The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1873-10-23
From Harper's weekly.i
Drunkenness and Crime.

Judge Brady, of the Court of Over and
Iermlner. is one of the magistrates who
through all the judicial corruption of
late years in the city have kept the
ermine pure His ability, rectitude. firm
ness, and urbanity combine TO make an
admirable magistrate, whom the bar sim
cerely respects, and in whom the people
justly confde. We have been reminded
OF the good service of this Judge by his
recent remarks upon sentencing John
M Manus for the killing of Michael Cur
win. Judge Brady said to the prisoner
that there were no mitigating circum-
stances whatever, and even under the
new law. which extends, in my Judgment.
as 1T has been interpreted, extraordinary
privileges to the criminal. YOU might
have been convicted of murder in the
first degree; certainly of murder in the
second degree, which would consign YOU
to the State-prison for the term of your
natural life. The offense was committed
when M Manus was drunk, and he
pleaded guilty of manslaughter in the
first degree Judge Brady does not think
that drunkenness should excuse crime.
and he added the following words, which
are worthy the most thoughtful consid-
Grafton:
There are persons in this community
who think that they have only to be-
come intoxicated to act with impunity
every where. The drunkard is the great
est despot. He stalks over the country
wherever he pleases, to the terror of
every body. You became intoxicated
voluntarily. That is no excuse for crime.
do not intend to consider it in the SEN
tence unless it amounts to insanity.
Your crime must be punished severely.
New ork must be made secure from all
persons of your disposition You con-
ceIved the design to kill 1t is an
enormous offense. Your sentence is that
you be confined in the State-prison dur
ing your natural life.
If this truth, so plainly stated, were
fairly apprehended, the result to society
would be most valuable. Drunkenness
must not be held to extenuate but to
enhance crime. man deliberately
deadens his conscience by drinking, and
then pleads the criminal excess as an
excuse for further crime Thus, as Judge
Brady pointedly says, the drunkard be-
comes the despot, and thinks to dey-
astate society at his pleasure
Ofcourse behind all remarks and incl |
dents OF this kind there lies the question, !
as yet unanswered, of the duty OF society |
upon this subject. Conventions and |
Legislatures wrestle with it in vain, and |
naturally, because their object is not re- |
form, but party ascendency. In New
York crude law hastily passed is prop
erly vetoed by the Governor, and the
Ohio law is adopted, which the more ar
dent friends of the cause denounce. In
Massachusetts, General Butler solicits
temperance votes upon a promise firmly
to execute a law whose firm execution
would probably defeat its intention. In
New York, again, respectable Conven-
tlon proposes to make temperance car
dinal political issue. Absorbing convic-
tion, party chicanery, and demagogism
have not apparently helped the solution
OF the problem, except so far as any1
penal legislation necessarily stigmatizes
dram-drinking. No reasonable temper
ance man supposes that drunkenness can
be suppressed by law. But the public
opportunity and pressing temptations to
can be restricted And
such judicial action and words as those
of Judge Brady powerfully aid this result
by steTnly warning every man disposed
to drunkenness, and knowing that it is =
the moving source of an immense pro- ,
portion of crime, that drunkenness will
aggravate every offense This knowledge
gives every such man another reason to
keep sober, and therefore to favor every
law that makes sobriety easier ,