Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1883-06-01
Some Cases In Point. Z

Tho INTELL1GENCER saw fit to con.
slider the acquittal of Dukes with rela-
tion solely to the charge upon which he
was tried because it insisted that the
Jury had no right to hang him for Sc
duction or libel under an Indictment for
murder, certain of its ignorant contem-
poraries, which could not distinguish
between the plain forms of law, and
certain other malignant journals, which
prefer q lie to the truth and never lose
chance of Misrepresentation, pretended
to believe that the INTELL1aENcER had
some sort Of sympathy with that turpi-
tude of Dukes which it had never failed
to condemn. Since his acquittal
upon the charge of murder, how
ever, it has uniformly favored the
bringing of Dukes to judgment for
the crimes SO hotly charged against him.
and it fails to understand yet why his
legal clearance from the charge against
which he had at least reasonable de-
fense, should not have been followed
with his swift prosecution upon the
charges of other grave and apparently
indefensible wrongs upon society and
his victims. Especially is it difficult to
understand why there should be such a
failure to administer justice in a com
munity so moved to righteous wrath as
Fayette county was represented to be
when, with what seemed to be a single
voice, it uttered those threats of mob law
which have, of course, not been
carried out, though the subject of
them comes and goes among bis
accusers as before. If, as has been
claimed, a dozen ignorant and subsidized
iurymen, alone of all the Fayette coun
tians, were to be held responsible for the
alleged miscarriage Of justice in Dukes
first trial, surely the entire community
must now share the responsibility of the
failure of a single man in it to invoke
against him the severe criminal penalties
against seduction and libel which he has
been so savagely held to have incurred ;
the newspapers which so lately howle,l
in chorus against the jury that acquitted
him, are silent regarding the community
which condones his Offenses by failure
to prosecute.
But it was the inconsistency of these
howlers in other directions that we
started out to refer to. AS events have
developed, it becomes more likely every
day that Congressman Phil. Thompson
killed Walter Davis for an offense OF
which he was guiltless and that the
only man who had dishonored his wife
was himself by readily believing shame
of her from tale bearer and blazoninl
it before the world. In any event
there never was any doubt about il
that the killing of Davis was a cowardly
despicable deed. Then why have they
who urged it to be the right and duty q
the Legislature to expel Dukes or refuse
him his seat not asked for an application
of the same principle to Thompson's cas-
in the next Congress We have failet
to see among them single endorsement
of this idea.
Again, in Philadelphia the other da!
the rough who beat and killed China
man, was acquitted on the theory o
self. defense upon evidence which asid
that considered by the Dukes jury made
out a far weaker case for th'
defendant. The cases would hardl.
bear comparison in the strength
of the defense. and yet the acquittal o
Lyon has been noticed with the mos
homeopathic expostulation, if unfavora
bly, at all certainly with no great show
ing of indignation, no mass meetings tt
condemn the jury, no hanging in effigy
and no greater show of popular indigna
tion than was manifested here last yea
when homicide was acquitted who's
shooting everybody recognized to hav'
been of such a character that none but ;
packed jury would have found him guilt
less of crime.
All of which proves what we hav
never doubted, that the secret OF t!!
apparent popular feeling about tn
Dukes acquittal was not a conviction
that he had murdered Capt. Mutt, bu
was entirely owing to his conduc
towards and relations with other mem
bers of his family. And why he is no
brought to judgment on those charges is
what passes our understanding.
By practically unanimous vote tn
House at Harrisburg has approved tn