Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1882-01-20
la1lcaster fntelligencer,
FR1nAv EVENING. JAN. 20, 1852.
A BIackmaller Comes to Grief.

FRIDAY EVENING, JAN. 20, 1852.
A Blackmailer Comes to GrieL
We are confident that there is not a
decent man, woman or child within the
borders of Lancaster county who will
not approve the finding of the grand jury
in the cases of the doctors prosecuted by
]. Kahler Snyder, for practicing medi-
cine. We are certain that no other per-
son than Snyder, of any age, sex or color
could be found who would have had the
indecency to set afoot this prosecution.
For it had no other motive than that OF
blackmail, and out Of it the prosecutor
boasted that he could make enough for
Christmas spree, in one instance exem-
plifying his boast by speedily " setting
them up for his associate bar-room loaf
ers out of the S25 which he extOrted from
a guileless old man who did not know
his rights. We have no doubt that the
grand jury was led to its conclusions
solely by lack of any evidence laid be-
fore them to sustain the charge, as we
are personally cogniZant that in ut least
two of the cases not scintilla of evil
dence was produced before the commit
ting magistrate, and in one of them the
district attorney so admitted. Had the
cases, however, even been allowed to
come before petit jury, no other result
would likely have been reached.
Since the world began no man qualified
as these accused were, has been prose
cuted and legally punished for practising
medicine, unless under a social regime
which hanged wizards and burned
witches, and then it was not for
the exercise of their healing or
killing art but because they
were supposed to have been endowed
with it by the devil and to have worked
it in partnership with him. The abortive
statute under which these prosecutions
were which was made law
eight days after the time it was fixed to
60 into operation, and which was er posl
tacto in other features of twas enacted
simply to prevent the spread of quacke'y
and malpractice and was not intended tG
Oppress legitimate practitioners. II
scarcely even attempted to suppress eX'
listing and established quacks and irreg
ulars," as some of the most notorious of
them were among the first to avail
themselves Of its provisions and to thus
get standing in the eyes of their
patients which they never before mad. II
was physical impossibility to avoid
violation of this law, as no hook was
ready in the prothonotary's office for ply
sicians to register themselves unit
nearly month after it was passed, and
every doctor in Lancaster county tech
nically violated it. Even We're the law
valid and respectable, the terms in which
its time of operation is expressed and
the absolute impossibility of technical
compliance with them would have justi
fled any jury in exercising large dis
cretiOn as to what was a violation of its
intent and meaning. We are very Ger
tain that no dozen of intelligent men
judges of the law and the facts, would
have ever exposed any man to the chances
of 500 fine or Il year in Jail, for not
having registered before the middle OF
November, the law having passed in
June. When, in addition to this, the low
motives of the prosecution and the
equally low character of the prosecutor
are remembered, it will he readily he
lieved that the grand jury only antici
pated the inevitable result of the trials