New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1884-04-02


been ante extinct. The fire left o charred
rump TO tell of the crime. The three murderers
we're apprehended, and, after lying in jail Tor
few days, the boy confessed the crime, giving
all the details of the killing with bloodhound
ling particularly and absence of feeling which
told of an almost incomprehonsible degree OF
moral imbecility. Not one OF the three was
hanged.
One day in n beer shop in Vine-st. two men
qualrelled over game of cards. One was
pale faced, sickly young man, the other
burly. bullet-headed giant. The first was
stranger in the town no one knew him, no one
cared for him-not even the law, as the sequel
showed. The second was an employe of John
Robinson's circus. A few words passed
between the men, when the latter struck the
sickly stranger blow on the temple with his
fist then quietly left the place. The young
man let fall his head on his arm and complained
of a terrible pain There was no external sign
of serious injury, but the bartender bathed his
head with amica and sent him home in street
car. An hour or two later he was found lying
dead at his lodgings. An autopsy revealed that
his skull. which was very thin at the temple
had been broken and piece forced into the
brain. The Coroner of Hamilton County car
ried this round piece of bone, this plain evil
dence of the cause of death. into the court
room. The prisoner testified that he had struck
the dead man with his open hand. The Cor
oner testified that a blow OF the kind described
could not cause death. The murderer was ac-
quilted.
About five years ago Democratic politician
who had been secretary of the Water Works
Board. aud Chief of Police, shot and killed
policeman in the Central Police Station OF the
city. 1t was on Sunday afternoon, and an
bour before the men had been III n broil III n
street car in Vine-st., but neither had made use
of deadly weapons. The daughter OF the
policeman had been the mistress of the polltl-
clan. and had been discarded for variety
actress. The collision between the men had
grown out of har-pulling between the
women. The men were separated before harm was
done The politician was arrested. but was taken
to n newspaper Office instead OF the police sta
ton Fifteen minutes later he went to the station
in a carriage The policeman renewed the wordy
wrangle when the politician entered. The eX-
chief gave plain evidence of wicked purpose
by putting his hand to his pistol the moment
the policeman, who was in his shirt-seey and
dressed him. The policeman made step
toward the ex-chief and was at once seized by
three or four officers; not one touched the
man who had warned that he would kill and
had the means. In the hands of his colleagues
the policeman was shot to death. The ndict-
ment was for manslaughtcr" the verdict
"nCt guilty"
But it is not in cases of this character alone
that criminal carleessncss or something even
worse was permitted to grow mp in Cincinnati
1t Is lust two years since an effort was made by
a then recently elected Mayor, pledged to at
tempt a reform, to enforce the Sunday Liquor
Law. Many arrests of fragrant vi0lstors were
made and q fest case was brought before the
Police Court. On the witness-stand the de-
fendanti admitted all that was charged IN the
warrant The jury found that he had not yio-
lated the law. The case was ended. There was
no opportunity tO'test the conStltutlonallY OF
the law which the liquor interest, the most ag-
grcssiyc element in the politics OF the city, was
controvcrting; and the effort to compel re-
sprct for plain laws on the statute books col
lapscd like punctured bubble
In 1866 three men were hanged in Hamilton
County for committing murder while attempt
inc highway robbery. Since then there nave
been two capital convictions. One man,
negro. was hanged the sentence OF the other
was committed to imprisonment for life. lt
can be left to the now qucllened conscience OF
Cincinnati to explain how such a laXity in the
administration of the penal laws as Is Indicated
bv these few out of many instances was per-
mitted to grow up. The fault is not with the
laws: they are as sound i'll Ohio rs here. 10
lis it is a phenomenon that has its corollaly III
the public spirit which has permitted one OF the
principal streets of the city to become by
word throughout the country; which has COM
Delled the admission from good citizens more
than once that Cincinnati is wOfuily sjlnien III
moce than one species of moral degradation
which has stripped its politics OF the last
vestige of dignity and patriotism; which mas
kept the machinery of municipal admlnlstra-
ton as unstable as water by changing 1t Tor
marty ends with almost every change in the
nolitical dominancy in the Statej which has.
civen rise TO the conviction, now expressed III
blood and destruction, that there exists ring
in he CITY which has practically controlled at
least one branch of the law administration of
Hamilton County for years. This gives sig
niti,a nco fl. the intelligence which the tele
graphic dispatches have brought, that one OF
the men whose names were hOwled by the mob
in its frenzy has barTicaded his house and said
that he viii never plead the cause OF a criminal
in Hamilton County again.
But where, during the period while the mad
indignation of the people was breaking through
the crust that confined it-where were the
public monitors
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