Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1878-10-11
The AristOcracH Of Crime.

The times seem sadly out of Joint of
late as regards those who have broken
/ the laws. There was a day when pun-
ishment followed swiftly upon the heels
| of transgressiOn and was meted out to
/ all by the same measure; when prison
cells and iron bars fulfilled their inten-
| ton; when the sentence was carried cut
| both in the letter and the spirit, and did
not mean luxury and ease and pomp,
and almost freedom, if the guilty one
had the money to purchase indulgence F;
when justice was more than a mere
shadow of a name, and the wisdom (?) of
the Bar, and looseness of legislation, did
not give the widest latitude for delay
and evasion and escape; when the
masses Of mankind did not look upon
the great criminal as demi-god, and
the one who pilfered trihes as a misera-
bic wretch for whom nothing was bad
enough.
There were severely just men in other
days who would have no commerce.
with vice, come in what shape it might.
The law was to them something more
than dead letterupon the statute book !;
something more than a medium for the
exercise Of legal chicanery and judicial
wit; something more than a decree to
be avoided if possible and tortured to a
different Interpretation to fit the cases of
the rich and poor. The guilty must suf-
fer alike. That was how they read and
understood the matter. There was not
to be any discrimination in crime, save
that the greater the moral turpitude the
greater and more inhexible the doom.
Pity, if at all, was with the poor wretch
who stole loaf to keep his wife and little
ones from starving, not with him who
robbed and beggared thousands, and
Haunted his shame in purple and fine
linen. The enormitv of the transgress-
ion was the basis for the sentence; the
higher the position the more the down
fall, and the will of the majority was
not lightly to be set aside by the ipse
diTit of the few, or the cause of Justice
to be safely tampered with. Bribery was
a thing unknown, and a resort to it
would have been dangerous. There was
a severe moral rectitude that frCwned
down such a course, and prison bolts
and bars were not turned back with
oiled smoothness by golden key, no
matter how massive.
But one by one errors crept in until
the entire fabric was changed. Prison
bars became as cobwebs; prison walls
were hung with silken curtains; coarse
prison fare was improved to a luxurious
cuisine, to be eaten from costly dishes
and washed down with rosy wine; the
bread and water was a dream of past
barbaric days, and the straw changed
by the touch-of a Midas wand, into the
softest of down, and spring mattresses
and all other sybarite spells to induce
slumber. Gold exercised the demon of
punishment; the narrow cell widened
into parlor; solitude became peopled
with friends, the prison but an empty
name, and justice was beaten back until
her scales became an unmeaning en-
lem.
True, trifing crimes are punished as
of yore. Poverty is dealt Just as hardly
with, and for it the law has not changed
a single iota, save it may have grown
more unrelenting. Not so with the one
who 'appropriates' STEALING isan obsolete
term, an entirely too harsh an one for the
in crimei) hundreds of thous-
ands and causes the trusting poor of a.
city to famish. The taking of large
amount is looked upon as something
almost worthy of praise. The one who
bankrupts bank or insurance company
or any large enterprise can hold his
head high; has the requisite to employ
the best legal talent; can dazzle the
eyes of the judge, can find some loop
hole to creep out OF, and live in luxury
the remainder Of his days; can clothe
his wife and daughters in silks and |
satins and laces and diamonds; can ride |
in his carriage; keep his box at the
opera, be courted by society and be |
fawned upon by the mammon worship |
ing age. But for the pauper criminal |
away with him to the prison, and hard |
labor and coarse and scanty food.
Truly the aristocracy of crime is great,
and to the law it is the richest Of all |
Eplacers."