The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-06-22
INCREASE OF s152,5OO TO START
WITH.

| II tue pTOpOseu j uQlcidl amendment
shall be adopted, it will add .forty-one
Judges to the number of Common
Please Judges and create t1Centy Dis
trict Judges to start with. The pres.
ent salary of the Common Pleas Judge
is S2, 500 a year. The salary of the
District Judge will not be less than
that, all effort will be made to make
it more. This creation of sixty one
Judges-forty one Common Pleas and
twenty District Judges-will cost the
tax payers of the State at least one Ian
dTed and .fiffy-tlCo thousand and fire
hundred dollars more than it costs
them now.-IVdyne County Democrat.
That is the usual style of Democrat
ic fairness in argument; and, to look no
further, it would seem to make case.
But as is usual, in other matters, so in
this there is another side. The De-
mocracy are very careful to set forth
the additional number of Common
Pleas and District Judges that will be
required by the adoption of the
Amendment. But they are very care
full not to tell the number of Probate
Judges that sDW be dispensed aDith by
its adoption. There are at present
efghty-efght Probate Judges, ell of
whom will be dispensed with, so that
in reality by the adoption of the
amendment, there will be t1Centy Secen
less Judges under pay than at present,
so that the expense of maintaining the
Judiciary, would be scarcely any great
er than at present. Dispensing with
IS Judges, at an average of 81 500 per
year would be q saving of S132, 900.
Adding 61 Judges at an average of
50, 500 per year would be but S152, 500
or an increase of but 500, 500. Even a
Democrat ought to De able to see this,
even if he isn't any brighter than the
Wayne county Democrat.
But the matter does not end here,
nor should few dollars and cents be
allowed to determine the question.
One great evil of the present system is,
that justice is often defeated by the
postponement of cases from one term
to another. The expenses grow 200
heavy to be borne, and many a man
is brought to compromise with wrong
rather than bear the worry, vexation,
and expense of "the laws delay;" GRIM
inals escape punishment by the run
ming off Of witnesses, or by their re-
moval or death, while case is pending
from one term to another. The very
object of law-which is or should be
the prompt administration of justice to
the wronged and punishment to the
wrong doer, is defeated, and society is
wronged and outraged.
But to recur to the question of ex-
pense. We deem it demonstrable that
the system proposed by the amend
ment would prove not only better in
the senses already pointed out, but
more economical. Place half dozen
criminal violaters of the laws in Jail to
await triai, from one term to the other,
as is frequently done, and the county
must pay the expense, and that ex-
pense comes out of every honest mans
pocket, and in the State throughout it
would largely overreach the additional
expense of Judges salaries. Under
the present system witnesses ere often
obliged to attend court from day to
day for week or more, and costs are
wonderfully increased thereby. This
evil could be largely cured by the pro-
posed amendment.
But the expense is not so much the
object after all as the point twill it
afford the people prompter (better and
because promptes)justiec? Will it afford
quicker (and better because quicker)
punishment to criminals2 If SO, then
the people, looking at it from these
standpoints alone, aud burying all po-
litical prejudices, should sustain it. 1t
is not the severity but the certainty
of punishment, which deters from vio-
lations of the law, which is, and of
right should be, terror to evil
doers;" and that condition best pro.
notes that end which affords prompt
trial while the testimony is at hand, to
convict the wrong doer or e1culpate
the maliciously accused.
Look at tie matter fairly and not as
partizans-