Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-04-07
4ancaster f,telligerlrer.
WEDNESDAY EVENING. APRIL 2, 1880.
DfStributiye Justice.

dUOuG ulSlTluullNtJ JuSIlCC, duu uouooDU
it is very excellent thing to talk about
when you don't want people to know
very clearly what you are driving at or
when you don't know yourself. The diff
ference between justice generally and
distributive justice in particular, prob
ably could be pointed out but, it is safe
to say, that until it is nobody is likely to
see it. 1t is possibly a particular quality
of justice, though it would seem to be
rather particular quantity still, guam
tity and quality may be mixed up in the
construction of distributive justice by
the possible fact that only certain
quality will "distribute - to distribute,
meaning in this case to spread, to flow
all around, to scatter. We do not know
that we are a success as definition
manufacturer, but, knowing the profound
learning of our court, we are sure that
it would not use term which
it did not understand and which
is not pregnant with meaning, whether
it manufactured or borrowed it. So,
clearly, distributive justice is particu-
lar and very fine kind of the article i'll the
opinion of our court and we are anxious
to know why it has recommended itself
to it so highly we are solicitouS to gath
er it's meaning and detect its merit.
The court maintains that i" it is abso-
lutely necessary to the advancement or
due administration of distributive JUS
tice'' that the law be construed to deny
- to an officer of this court the right to
publish articles impeaching its official
character and thereby destroying conf
dence in it and learning the community
to disregard it's official decrees." We are
fond of quoting from this opinion.
There is SO much food for thought IN
it. 1t is wonderfully interesting to us to
get at its thought; and to find that it
hasn't any that anybody else ever had.
The idea that it is the publication OF the
wrongful acts of omission and commits
sion on the part of the court that loses it
the confidence of the community, and
not the acts themselves, is one of these
novelties.
The thought of the court here is that
the publication of its wrongful acts in
terferes with the advancement or admin
istration of distributive justice; that is
Just what it says. And this gives us the
courts idea of distributive justice; it
seems to be some such sort of justice as
that practised by the forty thieves, OF
the brigands of Olden times, who
took from the rich and distributed
to the poor, what they didn't want
to keep themselves. But it can't be
quite SO peculiar a kind of justice as
this that our court refers to. 1t may
only mean by Gistributive justice a sort
that must be applied with discrimina-
tion. For instance, the judges must be
at liberty to overlook their own delin'
auencies and those of their friends, and
he expected to distribute the penalties OF
the law only to outsiders. Thus it comes
that the editors of the INTELLIGENCE
have fallen under the ban of Patterson
distributive justice, while the lawyers
who lied their clients out of the hands OF
the law get none of the shower. 1t
didn t distribute in their direction this
time The nozzle was held the other
way.
If people who have been amazed that
we have been disbarred for inviting the
courts attention to the delinquency OF
its officers, and suggesting that the law
be turned against them, will just try tc
comprehend this theory of distributive
justice, they will plainly see that
it only strikes where the court
wants it to; and that under this practice
nobody will ever get hurt who has {
friend at court. 1t reminds one some
what of the practice in the nationa
House of Representatives in securing the
eye of the speaker. Theoretically the
first man up secures the floor, but prac.
tically he may get up every hour OF
every day and never he recognized. The
speaker recognizes whom he pleases. Sc
does the court that practiseS distributivt
justice. You may rotten egg it and il
won't mind it if it don't want to !; or you
may simply smile childlike smile in its
face and it will promptly disbal
you for contempt, if it feels like it. Dis
tributive justice would be synonymous
with injustice but that there is this dis,
tinction maintained: those who suffer
from it are supposed to deserve what
they get; while those who deserve to suf
fer and don't, are simply lucky. There
is plenty of distributive justice in the
world. In truth most of it is OF
that character and in despotic gov.
ernmsnts all of it. We feel prompt.
ed to say to our good Judge Patterson
as the fond father said in g Our Boys
last night to his son, whom he wanted
to call hero, What Nero
you are - Our great judge is a
hero when he gets on his old white
horse-but what Nero on the bench
PREsIDENT-MAKING goes bravely on
all over the country and we hear of dele.
gates being elected daily in this interest
or that interest, or in no interest. The
blessed diversity of sentiment which
reigns is healthy sign. Unit rules and
instructions, and the other devices of
huckstering politicians are getting less
and less power to bind, and everybody
seems to prefer honest and intelligent
representatives without instructions to
stupid and tricky ones, locked and label
ed for the use of trading politicians and
self-nOminated leaders.