The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-07-22
PRISON REFORM

tons. When an individual enters it the worth
lest he can make himself to be, and the hes,
he can cause himself to do, he contributes
If the spirit that rules the whole body, thus
constituted, were wise and just that desire to
be and do the best would endure to the end,
but society. actuated by the same blindness
and selfshness that actuates its member,
makes every error crime and Furnishes the
folly it should reform. BY these means 1t,
itself. institutes crime and maintains nursery
of criminals.
Nature has no such offspring as criminal,
and mind no sickness that kindness will not
cure. The worst man that lives to day, OF
any race, has received from his maker, and
possesses in spite of all temporal disadvan-
tages. the germs of those qualities and the
ores of those riches that are to constitute
seraph. These may be trampled by the cruel
feet of power and buried from mortal sight,
but they can not be lost or impaired. When
restored at last and lifted into conscious HE
by the sympathy of his race, they will shine
with lustre as serene and clear as the starry
gems that are hung in the skies.
We do not propose to endow wrong with priv
ilege nor treat men as angels, but to be mindful
that however ugly and venemous they seem
yet, like Shakespeare's toad, they have pre-
cious Jewels in their heads. We propose to
be aware that the first and most important re-
form before US is prison reform; the reform
by which society shall cease to make GRIMM
ais and shall begin to make good and useful
members; by which it may escape the enm1-
ties and revenge of those it has pursued with
punishment and hate. Who knows that the
wild theorist who maintains that there is
future life, and that men who die carry to ii
their cravings and their rapaciy for revenge,
is lunatic!
1t would be gratifying event if Texas, un-
der the new administration, would set the ex-
ample to her sister states ofsurrounding thou
sand acres of her best land with suitable prison
walls, erect the proper works and organize the
| various Industries, with view to the greatest
| reform that has been attempted in modern
times. We have before urged this measure
and do not design to 60 over the argument
again. There is in it the seeds of a revolu
| ton in civil affairs that will make itself felt
throughout the Union.
We REMEMBER noticing recently, in some
exchange, late judgment, of the United
States supreme court which is important to I'M
married wives. 1t was as to what constitutes
proof of marriage under the various state
statutes which, in most cases, are enacted to
take the question out of common law jurisdic-
ton. 1t refuses to hold the failure to conform
TO any state statute in the several common law
states to be ground of nullity Of marriage u
less the law contains express words OF nullity
| This is in keeping with that determination t.
shake off the shackles of an illiheral and
bigoted past which in all things SO striking'y
characterizes our age. 1t is the spirit Of the
| civil law from the time of Justinan; and the
statutes of our civil law states, three in num-
| ber we believe recognize marriage as a civil
contract to be proved as other contracts. This
decision puts out of the courts of the country
the proscriptive church doctrine, which even
the pulpits are rapidly putting away through
the influence of their more advanced preach
ers. The case adjudicated was one particu-
larly calculated to give force and effect to the
Judgment as authority, the material relations
involved being those Of an Indian girl, and
the proof consisting solely of the declarations
of the husband that she was his wife, and OF
their cohalitation. 1t should be the care of
governments to preserve the morality of the
several relations and it is gratifying, when we
so often find legislation failing in this, and
sometimes doing worse, to know that the ju-
dietary fulflls the design of its creation as the
great conservative power. The device of the
American Bluebeard when tired of his wife
and children to use the judiciary as gibbet,
its judgment being the drop, and swing them
off, is slightly deprecated as an available trick
by this decision of the highest tribunal in the
land.
| CONGRESSMAN WHITE, of Kentucky, is
every day doing famous things. His last
famous thing is to take woman suffrage kind
ly by the hand and offer to bestow upon it the
privileges of an amendment to the Consttu-
ton. A joint resolution t. that effect has
oooa ~ the country in the poUes Of the Con-