Eureka daily sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1871-1887, 1886-12-18
Gurci1a Dailp Sentinel.
SATURDAY. DECEMBER 10. 1856.
A FESTIVAL OF CRIME.

L
spirit OF the law in their lust for tech.
meal discussion. 1t is popularity sup
posed that law, as applied to the ordi-
nary affairs of mankind, is simply a rule
of action and not a maze of disputation
and conjecture. If this be true, there is
no reason for the repeated battling OF
Justice in the courts of San Francisco.
Nearly every case involving a violation
of law has a plain issue OF fact. ln
homicides this is especially true. Has a
man been killed, and if so, who killed
him, and what justification, if any, is
there for the deed These are plain
issues which to any ordinary understand
ing admit of no involved labyrinth OF
legal distinction. The ends of justice
would without doubt be secured, if MUIR
der trials were confined to the plain
questions Of guilt or innocence. The
constitution and the law guarantee to
every person accused of crime a fair and
impartial trial. They prescribe a routine
by which this Is to be secured; but this
routine does not contemplate that a
legal technicality shall be accepted as an
acquittal for crime. The fact that a
Grand Jury may have been improperly
impaneled is not an atonement for human
life sacrificed to a criminal lust for blood.
Society has rights as we'll as the homi-
eide. Among these is the right OF every
citizen to be secure in his life. Another
is that, those who violate the law shall
be punished for it, to the end that life
shall not be ~wantonly taken, and that
peace and good order may prevail in the
community. A Court which gives to a
legal technicality precedence over the
rights and interests of society is an
enemy to the public peace. 1t does not
administer justice, it outrages it, and
throws wide the doors to lawlessness
and crime.
We are led to these reflections from
the fact that the law as administered in
San Francisco is interpreted as a shield
to criminals, instead of a means to pun
ish them. SO generally does this i'm.
preston prevail that murder has become
An almost everyday pastime. No citi.
zen who leaves his home in the morning
has any legal guaranty that he will ever
return to it alive. His life is at the
mercy of every rufian who by hatred or
malice or sudden passion, is impelled to
take it. Women are poisoned by their
husbands or beaten to death with ham.
mers. Young girls are shot down in the
street. Mems lives are taken upon the
slightest pretext or for no pretext at all.
So terrible have become the social and
legal conditions that over a dozen lives
have been b~rutally sacrificed by murder
ers in this city within the year that is
just closing. In that period the only
example of justice indicated and the
law enforced has been the execution OF
a Chinaman. White men, red with the
blood of murdered victims, crowd the
cells of the county prison, and courts
presumably organized to convict assassins
and punish crime, are to all intents and
purposes the licensed cloak for atrocities
that have sent thrills of horror through
the community. In this spectacle OF
PROSTATE law and derided justice, tech
meal pleas, delays and continuances are
the grinding h~arlequins that dance at.
tendance upon the courts that are rap.
idly degenerating into public farces.
The incensed and indignant community
appeal in vain that justice be done.
Outraged society and imperiled lives ask
in vain for protection. The courts are
alone interested in preserving the lives
of criminals. Society apparently has no
claims on tribunals organized to acquit
the guilty and condemn the innocent.
Are these conditions to go on and on,
and the public be compelled TO submit to
the woeful travesty of justice for all time
to come? Has vitalized and aroused
public opinion no influence in changing
an order of things that is heaping dis
grace upon the city and insecurity upon
the lives of the people? There are times
when men, d~espairing of the justice Of
courts and seeing in them only the liv.
cries of crime, sweep aside these public
farces and take the law into their own
hands. San Francisco has encountered
more than one period already when the
safety of society demanded that crime
s hould be put down and murderers be
given over to the penalties exacted from
the willful takers of human life. The
time is rapidly approaching and the oc.
casion near at hand, unless the courts do
their duty, when a similar necessity will
again devolve upon the people.