New-York tribune., 1873-01-08

this and many other cities. poor, miserable
creature who. clothed in rags, passes his life,
saturated with alcohol in some dark and
noisome cellar, and who, in moment OF
mania potu, has slaughtered his equally &C.
bauched and miserable wife, has not certai- "
a social position" which we would care 10
plead in the dock, and neither antece-
dents nor concOmitants calculated to win tor
him the hight of human respect. YET
Mr.. Stokes wishes the world to believe tnat
he is to be hanged because he is not dirty'
friendless, broken-down outcast; because ne
has vet a decent wardrobe and can command
the means of hiring first-rate lawyers be-
cause those who are kindly interested in his
fate live in handsome houses, and because he
is not ignorant and stolid and uninteligent,
as many murderers are. 1t is necessary that
this wretched sophstry should be exposed.
The unhappy young man who now, III
the solitude of his naked and uncom-
Portable cell, stands face to face with
the gibbet, has reached this ultimate
and frightful predIcament solely through his
indulgence in passions which torment alike
the high and the low, and from which no cir
cumstances, be they poor or rich, can save any
man who has not moral force enough to save
himself. Upon the whole, and without IN the
least intending TO impeach the equity OF the
servants of the law, we are forced to the con-
clusion that Mr.. Stokes, in spite OF the
disadvantages upon which he places
so much stress, has been dealt with
almost tenderly. 1t is always so with
such men in such a situation. Eugene
Aram certainly got no worse but rather bet
ter treatment because he was learned; DR..
Dodd was hanged for his forgery because no
had committed it, and in spite of the great
est interest ever made in England to save a
man from the gallows; nnd Prof. Webster
died on the scafiold almost within sight OF
his own University, not because he was
Professor, but for the reason that be had
been duly convicted of crime, the COM
mission Of which he at the last admit
ted. The truth is, that judges and jurors
have by this time found out that " respecta-
"bilityr and "social position" are extremely
insufficient safeguards against moral obliquity.
1t is true, also, when a criminal has many ex-
cellent friends whose hearts are to be sOrely
wounded by the rigid execution of the law,
that certain degree of sympathy is
awakened in their behalf, and that this may,
in some cases. lead to an undue stretch of
leniency; but to suppose that it renders the
court, the jury, and the prosecuting officers
particularly eager to secure conviction is to
reverse all probable prepOssesSiOns, and to be-
lieve that human nature has utterly changed
since the time when we were told that the
conviction of rich and respectable" muir
derer was an impossiblity.
God forbid that we should be found exhib
iting any undue and indecent exultation at
the conviction of this or of any other MUIR
derer! We have felt, indeed, special sym
pathy for this man, because of the doubt
which some of the evidence seemed to cast
on the question whether he was really the
aggressor. Forcing his particular case, so far as
it is possible to do so, from the mind, we may
yet sOlemnly congratulate each other upon
this demonstration that apart from all for
eign and undue influence, trial for
murder can be begun, continued, and
ended in New-York, not only with
tho dignity and propriety becoming so
solemn an ordeal, but with so much fidelity
to the law and so much fairness to the prisoner.
We can but regret that at the last his car
riage should have been so indecOrous and un-
seemly but that, too, and indeed everything
except this unexpected vindication of the
supremacy of the law, we are ready to forget.
We wish, in setting forth this remarkable case
as one of dreadful warning to a particular
class of young men in New York, that we could
command language adequate to the occasion.
Never was a more terrible sermon preached
against an aggregate of so many vices, against
such a multifariOus cOngeries of crimes -
against an overweening love of luxury, against
self-irduIgence, sensuality, and eager greed,
laxity of moral principle and, above all,
a mad surrender to tho dominion of un-
brided passion. The last, we are constrained to
believe, is the moral danger against which our
young men especially should be cautioned by
these sad and solemn transactions. There is
no vice more dominant in our streets and in
our houses. Even in our moderate cline,
we seem to have acquired something of
the tropical fervor and impetuosity which
find their readiest resource in the
poniard and the pistol, and regard
the pursuit of the EXTREMIST revenge as chiv-
arous and praiseworthy. Unless we greatly
change, the New-York temper will become as
proverbal as that of Naples or of Corsica. 1t
is not native to us, but it has been cultivated
here by circumstances into detail of which
we cannot at present enter. The vice is
well marked and universally admitted one to
which almost every man IL exposed, and against
which it is within the power of almost every
one to fortify his moral constitution, -"
- -, ~- sr--~----gs r Eysx-C--Es---yg- -
The Temperance Reform in England continues TO
keep the public attention in a remarkable and en-