Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-10-04

right is immutable and universal. Norman
can appropriate the truth. Power may give
one the ascendancy, but it never can make
principles. The boy Parker's right to live
out his few remaining hours, was an immu-
table right, guaranteed also by human law.
and at the command of no man, save under
the law, which for offense may terminate
the ultimate right TO live on.
But since rights can never clash with
each other" Dudleys claim to live at the
expense of Parker's right to exist. was a
false conception of his right, and a substi-
tuition for the latter of his power to over
come Parker. The law cannot permit a
man to substitute for it his own judgment
of right save in the single instance of de-
Tending his own natural right TO live.
But when all this is said, it remains that
in mans extremity he is often unable to
place circumstances in their proper relation
to principles; the reason, at such times, is
unable to draw the fine distinction between
the law of self-preservation, and the ulti-
mate right of another, which the purely
selfish desire to live may invade So ii
happens that there are great crises in which
the moral code and human law are power
less to control the universal and natural de-
sire to cling to life. As Hickok concisely
putS IL orclrrrancnc NAV throw tho mon
Into circumstances where the danger will
prompt to action as much, or even
more, than any threatening which the
State might apply in counteraction. Nature
is stronger than the law can be made, and
all legislation would be empty. Two ship
wrecked men seize an oar or are in a boat
that can save only one; or any condi-
ton where the man is already in greater
extremity than any threatening of the law
can be to him; in all such cases the at
tempt to interpose civil law would be folly.
The question is not for the claim of moral
ity, or the demands of piety, whether con-
science or God will condemn, but solely
what can human law do? In all such
cases the State excuses itself from any in
reference and throws off all responsibility
by admitting its own impotence Its valid
defense to all claim from public freedom in
such cases is the standing law maxim for
the occasion" necessity has no law"
And this brings us to the solitary ques-
ton we PROFOUND in this ARTICLES it right
to bring Dudley to trial; not abstractly as
right, but considered as the power great
State may exercise? Is it in keeping with
the circumstances that the State should
arraign this man as "A murderer? The pllr-
pose of the law is to punish the evil-doer
and deter others, that the freedom and
morality of society may be assured, and the
immutable principles OF right be given
recognition by the statutes of man. But if
the fear of the law can exercise no restraint
in cases of such dire extremity as befell
Dudley and his crew, will their prosecution
for murder and cannibalism do any good
According 10 Herodotus the Massaget;c
and the Iscdones consumed the bodies of
the dead for love of human flesh. The
Battas of Sumatra for a like reason used
human flesh. Equatorial tribes of Africa
killed and ate prisoners of war, and even
their own kin. Some of the aboriginies
of our own continent followed a like hor-
rible practice. These were all cannibals but
is it Just to class the men of the Mignonette
as cannibals? To hold the seamen for
cannibalism is as repulsivc to the sense of
mercy as to hold the Captain for murder
If the men arc to be acquitted, however, on
the ground of justification by necessity,
clusion that an incisive critic draws in the
New York Tribune is unanswerable: " 1t
will be a roundabout Endorsement by the
law of the unformulated view which man
kind have always taken Of these cases"
1t follows that 10 prosecute Dudley is but
to go through the form of hollow mock
cry, and not to vindicate the law or clear
the skirts of morality. His is the case
where the civil penalty is impotent," and
where the State, in the eyes of the world,
will be applaudei for cxcusing itself from
action.
1t is one of the strongest manifestations
of the sympathy Of the human race for its
own that such acts as that Of Captain Dud-
ley have uniformly been condoned, and
nothing severer than pity for their sore dis
trcss has ever met men saved by such
resort. When, therefore, the English au-
thorities put upon these men the inefiace-
able stigma of criminal prosecution for
murder and caunibalism, they do cruel
thing. There was not in Captain Dudley's
act those elements that are held to be es-
sential 10 the act of vicious homicide; there
WAS not in the eating Of the flesh of that
dying Lad any of the essentials of vice.
Far he 1t from US 70 say that the next step
may be logically taken from this conclu-
sion, that the survivors did a right thing to
save these lives at the expense Of one nearly
expended; or to say that the distinction
between Dudley's situation, and that of
two men grasping q single oar that will
sustain but one, is so fine that the ordinary
intelligence cannot grasp it. But this We
DO say, there is no man living now with a
full stomach and unparchel tongue who
can give his fellowmen any safe, assurance
that, under like circumstances, he would
not act US Captain Dudley did, and hence
we insist the law in the case may well SUM
her in mercy. 1t is a case in which the
law viii be grandest and noblest in It's in
action.
BEFORE TIE MEDICAL SOCIETY.
In the annual address-just from the
press-of DR.. Ira E. Oatman, as President
of the Medical Society of California very
large and highly representative Association