The Grange advance. [volume] (Red Wing, Minn.) 1873-1877, 1875-01-12


been most successful in those important la
bors by which it has collected its library and
rescued from oblivion and fixed in en-
during form invaluable facts pertaining to a
generation now passing away, whose works
should not be left for commemoration to
those feeting sources of information in
whose disappearance perish utterly the me-
MORALS Of the pioneers.
LOGS AND LUMBER.
The reports of the Surveyors General of
! the First and Second Districts present in
| lumber interests.
In the First, or Saltwater District, the
total amount Of logs scaled during the sea-
son of 1874 was 169, 1894 ,466 feet.
In the Second, or Minneapolis District, the
total amount of logs scaled for that season
was 1872, 49,, 500 feet, and the estimated guam
| tity Of logs sawed but not scaled in that Dis
trict is 1898, 900 feet.
REORGANIZATION.
The practice OF postponing most Of the
important work Of general legislation until
abandoned: 10 say nothing of the objec-
tons to this manner of doing business,
which inhere in the fact that under
such circumstances the Legislature is COM
PEELED to act hastily, without full discus
sion, and that the success of deserving meas
ures is often craftily implicated in measures
which ought not to succeed, the Governor
is entitled to sufficient time to consider tie
bills upon which he is to act This he has
prevailed. The legislative work Of sixty
bdays is poured upon h1m during the last ten
days of the session. It is his duty to con-
slider each measure duty which cannot
always be properly performed within such
narrow limits Of time. Many important
acts necessarily remain for his consideration
after the adjournment. In case of doubt, he
and when those doubts result in disapproval
of the measure, the people are deprived OF
the exercise of that corrective power which
the Legislature possesses, where he is
deemed to have erred, as to the constitution
atty or expediency of the bills.
STATE CENSUS.
By section % of article 4 Of the Constitu
ton OF Minnesota, the Legislature is required
to provide by law for the enumeration of the
inhabitants Of the State in the middle year
Of each decade.
The object ofthis provision ofthe constitu-
ton is to ascertain the basis oflegislative ap-
portionment which is required to be made
every five years on the basis of the United
States census and the State census alternately.
Imay be permitted to suggest for your
consideration whether this duty, for which
|
, requisite, does not with propriety invite US
; to obtain at the same time by the same off,
GERS the leading industrial ana vital statistics
The additional cost will be trife, while
the result will demonstrate officially our mar
; velous development since the census of 1870
was taken. and will thus enable us to pre-
sent in an authentic form to those contem-
plating emigration from other countries and
States the superior inducements Of our own
State.
& It will be an easy matter to prescribe in
the statute which you will pass on this So b.
! ject, the form of the schedule into which the
desired information can be distrlbutively
stated, and at the same time to fix the cost Of
the undertaking.
THE PENALTY FOR MURDER.
By an act of the Legislature approved
March S, 1868, the punishment for the crime
, -, of murder was subversively changed. The
penalty Of death was abolished as general
rule of the law This abolition is subject, how
yer, to the exception that, in cases OF MUIR
der in the first degree, the jury may deter
mine by their verdict that the convict shall
! suffer DEATH
regard the principle Of this innovation
as radically unsound. The punishment
which crime entails upon its perpetrato1
2 should not be uncertain It should be ex-
plicitly declared by the statute, and moi left
to the caprice, to the mistaken sympathy, OF
: to the fear ofresponsibility Of the jurors.
Popular prejudice, or passion, or the neg
, alive influence of an inefficient defense may
consign one offender to the scafold, while his
equal in crime, possessing perhaps, the means
, of commanding undeserved sympathy,
through his domestic relations, or his own
personal qualities, or aided to this sympathy
by powerful defense, is sentenced only to
: Imprisonment for life, leaving him the abid-
> ing hope Of pardon within few years
after all interest in the case has passed away.
The prison statistics show that the average
of life sentence is by pardon made less than
ten years. Even when there is no disparity
in the presentation Of the cases there re-
: mains the consideration that the tempers
different All this leads to uncertainty OF
justice. Several trials at the same term NAV
exact the life of one offender and remand
; another to the prison only, when in the
stlictest justice their positions should be re-
versed.
There is another consequence of this stat.
6 ute which reflects discredit upon the admin
istration of justice. In order to infict the
extreme penalty of the law, a jury must by
who commits a brutal murder, who
is caught red-handed in the act, for whose
defense no professional ingenuity can devise
, plan either N fact or in sympathy, can, in
this hopeless condition of his case, condi-
ton caused by its incontrovertible publicity
and atrocity, plead guilty: The result Of
this plea is that there can be no jury and
consequently no verdict that he shall suffer
death. n
In another case the accused may have a
defense, and unfortunately be restricted in
his means for presenting it, and he is pre-
scented by the statute with the alternative of
selecting his own punishment by pleading
guilty, or to undergo the dreadful risk Of
taking his trial before a jury whose action
regarding his own life he cannot forsee
Irrespective of these defects in this statute
and its inequitable tendencies, there arises
under it question of far greater moment
1t is for the Legislature to consider whether
the guarantees which the law now affords to
human life are sufficiently absolute. 1t can
not he denied that hQmlcldal crime has in