, 1881-03-04
Judge Greene's Charge to the Jury.

costly or desolating as war. 4 civil
war is dnuble drain and a double
waste. Crowned, by favor of God,
With exemption from military opera
tions at home and abroad, it may yet
be, that in profound sense, whether
you please TO call it figurative or sub
stantial, we lack the fullness of po
litical peace, which it is our privilege
as people to accept. Escape from
war, in the vulgar sense, may not
after all be entrance into the pros
perity and happiness of perfect
peace.
Peace as men now know it Is in
fact smouldering war Enlisted on
one side or the other OF a great con-
flict is ranged every man in this com
munity to-day. Against or with
whoever may lie the Prince of peace
is numbered and ranked and detailed
for duty every one in attendance at
this term. Civil war is raging. En-
ergies law-hating and law loving are
confronting and combating all over
our beautiful land, and the expense,
waste, suffering and destitution is
appalling to any one who will pom
der it.
This is no occasion to debate such
a matter at length. Only because it
hears upon your present service as
grand jurors, and tends to impress
you with deep sense of your posi-
ton and responsibilities before God
and the people do ] allude to it.
Heaviest of all the items in the
civil list of All enconomical govern
ment are piled up the expenses in
cident to the conviction and punish
ment of crime. Included in them,
according to full and just estimate
we have not only the cost of guards,
prisons, witnesses, prosecuting OH
GERS and grand juries, and very
large proportion of the outlay for
court houses, petit juries and court
officers aud furniture of all kinds,
but also great part Of what it costs
TO make and publish laws aud collect
and disburse revenues. Mark what
| say, that all these burdens of the
state are TO meet and beat down
erlme-not wrong, but merely crime,
which is a most superficial and out.
breaking form of wrong. The Grim
inal law, as this court is authorized
TO administer it, does not undertake
to strike directly at the root Of wrong
doing. However wrong an act may
be and however pernicious, unless it
he recognized as pre- eminently
harmful to the state, the voice OF 0-ir
people does not call it crime, nor
does their sword reach out 20 lop it
down. AT best, when their sword
OF justice has made its cut, the stump
and underground of evil is always
left. The acts which are reekoned
crimes in a community are, in gem
eral, simply-instanees OF wrong over
topping a conventional level.
l call you to notice, that all is not
told, when we speak of the grea,
charges which q people are at in
dealing with criminals through aeen-
cles OF government. Severe as these
are, they are light compared with
the aggregate of private expendi.
lures made to defend person and pro
perty. A nan is lost, when he be-
gins to enumerate the countless ap-
pliances and industries, that owe
their being to the necessity of de.
Tending ones own against the as
saults of his fellows. Finding the
aggressive application of the ~rimi-
nal code insufficient to deter men
from injuring where they ought not,
each individual has recourse TO some
measure or other CT self,protection.
Add up the cost of locks and bars.
strong doors and vaults, safes and
pistols, watchmen and police, and all
other the devices which fear and in
gennity have been able to invent and
employ tc secure person and proper.
ty against unlawful attempts, and
you have an immense and direct tax.
paid in money, and imposed by the
lawless upon each olher and the la W
abiding Reckon in also the dam
ages, proximate and consequential.
nreducible TO money value, such for
instance as are seen in the diversion
of faculties TO otherwise unprufira.
bile uses, the sapping of morals, the
sowing of pain, disease, poverty and
wretchedness, the destruction of an.
imal aud human life, and you have a
sum total, fearful to contemplate and
impossible 20 compute. One rises
from consideration of such a war
budget OF expenditure and desola.
ton, with the cry, "Of what use. TO
strike at here and there criminal:
for every one seotched, a hundred 90
undiscovered, nneomplainsd Of or
uncontrolled; while every where the
saplings OF guilt will still be spring
ing uhdisturbedl" Fold up your
criminal complaints though, gentle.
men, and dismiss your courts. and
what should we see? Fraud and
violence would hold high carnival.
Abolish the restraints of criminal
law, light as they seem, and anarchy
springs out upon us at once. Never
fali,on the other hand, to apply those
restraints faithfully, promptly and
releDtiessly-to every case as it arises.
and you straightway approach an
era of true political tranquility. Di
vide between these two extram.s