The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-04-26
Wednesday, April 26. 'S2
THE JESSE JAMES NATTER.

While the bad passions engendered by the
Jesse James matter are seething in the Mis-
souri, cauldron the book agents are plying the
country with various histories of the new
martyr, and the sympathetic young man who
is just stepping upon life's stage, is growing
emotional over the case. 1t would at any
time have been an engrossing question in both
ethics and statistics of what were the exact
results to society of the heroic career OF Dick
Turpin, the Highwayman. But the world be-
fore has had no such celebrity in the honora-
bic career of an outlaw as Jesse James. The
great poets of every language and nation have
expended their afflatus literally upon brigands,
but none has had the capacity to endow fiction
with hero of the rank of Jesse James. By
ron's corsair is pale and sickly aesthetic
lilly to the Missouri sunhower Let US esti-
mate the element now about to be stirred into
active life by the biographer and historian at
say 100000 of youths. Those about to
take their places in the business of the world,
are naturally looking for places to take. How
many of these are eligible to the sickle of a
reaper Of the Jesse James variety? What
exceptional ones have had the moral
code inculcated of which copies are SO rare
in public places? Perhaps one-fourth-leav-
ing 10000 as kindlng wood for setting the
rivers and railroads on fire in piracies not of
the seas. What proportion then Of these shall
be assigned to the scaffolds, what to the
states prisons, what, to minor penal servitudes,
what proportion shall preserve themselves
from all damage, what flower, like Jessie, into
martyrdom? On the other side of the slate We
may crowd few hundred thousands of inno-
cent hearts broken, innocent lives stranded,
for so it is that the criminal world is const
tuted. The innocent are the chief sufferers at
last and, perhaps, all the time.
1t is pitiful that the world makes the way
Of the transgressor triumphal march and re-
serves for its worst criminals its choicest ova-
tons. The aptheosis of Jesse James will cost
society much blood and many tears.
IT'S a rare thing to find large city in
which the gamblers do not override authority
by sharing with it their plumber. That is the
way in which it is done. In one city, while
late head of the department testified before
an investigating committee Of the Council Of
which he was member, that it was impossi-
BILE to suppress gambling, he was himself run
ming the most considerable hell in the place.
This is fact of which we have proofs. But
St. Louis has run upon that rare phenomenal
wonder, an official that is not to be either
bought or inundated. This extraordinary d.
lemma is one the gambling fraternity does not
know how to deal with. District Attorney
Harris has gone straight forward, regardless of
the threats of the malefactors and scoundrels.
He has done his whole duty with frmness and
ability, is enthusiastically sustained by public
sentiment and was lately handsomely compli-
mented by the Grand Jury. Might not some
other cities produce this sort of phenomenon
WHETHER Legislation has the strength, in
Ohio, to sustain itself against the potent power
of rum is about to be tested in the attempt to
enforce the law suppressing the saloon grog-
&c Us on Sundays. 1t is fact long recognized,
that legislation has no strength of its own.
That lies wholly in public sentiment. And of
what the public sentiment is legislation has
got to be poor sort Of proof. We apprehend
that, in Ohio, it is not grog that will go to the
wall.
Russell to be Ousted.