Morning journal and courier., 1883-06-16
PRIVATE REVENGE.

There is good deal of undisguised satis. faction with the killing by young Mutt of Dukes, the murderer of Captain Mutt and the seducer .of his daughter. The common ex- pression is t'Served him right There is little doubt that Dukes has met with no more than his deserts. But a question of much greater importance seems to be wholly ignor- ed, viz whether public sentiment can afford to sanction one murder because an- other has been committed. Those who ap- prove of the course of young Mutt seem en- tirely to forget that they are helping to establish a most dangerous precedent and are giving countenance to monstrous relic of barbarism. the practice of private revenge Nothing more decidedly marks rude and incomplete state of society than the existence of this very practice. It indicates not a dis regard of law, but wretched ineficiency in it's enforcement. It seems to be entirely overlooked that the habit of averaging private wrongs by shooting the wrong -doer is already alarmingly prevalent in this country, es- pecially in some parts of it. It is the worst blot on our civilization and nothing has done more to discredit the country abroad. Prob ably nothing has done so much to prevent emigration to the South, where it is so much needed, as the welI-known fact that the revolver and the shotgun seem to be recog- nized there as a legitimate means of redress ing private wrongs. It would seem to be a waste of time to attempt to show that civil ized community cannot tolerate the practice of private revenge; tha4 it cannot, without ceasing to be civilized, permit the man who fancies he is wronged to be judge and execu- tioner in his own case. And yet it seems to be accepted as 6 social maxim by no incon- siderable number of people in this country that one is justified in shooting the seducer of his wife, sister or Laughter. Those who recognize this doctrine believe in effect that the indignant father OF son should be allowed to decide whether in fact seduction has been committed and whether death is the proper penalty for the seducer-in other words, that the would-be avenger should not only be judge and executioner but the law maker as we'll There is an old fashioned prejudice that sound public order requires that the penalty for crime should be fixed by law for all cases and that it ought not to be determined in each case by the friends of the alleged victim of the crime, and that the accused ought, before being executed, to have trial by an impartial tribunal, and that an indignant relative of the victim is not the best material out of which to make such a tribunal
 It will be said in defence of young Mutt that Dukes should have been hung and was wrongfuly acquitted and justice had not been done by anybody. This is as much as to say that justice has now been done by what according to law, is deliberate mur- der. Nothing ought to be clearer than if we are to have courts we must abide by their de- cisions, whether mistaken or not. The peo- pie of Pennsylvania can hardly afford to es- tablish the precedent that when jury fails to convict murderer whom public opinion pronounces guilty, any friend of the mur- dered man may shoot the accused. Dukes was no doubt 8 murderer, but young Mutt if very clearly one. The failure of justice ir Dukes case will be only made the worse by z public approval of the second murder. Another escape from justice will simply in. crease the disrespect for law, for which Dukes acquittal furnished some justification. |