The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1885-09-04
TEMPERANCE READING.
A JUDGES RERuKE.

What He Said When Passing Sentence
Upon violators of the Laws of the
State.
Hon. F. NJ Hubbard, District Judge
of the Eighth Judicial District of Iowa,
in passing sentence upon some liquor
dealers for violation of the Prohibitory
laws of the State, said:
"While there are greater crimes
known to the law which are punishable
with great severity, there are none
which involve more of those qualities
known as despicable meanneSs and
audacity than the selling of intoxicat-
ing liquors. There is something in the
taking of human life so instantaneous
that it shocks and terrifies the minds of
all; and yet we look upon the man who
takes human life quite as surely, but
by slow, lingering process, if not
without condemnation, at least without
horror. You who stand before the
court for sentence are in every moral
sense murderers, and you are within
the spirit, if not the letter, guilty of
manslaugbter; for the law says that
whoever Sccelerates the death of hui
man being unlawfully is guilty of the
crime. Your bloated victims upon the
witness stand, and who undoubtedly
committed perjury to screen you from
the law, not only abundantly testify
that you are accelerating death. but
that you are inducing men to commit
still greater crimes than your own. You
still maintain the appearance of re-
spectability, hut how morally leprous
and scrofulous you are inwardly. The
ruin, poverty and idleness which you
are intiicting upon this community de-
clare as from the housetopS that you
are living in idleness and eating the
bread of orphans watered with widows
tears; you are stealthily killing your
Victims and numbering the peace and
industry of the community, and there
by converting happy, industrious
homes into misery, poverty, and rags.
Anxious wives and mothers watch and
pray in tears nightly, with desolate
hearts. for the coming home of your
victims, whom you are Turing with tho
wiles and smiles of the devil into mid
night debauchery.
Zone can have no adequate concep-
ton of a cataract until he has seen
Niagara, nor of the terrible fury and
grandeur of storm in mid ocean until
he has witnessed one; so 70 one can
know the utter degradation and total
Ed6pravity to which his species can be
brought until he looks upon the desc
late ruin caused by your hellish traffic.
You are persistent defiant law-break-
ers, and shamelessly boast that in def
ance of the law and moral sense of the
community you will continue in your
wicked and criminal practices. 1t has,
therefore, now become the imperative
duty of this court TO let fall upon you
so heavily the arm of the law that
you shall either be driven from your
nefarious traffic, or ruined in your
fortunes or wicked prosperity. You
have become stencil to the
| nostrils of the community, and all
good men are praying that you be
speedily reformed or summarily de-
stroyed. By the providence of God and
the favor of this court these prayers
shall be speedily answered by signal
and exact justice for your crimes. And
finally, let me entreat you, if you are
not lost to every sentiment of humanity,
to desist from your criminal vagabond
traffic and betake yourselves to some
honest calling for livelihood, that
you may yet become virtuous, useful
citizens and entitled to the respect of a
Christian community. If you persist
in this way, your ruin is certain, and
| you will receive, as you deserve, the
execration of mankind. You may
think that the sentence of the court is
harsh and uniustly severe, but the court
assures you that. compared with your
crimes and the desolation you have al
ready brought upon the community, it
| is mild in the extreme"