Litchfield enquirer., 1878-08-08
: The Punishment of Ignominy.

ings and pilloryings and other forms of actual
 torture, imprisonment was of itself a life of
 horror. Dr. Johnson computed that in 1759 there were 20, 1000 debtors in British prisons,
 one fourth of whom died every year from the treatment they underwent In our day there is little left of punishment but it's igaominv. The prisoner is better fed and better clothed than the pauper, oftener than the day laborer. Nevertheless most reputable men would prefer
 death to the ignominy of days just confine-
 ment in penitentiary. Many whose reputa- tions must always bear the odium of crime
 commit suicide merely 10 escape the addition
 al odium of punishment. They prefer the hor-
 TOT of sudden death, and the risk of an un-
 known hereafter, to the known agonies of
 life of infamy. The only severe physical pun ishment Wnl. M. Tweed ever experienced was
 while fugitive from justice Callous as his
 nature was, he would have preferred a life ot the hardest toll in the meanest occupation, to the infamous idleness of the Ludlow Street Jail. rs~
 Two hundred years ago Imprisonment could not have affixed the stigma on character it does to-day. Not only enthusiasts like Bunyan, but grave divines like Baxter spent years in jail. Statesmen were not SO often imprisoned or ex-. ecuted for failure as at an earlier period, but the prison life of the author reached nearly through the Eighteenth Century. Defoe was two years in Newgate. Steele Fielding and Smollett were among the literary fellers' of | the jail-bird variety. The celebrated scene in which Johnson saves Goldsmith from jail by the sale of t'The Vicar of Wakefield" was no uncommon experience with the writer of his | time. Imprisonment was too indiscriminate to have the whitening moral effect it now exerts on reputation. @ @,fr But in these days the severity of the inn prisonment depends upon the character of the man imprisoned. The foot-sere tramp takes refuge in jail for a few months and returns to the road without injury to physique or reputa-. tion A Southern colored legislator caught robblng the State treasury is ''seen off" by his constituents when he starts for the peniten- tiarY and as soon as his season of restraint ex- pires, returns as highly esteemed as ever, | ready to serve another term in the State legis- lature, or in the State Prison, as his good or bad luck may determine. To men of the standing of Mr. Tappan and Mr. Conant-the most recent of our awful examples-the prison or even the loss of reputation is not only fgura- | lively but literally worsethan death. When peo- pie cry for the punishment of such criminal along with the common malefactor, do they ap- preciate the difference of ignominy that at taches to the one over that which attaches to the other? The bank officer who 'sflees from justice" is worse punished than the ordinary house breaker who gets his five years term in the penitentiary, People seldom think how forlorn thing it is for the man of honor to lose it, and to escape, naked of reputation, to drag out shattered existence among strangers, haunted till the day of his death with the fear of discovery, humiliation and. punishment.
 We do not say that such men do not de- serve heavier punishment than the mass of criminals. Their wickedness is infinitely greater than the wickedness of the ordinary thief; for they have been all their lives train ed to virtue while he has been trained to vice. But let no one suppose they es- cape punishment when they escape prison. If their wickedness is infinitely greater so is their ignominy. The disgrace of an honored name and of an innocent family, the contempt of old associates, the disgust of old friends and the scorn of the community in which he has always ived-are the stripes that lash the soul Of hn 1ni0 pxxyIn af It seems that the U. s. Supreme Court has already rendered decision in favor of the railroad companies regarding their land grants. That decision holds that the issuance of land grant bonds was such disposition" of the lands themselves as take them out of the reach of the statute which provides that all lands which ''shall not be sold or disposed of within three years'' shall be subject to settlement and preemption. The Burlington and Missouri River railroad of Nebraska is subject to no such provision.
 ''To be or not to be" the Democratic candi- date for governor of Massachusetts, is Buffers present problem. People in general take | lively interest in the movement, conserva- tive Democracy is good deal troubled with the prospect, and shrewd politician recently remarked that the plan would be dangerous one in any event. If Butler was beaten it would smash the party; while, if he won, it would saddle them with most undesirable presidential candidate.
 Dr. Prime, of the New York Observer adds the weight of his testimony to the side which claims that drunkenness is far from being so common vice in the wine-drinking countries | of Europe as among the northern nations and | in the United States. During ten months | residence in the chief cities of France, Ger many, and Italy, he saw but one man drunk. A daily examination of the police reports in city of 55,000 inhabitants did not discover single arrest for drunkenness in forty days.
 The debate in Parliament did not turn out 1 such triumphant affair for Beaconsfield as 1 the conservative press seems to have anticipat- ed. There was no serious breach in the Liber- al ranks all but a very few of whom voted for 1 the Harrington resolution. The Ministry had | the support of portion of the Home Rulers. The speeches of the Opposition set forth in very strong light the onerous nature of the pro- tectorate assumed by England and censured the abandonment of Greek interests at the Congress, after persuading Greece to maintain neutrality during the war. It has since come out that there is second private treaty with Turkey the nature of whose terms the Ministry are unwilling to disclose.
 Hampton has been renominated by the Democrats as Governor of South Carolina. and the Republicans will set up no opposing candidate, The latter propose, however, to contest several of the Congressional Districts. The latest outrage reported in that State is an attack on a -eelered democrat, who was set | uDOu by black Repuhljcans and heaten nearlv