The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1880-02-07
ENCOURAGING CRIMES AND
OFFENCES.

industry. This should lot be. All
wilful injuriDg OF others is criminal.
1t should be made directly punish
able and should be punished with
certainty and prompt;tude. 1heIe Is
q law providing punishment by fine
for certain kinds Of trespass. For
several other kinds the only remedy
provided is a suit at law for damages,
This remedy, in many instances, Is
only a mockery, a deluslon, and a
snare. For example, man has q
valuable horse, grazing in his field or
on the range. Some unprincipled
fellow catches the horse, uses it, runs
it down, gals and otherwise Injuries
and depreciates it, and injures the
unofending owner correspondlngly.
He hiss his remedy in a suit al law,
and in no other way. That is ex-
pensive, tedious, vexatious, and often
otherwise unsatisfactory. In the end,
he may get damages awarded, but,
behold, the offender has nothing to
satisfy the damages awarded So to
the injured party it is raught but loss
from beginning ID end, and the
offence can be committed and recon-
mitted with impunity. In fact there
is virtually 70 punishment, in a case
of this kind, for sn impecunious
offender, or one who is shrewd
enough to successfully ''shade" his
property. II such en- offender could
be fined, and, when he coald not or
Ymuld not pay his fine, could be i'm.
prisoned until he worked 1t out, it
would be salutsry check upon his
nefarious proceedings. As it is,
there is no check worthy OF the
name.
The other dag the House passed q
bill to recLify this state of things by
providing that such and other wilful
and Damaging tcespasses should be
accounted misdemeanors, but the
Council, for some insorutsble reason,
rejected the bill, and thus lett honest
citizens so far still at the mercy OF
roques, the Law, as it is, rather favor
ing the latter at the expense OF the
former, the wisdom if which | am at
a loss to comprehend.
Now for another instance ofcurious
legislation. The cattle men lock
upon the no-tence law SO vinegar and
gall, and it ia amusing to zee the way
they try to wiggle around it and
render it u nullity. The impounding
bill which passed the House on Mon
day must have been devised expressly
to favor the cattle owner at the eX-
pense of the cultiVstor. 1t is so nice
and cheap to feed your animals on
your neighbor's crops, and not only
leave him practically without re-
compense, but make him pay some
thing fog having his crops eaten up
by your animals. By and by the
tiller of the soil will have TO ask the
ragged So steer if he may sit On the
fence and see it go by, or rather, see
it Jump the fence and ravage his lot.
What a precious thing that ragged
steer is! The sacred cattle of the
Orientals are nothing to it. The
tactics of the cattle men to render the
stray law q burden to the cultivator
and ID insure their thieVing cattle q
good chance at his crops, are simply
immense. a man has a piece OF
ground. He spends many dollars in
money on it. besides much time.
lie plants and sows. He imports
fruit and ornamental trees and shrubs,
and has other promising crops. He
tolls and watches and waits for years.
His trees and shrubs grow and Become
beautiful and useful. Then comes
along that slOuching, thieving, ragged
So steer. 1t jumps or breaks the
fence, and ravages at will.
The work and expense and growth
of years are spoiled in an hour.
Perhaps the owner of the steer sits
laughing in his sleeve q way off Pos
sibly he has taught the steer to be
breachy and to stick to the breach
and return to it.
What must the owner Of the land
do? He must hunt up 9 voter to
value the damages, then hunt up the
unprincipled owner of the thieving
steer, and bill in hand, demand pay.
ment for the damages. If refused,
the land owner must drive the steer
to the pound, and it must all be
done within twenty-four hours. No
matter how busy be may be. His
time may be worth 81 en- hour to
him. He may have most important
and pressing business OF hand, and
he may have nobody else ct homo to
take the steer to the pound. No
matter, he must put it in the pound
within twenty-tour hours. II he de-
tains that ragged steer in durance
outside of the pound one minute over
the tWenty.iour hours, he is
liable to a fine of 500. II he
wastes his valuable time IN taking
that ragged steer to the pound without
all this preliminary work, he must
pay 10c. day while the steer is in
the pound, and pay for the hay the
steer eats in the pound, unless it
fssts while there. II the owner of
the steer can not be found, it must be
turned out OF the pound in tive days
to go right back to trespass on the
land of that cultivstor, or on the cul-
tivsted land Of some other industrious
and honest, and consequently unior-
tunate tiller of the soil. Thus the
cultivator is previously injured, but is
left practically without redress, and |
thus insult is added to injury by vir-
tue of law. What is the abused cul-
Ilyator to do under the circumstances?
Perhaps the cheapest thing would be
to shoot the steer, and wall till It's
owner came around for damages. and
then one lot of damages could be set
off against the ether, though with the
cultiVator still at a crest disadvan-
tage.
What will the Council do with that
unjust bill? We shall see. Mean
time, what sacred thing that thiev.
ing, ragged, IS steer is, to be sure
Il Is the touch-me-not Of all creation,
except in the way ] have described.
CULTIYAToR.
The DOnneIIy Funeral