The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-31
Bourbon Bar-Why tho Criminal
Law Halls.

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Law HaIts.
The Bar of this State is crowded with Bour-
bons They refuse to forget their traditions.
Not SO with the British Bar. That day which
develops an omission or ON obscurity in o
statute during any sitting of London Court
also sees before sunset a measure mooted by
the judges and barristers towards remedying
the defect through an act of Parliament.
English lawyers keep up with the progress OF
the age, but the majority of our lawyers
revere the past. Abroad suitors travel by
steam here private or State litigants use old
fashioned stage coaches.
Whose fault is it that the Bar is crowded
with Bourbons? If you answer that the trou-
BILE lies with legislators, a reply comes that the
Capitol yearly teens in Senate and Assem-
bly, with these Bourbon lawyers-the worst of
whom come from the rural districts. They
are pettifoggers in their county courts, and as
lawmakers they utterly forget that law should
be spark raked from the ashes of all sciences.
To their professional renown and emoluments
delays and obscurities, cobwebs and labyrinths,
vastly contribute. These Bourbon barristers
crowd also into constitutional conventions and
reform clubs. Consequently we find little i'm
provement year by year in laws of public well
fare, although we see the statutes which grind
the meal Of sef-interest multiply every session
like shad eggs
The criminal code of this State has been
scarcely touched since the original days of the
Revised Statutes, nearly half century ago. Yet
during this period, crowded with improvements
as any three centuries preceding, crime has
ingeniously ramifed, and criminal classes have
taken out thousand pot-house patents for
inventions wherewith to subvert honest in
dustry and battle law officers. When we ask
why the case of Foster has been two years in
controversy, from jury conviction to final
judgment, we are told that there has been no
delay not warranted by statutes. When we
demand why murderers are not tried before
Judge Sutherland, who was District Attorney
for ten, and Justice of Oyer and Terminer
for sixteen years, or before Recorder Hackett,
who has been criminal lawyer for thirty
years and has tried scores of homicides in the
Sessions, we are assured it is because of musty
statutes, which, on the one hand, force are
view of convictions by two other Courts, and, on
the other, allow lawyers to move for new trials
upon all conceivable pretexts while the Oyer
and Terminer remains unaffected by these
Bourbonic statutes Then, why are they not
repealed? Why cannot we witness the graft
flying spectacle of three murderers on trial at
once before the three Judges of Oyer and Ses-
sions? Well, the Legislature won't repeal
the .musty statutes Has it been asked?
Repeatedly Twenty-Five years ago as COM
as Lord Campbelps acts have proved to be for
Great Britain was reported to the Legislature
by commission of able jurists. The
Bourbon Bar strangled it. Ten years
later another code of criminal proce-
dure by another authorized commission
Assembly, and persisted in knocking there for
several years, without the Bourbon lawyers
giving it the slightest recognition. And copies
of these codes are scarcely to be found outside
of historical libraries
Bar Association, here is chance for you
Come to the front. Cease your personal
squabbles; assuage your strifes after the vacant
Marine Court judgeship. Pick up these
founding codes and adopt them by means
of the Legislative asylums Harrow up the
Bourbon barristers of the ruralites this ses-
sion as last year you ploughed up the metro
politan judges. Lend your hand, Mr.. Attor-
| ney General You are nearly through with
the ring prosecutions and can have
leisure to pluck up by the roots those musty
statutes which delay appeals or which aid
the subterfuges of criminal lawyers and their
clients.
But you can do more gentlemen reformers
of the Bar. You can SO limit times for filing
exceptions or taking out and arguing an ap-
peal, and can SO restrict such appeal to the
highest Court, that its judgment of review may
be pronounced before the six weeks between
sentence and execution day has elapsed. Co.
lerity and certainty of punishment alone can
make the guilty malefactor tremble. Let,
therefore, oil other Legislative schemes wait, if
necessary, until the criminal code be reformed.
If the country Bourbons do not wish this done
for their constituents, then restrict that reform
to New York and Brooklyn Let even rapid
transit questions give way to this higher ques-
ton of rapid transit for the DEGREES Of justice.
Has the Committee of Seventy higher ques-
tions Of public moment to discuss than those
we have outfinedP The very era is auspicious
There are Governor and Legislature in po-
litical accord; the Attorney General and the
District Attorney are in harmony with the
Albany magnates Every judge on the mu-
nicipal bench will promptly and fearlessly
second their efforts. Before, therefore, one
week can pass-now that We have portrayed
the mischief-let us have Legislative remedy
enacted which will open the eyes of all Bour-
bons at the rural bar and cause those of all