The St. Johns herald., 1885-10-01
St. Johns. Thursday, Oct. l,


 Zuni and gone by the way of Win gate, or Windgate, to blow the smell off their clothing before going to the fair at Albuquerque and play ing the hobby at the San Felipe, we the people of St. Johns, who are left in the full enjoyment of our sweet solitude, have abundant time for retrospection and reflection. To us the calm is benifcent; the war between contestants has been silenced-; ended for the time being. The victors are in a i've told you so humor" and the defeated are hidden from sight. The convicted criminal is within the iron jaws of the laws final resort and will stay till justice is satisfied. The worse than widowed wives and mothers will mourn because crime has de- spoiled them and the children of their protectors from the cold blasts of winter and gnawings of hunger. They will feel that death would have been a more welcome visitor than were the officers of the law that bereft them of all hope of per sonal sustenance and forced them on the uncertain dependence of charity from the hard working poor in their midst. How great the crime that brings such misery in the world, this living death which is the certain wages of the sin of the criminal. It is not alone the iowly among the people that have been accused of crimes, for whose punishment the prison-houses and penitentiaries have been built, but men of property; men who pos sessed a large share of this worlds goods; men who set themselves high above the laboring classes i; men who look upon the tiller of the ground as not entitled to social position, have been brought by the mandate of the court to answer for the same charges and crimes that condemned the unfortunate Baca and Moreno to the horrors of Yuma.
 As has been stated in the HERALD 1t tries no mans case, 1t does not exercise the functions of a criminal court, but it is its duty to state its convictions of that man, who enters upon bonds to answer before the court to an indictment of a grand jury for cattle stealing within Apache County, and when his case Is called fails to respond, as guiltless man should, I am here ! These are the facts, in the case of the Territory against P. J. Hill, whose residence was near Houck's Tank, in this county. Mir. Hill came to St. Johns and was here at the organization of the District Court, he appeared intent on all its proceedings and he must have ob- served that not only were the mem bers of the court determined to punish crime in Apache County, to the full extent of the law, but that the people at large were in full sym pathy with the officers of the law. He must have seen that neither personal friendships nor money would avail a guilty man, or one that would be proven such, and like q coward in the darkness of the night forsook his bondsmen and made it impossible at that time for the court to hear his case. This action on his part will go far to condemn him in the minds of all right thinking men.
 It is to be hoped that the good start that has been taken, to punish .cFia,e in this county will be main ianed, that every lover of good .ordor every lover of peace and eve yone who respects the rights of property, will act as energetlcally to sustain the laws when the officers of the law are with us in the future, as they did during the session just closed.