Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1884-04-04
Law AND viULESUE.
Tne Disproportiop Betwoen the years' Uon
vic,iQns ana Murder.

April Century.
During the year which has just closed
the telegraph has reported l, ,517 murders
in the United States. During the year
1882 1,266 murders were reported. A
comparison of two years is not conclusive,
for tn ere is considerable fiuctuation in the
number of crimes it is only from com.
parison of periods Of five or ten years that
any trustworthy differences can be drawn.
But there is no dispute concerning the
rapid increase OF capital crime, and the
fact is ominous.
Over against the l, 500 murders Of the
last year we have the report of barely 93
legal executions. Many of these must
have been cases in which the crime had
been committed during 1882, while many
of the criminals of 1888 had not yet been
brought to trial. Ii is not, however, far
from the truth to say that, while l, 800 or
|, 400 murders are committed in this
country every year, fewer than hundred
of the murdertrs suffer the extreme pen
atty of the law. When the willful slayer |
knows that he has - chances out OF IA of |
escaping the full penalty of the law the |
deterrent influence of punishment cannot |
DO said to be very powerful.
What the law could not do, OF has not |
done, lawlessness has undertaken to &C
complish. The failure Of judge and jury
has let loose the private avenger and the
mob. Quite number of these fifteen
hundred murders, as every reader of the
newspapers will easily remember, were
committed in obedience to the Ter tdli0HIS,
to oexpiate some previous crime, The Ori.
entail avenger aud the frontier lyncher
join hands iu this mad dance of anarchy.
The same year that Witnessed ninety three
wi hn IrpH
and eighteen lynchings. The lawless
executions outnumber the lawful ones by
% per cent.
No very profound philosophy is required
to explain the relation of these facts. The
ineficiency of the machinery of justice has
led to the introduction of these barbarous
methods. The laws against murder are
strong enough but when the people know
that not one in dozen Of the wilful mur-
derers receives the just rccOmpense Of his
deeds, and that tGchnicalitics aud bubbles
are constantly allowed to shelter the worst
criminals, they themselves become des
perate ; and, breaking through the just
aud salutary restraints of law, they deal
vengeance right aud left in a bloody aud
turbulent fashion.
It cannot be too often nor too strongly
proclaimed that these lynchiDgs themselves
are crimes that they are utterly without
excuse that they furnish amedy which
is worse than the disease. when a score
of men can find 10 better way OF express
ing their detestation Of murder than by
becoming murderers themselves, our
civilization seems TO have reduced itse {
TO an absurdity. Moreover, lynch law is
not much more accurate in its measure
ment and dispensation of justice than the
lax administration against which it pro-
tests. The mob is neither judicial nor
chivalrous the weak and defenseless are
far more likely to suffer at its bands than
the strong and prosperous, as is shown by
the fact that the victims of more than half
the lynchIngs reported last year were
Southern negroes.
Nevertheless, the failure Of criminal
justice, which makes room for mobs and
lynching, is a greater disgrace than the
savagery Of the mobs. The fact that
thirteen out Of fourteen murderers escape
the gallows is the one damning fact that
blackens the record Of our criminal iuris
prudence.
1t is often alleged that the failure of
Juries to convict murderers is due TO their
unwlllingness to intiic capital punishment ::
and 1t IL argued that If the extreme pena!
ty were imprisonment for life much
sible that this reasoning may explain some
cases OF disagreement or acquittal, but the
real difficulty is much more serious. 1t
arises in part, from the exaggeration of
the rights of the individual as compared
with those of society.
Out OF this exaggerated estimate of the
criminals rights have arisen those meth
ods OF legal procedure which 80 disgrace
our criminal courts, under which orafty
lawyers are permitted the use of all man
per Of ridiculous quibbles and techncali
ties for the sake of defeating the ends of
justice. The fact that the American bar il
distinguished for its fertility in the in
vention OF these vicious expedi,nts. by
which trials are endlessly protracted, and
the processes OF the law are fatally en-
tangled, and the minds of jurors are hope
iessly confused, isl fact not greatly 10
our orealt, out 1t throws food of light
on the ngurcs We are studying. The Gui
teau trial and the trial of the Star Route
conspirators in Washington furnish illus.
trious instances Of the way in which Grim
inal trials in this country are often man
aged. 1t is through the use of such
methods that the best laws are nulliaed,
and the magistrate, ceasing TO be terror
10 eVli doers, becomes their laughing
stock.
When it shall become evident that the
notorious and wilful murderer generally
receives speedy and impartial trial and
saner, the just penalty of his crime the
DAY OF the lynchers will soon come to an
end. This is not conjecture the expert.
ence OF many frontier Community
illustrates our proposition. Out of a ay
administration OF criminal law a crop Of
vigilance committees aad regulators has
often sprung, spreading terror and anarchy
on every hand, until the election of some
stern Judge or somo courageous proseout
lug oiiicer has restored to law it's riRhtful
myJesty aud supremacy, aud restraiusd the
lawiessness OF both criminals and lynobers.
What has SO often been done ia different
localities may well be undertaken with
rosoiuto purpose IN all parts of the country
whore these evils now prevail. 1t is 10 be
hoped that the record of the current wear
will show that the majority of those who
have died for crime have met their fate al
the hands Of the magistrate, rather than
At the hands OF the mob.
Ola Time UIaret DrIokiDg.
Claret drinking has greatly gone out in
Dublin since Grattan uttered his famous
aphorism "Cold mutton, proved | have
I...L -.