The Marietta journal. [volume] (Marietta, Ga.) 1866-1909, 1889-03-28
A TERRIBLE JUICE.
He Has Sentenced 1862 Murderers to be
Hanged.

hangeUs
Fort Smith, Ark, is considerably
agitated over the effort that is being
made in congress to remove the
United States district court at that
place into the Indian territory.
Several meetings have oeen held,
resulting in nearly every business
man and the entire legal fraternity
of the city signing remonstrance
against the proposed removal. This
will be sent to Washington, together
with personal letters to Congress
men, urging the retention Of the
court at Fort Smith. The remon-
STRANGE is prompted by purely mer-
cenary motives, for the removal of
the court means big financial loss
to the business interests Of the city,
it having been the principal source
of revenue for many years. Every
year upward of 100000 is paid out
in the salaries to court officers and
fees to jurors and witnesses, and an
almost equal amount is distributed
among the lawyers by criminals who
are brought before the court for
trial. This money, or most of it, is
spent in Fort Smith, and this is whv
the people of the town so seriously
object to the court being moved
away.
The court itselfis one OF the most
noted in the world, chiefly because
of the large number of criminal
cases that stain its deckets. Not
less than 1900 criminals are brought
before it for trial every year and an
average of fifty of them are charged
with murder. Judge Parker, who
has presided over the court for ff-
teen years, has during that time, dis
posed of 847 murder cases. He has
pronounced the death sentence on
100 convicted murderers, seventy
one Of whom were hanged Just out
side his court room, the others be-
ing pardoned by the president or
receiving COmmu tatiOn of sentence.
There promises to be an unusual
large number of hangings,this year.
There has already been one, ana
there are to be six hanged in a
bunch April 10, sentence having
been pronounced few weeks ago
at the close of the last term. There
are now in the federal prison forty
seven prisoners awaiting trial tor
murder, and deputies are on their
way with fifteen or twenty more.
The court has almost exclusive
jurisdiction over the Indian terri
tory, and is the only terror that the
desperadoes of that crime infested
country know. Take it away and
crime would run rampant. As it is
forty mounted deputy marshals are
kept busy the year around making
arrests, and the court grinds without
cessation from one years end to the
other. The docket is never cleared.
One term runs into the next, and
sessions are often held until mid
night. There are no vacations.
Most Of tho trials are for criminal
ottenses, ranging all the way from
selling liquor to murder, and the
punishment is severe. For merely
taking bottle of whisky into the
territory men are sent to prison for
three months. A horse thief gen
orally gets ten years in the peni-
Tertiary, and hanging is almost
invariably the verdict in the case of
convicted murderer. Rape is
punished by death. Judge Parker,
personally pleasant and genial
gentleman, and not at all the stern
magistrate one might expect, says
that severe punishmentis absolutely
necessary in order to hold the
criminals Of the Indian country in
check. and as so many cases through
lack of evidence, he almost invaria-
bly,, in case OF conviction, pro-
nounces the extreme sentence al
lowed by law. At the time he was
assigned to the court murders in the
territory averaged nearly one day,
and in order to check them he be-
gan his first term by pronouncing