The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1885-07-31
A CRIMINAL STATE.

The Acknowledgement of Kentucky
has been visiting some of the lawless
regions of the State, and the Courier
Journal has the courage. humiliating as
it must be, to publish the report made
to the Governor. OF Bell county, the
Adiutant-General tells tale of lawless-
ness and crime that would cause any
but a Kentuckian to blush. He saws
that when 1.-THE sheriff endeavored to
secure posse to arrest Johnson only
eight out of $50 summoned responded
to the CALL" the Judge dared not ask
for troops because he would be held
responsible for their presence, and sub
jected to personal violence; non-bailable
cases were bailed, the Courts officers
not having the courage to deny the re-
quests of the desperadoes. The report
further declares that in Bell the
Adjutant-General twas struck with the
rigor of the laws when men were
accused of small crimes. The Judge
was severe and the verdicts of the iuries
were promptly rendered, but the penal.
ties were not enforced, the jail was
empty. and the whole proceedings a |
farce. He remarks incidently that of |
the voting population of Bell county
one in fifty-that is, two per cent.-are
charged with murder, So much for
Bell county"
This is a statement concerning
one county only in a popuIous
State. Other counties are quite
as bad. As remarked IN these columns
day after day the reports of
murders, outrages, lynchings and so on,
ire telegraphed from the Blue Grass
State. Two per cent. of all the voters of
county guilty of murder! As murder
committed less frequently than any
'ther crime in the calender the paren-
age of criminals of all grades must he
omething frightful.
And yet with this showing at home {
Aentuckians are louder and more
icious in their complaints against :
Jtah, than are the people of any other !
tate in the Union. With community $
hat is reproach to the whole country. :
ne Kentucky newspapers and the l
-entucky statesmen are loud and wild
| their demands that Utah, which has
ZEN less crime in the past ten years a
ian is committed any day of the week O
Kentucky, shall be punished, puri- d
I'd and redeemed. The Governor of :
us Territory who prides him
If on being a Kentuckian L
I'd who is ferocious in his calls for the
oppression of crime and the severe
lnishment of offenders in Utah. knows o
at there are more criminals to the 10
uare rod in his own Kentucky than M
ere is to the ten mile tract in Utah IL
knows that where one criminal in d. 4,
IS punished, unless it be by a 81
Oh of other criminals, ten are pun tw
led in this Territory. He has no liz
Mt to find with Kentucky, which
ems to have degenerated to condi- on
n OF barbarity and lawlessness; but =
Utah, which is pure and spotless as
ow as compared with his State, he has a.,
thing but evil 20 speak. If Murray wi
re really intent on the suppression of FEY
me and punishment of the gnilty, 50
would go home and employ his re- e an
'lning days in an endeavor to bring a ws
thousands of his fellow citizens to CR
,.scanoiu' and in trying to redeem a e ea'
immunity that is disgrace to the ma fb,
a. and he would never again open his TAI
uln against Utah until he had proven as
o;,, -. ne WAS interested IN bro
''e 'Ho sa''y 10 justice. icon