
CRIMINALS.

From Ehs ~ Y. Times.
reference has already been made in these
columns to the impolicy of permitting pub
lie officers to participate in the rewards
offered for the arrest of criminals. Whether
il is conducive to the highest morality that
even private citizens should become ac-
oustomedito expect pay for doing what is,
after all, every citizens duty, is at least
doubtful. But there can be no doubt what
ever of the impropriety of the practice in the
case of officers of justice. They are employed
and paid for the express purpose OF appre-
hending evil-doers, and to offer them gratul-
ties for doing their paid work is simply to
debauch their honesty and ruin their eff
cienoy.
bow utterly demoralizing and destructive
of the very end at which it aims is the whole
system of rewards, the Nathan case admirably
exempliies. Here the rewards offered for
the arrest of the murderer amounted in the
aggregate to $50 900, and, as a consequence,
the interests of justice we're totally subordi-
mated to the cravings of avarice. More than
once, it is said the suspected assassin was
allowed to slip out of the very grasp of the
law, because his captors were fearful that
their greed would not be satisfied with fair
proportion of the spoils. And even now,
when suspicion has almost matured to GER
tainty of the criminals identity, when his
name and description are matter of
public notoriety, he is still preserved
from arrest by the sordid jealousy
of rival detectives. We reprinted the other
day. from Buffalo paper, an article in which
plain expression was given to the convic-
ton that Superintendent Kelsos offer of
$500 for the arrest of Forester was dictated
by desire to monopolize the remainder of
the original reward himself. OF course, with
this state of feeling among the persons most
interested in catching Forester, there is little
likelihood that he will ever be caught at ALL
And we have thus presented the curious
anomaly that the more heinous the crime
and the greater the reward offered for the
apprehension of the criminal, the safer he is
from detection or punishment. 1t is, perhaps,
not too much to say that if all rewards for the
Nathan murderer were withdrawn to-day,
there would be better chance of the arrest
of Forester than at any time since he was
first suspected of the murder.
The plan OF bribing our police officers to
do their duty is radically wrong. 1t accus-
toms them to look for a law-breaker, not be-
cause he has broken the law which they are
sworn and paid to protect, but because his
arrest will put so many dollars in their pockets.
What is worse, it substitutes for the sense of
duty and professional ambition which would
furnish the surest guarantee of energy and
fidelity in the force, the most paltry
and deteriorating of incentives to exertion.
WQaG WOulQ an army Do WOrtu III WHICH,
honor was fostered by avarice, and
valor stimulated by pecuniary rewards? Our
policemen are in some sense soldiers, and
susceptible to many of the influences that
affect military career. If we educate them
to high standard of duty, if we encourage
them to look for the rewards of courage and
skill in the public appreciation of their supe.
riors and the community, in promotion and
in decorations of honor rather than in dollars
and cents, we shall do more toward the sup
preston of crime than by making a rich man
of every successful thief-taker.