San Marcos free press. [volume] (San Marcos, Tex.) 1877-1892, 1885-12-17

Nails Driven Home-An Iowa Judges
Rebuke,

Nails Driven H0me-An Iowa Juuges
Rebuke.
The Hon. +. M. 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 arc greater crimes
known 10 the law which are punisha-
BILE with great severity, there are none
which involve more of those qualities
known as despicable meanness and
audacity, than the selling Of intoxica-
ting liquors. There is something in
the taking OF human life so instan-
taneous that it shocks and terrifies
the minds of oil and yet we look
upon the man who takes human life
quite as surely, but by slow, Inger-
ing process, il not without condemna-
ton, at least without horror. You
who stand before the Court for SEN
tence are in every moral sense muir
derers, and you are within the spirit,
if not the letter, guilty of manslaugh-
ter; for the law says whoever acceler-
ates the death of human being un-
lawfully is guilty of the crime. Your
bloated victims upon the witness
stand, and who undoubtedly commit
ted perjury to screen you from the
law, not only abundantly testify that
you are accelerating death, but that
yon are inducing men to commit still
greater crimes than your own. You
still maintain the appearance OF res
pectability, but how morally leprous
and scrofulous you are inwardly
The ruin, poverty and idleness which
you are inficting upon this commu-
nifty declare as from housetop to
housetop that you are living in idle
ness 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 thereby convert
ing 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 VIC
tins, whom you are Turing with the
wiles and smiles of the devil into mid
night debauchery. One can have no
adequate conception of q cataract un-
till he has seen Niagara nor OF the
terrible fury and grandeur of a storm
in mi d ocean until he has Witnessed
one SO no one can know the utter
degradation and the total depravity
to which his species can be brought,
until he looks upon the desolate
ruins caused by your hellish traffic
You are persistent, defiant lawbreak-
ers, and shamelessly boast that, IN
defiance of the law and moral sense
of the community, you will continue
in your wicked and criminal practices
It 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 dri-
ven from your nefarious traffic, or
ruined in your fortunes or wicked
prosperity You have become q
strench to the nostrils of the commu-
nifty, and all good men are praying
that you be speedily reformed or
summarily destroyed. By the provid-
ence 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
intreat 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
and entitled to the respect
Of Christian community. Ii you
persist in this way, your ruin is GER
lain, and you will receive as you
deserve the execration of mankind.
You may think that the sentence OF
,he Court is harsh and unjustily
severe, but the Court assures you
hat compared with your crimes and
he desolation you have already
brought upon the community, it ID
mild in the extreme. ,