The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1874-03-20

Z SiiiEttudI udHsgtf tilat may De experienced
within year The crimes of defaulters
and bankers clerks arise primarily from
( their acquired impressions that the ow-
ners and dealers of money that they pass
and repass 50 freely have lost their once
Eigid regard for it, Ia Wall Street, a
thousand is the unit, Nothing can be
( dons except by the use of thOusands.-
( Hundreds of thousands flow in and hun
dreds of thousands flow out, and there
is no anxiety, and apparently but little
care regarding them. How trifing
then, is the value of fifty thousand!
1t is SO with dispenser of punishment
to criminals. He deals in sentences
His unit is year, when he wishes to be
severe, he says "ten years" When he
wishes to show his Indignation for bru-
tai man and his brutal act, he says eff
teen years or twenty years"
1t is a great thing for judge to be
praised for his hatred of sin, and 10
have his calculated and polished) de-
nunciations of wretches at the bar quo
ted as model phillippics; there is no
doubt a satisfaction in dealing sharply
and rapidly with a too crowded calen-
dar, and in sweeping the dock of its sad
throng of wrong-doers by quick exer-
else OF the judicial might; there is
pleasure to be had in being thought
very Roman, stern, inflexible giver of
penalties, one whose mandates are of
law untempered with mercy
But, in the elevation of the judge,
what happens to the judged?
At the moment when the praises of
the mob and the press begin to reach
the ears of the great man that sits high
est, at the moment when he begins to
hasten the "business of the court" or
begins to feel that the gulf between his
probity and the dishonor of his crimi-
nails is too broad for his sympathies to
span, then the cause of justice begins to
die.
In our courts, there have, of late, oc-
CURED many gross and cruel errors. di-
reetly attributable to the seeking of
judges for the applause of the uninform-
ed public. These errors, interfering as
they do with the bodily and spiritual
welfare of human beings, are deplOrable
beyond description. 1t is not likely that
they will ever he brought to Light
Their victims are scattered here. and
there among the State prisons and peni-
tentiaries, and voice never comes from
a cell or a convict's bench.
They boy Gott did not suffer because
his judge tried to be great, but because
he forgot not to be little.
1t was fatally overlooked that the fault
he committed was committed at an age
when faults develop out of the Uniformed
character, as weeds develop out of un-
cultured land.
The lad was entombed i'll a living
grave by carelessness. Before he could
have learned the inestimable value of an
upright and honest life, his life was ta-
ken away from him by tribunal that
had but one ear, and that for the prose-
cution.
There can be no doubt that the ope-
rations of our criminal courts, made
easy and facile by long usage, have at
last become so inaccurate and so indis-
eliminating that they go on almost
equally we'll with justice or injustice as
their motive power. Now and then Il
monstrous wrong, committed by them,
comes to light, and it is, indeed, appal-
ling to examine the methods by which
this wrong was perpetrated, and to per-
ceive that exactly the same process must
have been operated in minor cases long
since closed and forgotten.
Victor Hugo's good Monseigneur BIZ
envenu one day heard of criminal tri
al, in which the prosecuting attorney
played shrewd trick to extort from an
unwilling woman important evidence
against her lover. Everybody was in
ecstasy at the adroitnesss of the Off
Ger. The bishop listened to all this in
silence. When it" (the story "was fin
ished, he asked:
."Where are this man and woman TO
be tried?'
"'At the assizes.'
"'And where is the procureus' du roi TO
be tried?'" ALBERT WEBSTER, JR.