The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1889-04-03
TERRIBLE JUDGE.
fe Ras senteRcs4 1852 Eprderers to be
Hanged.

FoRT SMITH, Ark.-Fort Smith |
il considerably agitated over the |
effort that is being made IN congress
to remove the United States Dis
trict Court al this place into the
Indian territory. Several meet
ings have been h Id, resulting in
nearly every business man and the
entire legal fraternity of the city
SHINING remonstrance against the ,
proposed removal. This will be =
cent to Washington, together with |
personal letters to Congressman,
urging the retention OF the court at
Fort Smith. The remonstrance is
prompted by purely merccnary
motives, for the removal of the
court means q 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
ont in the 81 laries to court officers
aid fees to jurors ard witnesses, and
an almost equal amount is distrib>
uted among the lawyers by crimi>
nails who are brought before tie
~ourt for trial. This money, or
most OF it, is spent in Fort Smith,
and this il why the people Of the
town so seriously object to the
court being moved away,
The court itself is one Of the
most noted in the world, chiefly
because OF the large number Of
criminal cases on its dockets.
No less than 800 criminals are
brought before it for trial every
year and All average of fifty of them
are charged with murder. Judge
Parker, who has presided over the
court or fifteen years, has, during
that tine. disposed of 874 murder
cases. He has pronounced the
death sentence on 100 convicted
murderers, II of whom were
ham, just Outside his court room,
the others being pardoned by the
President or receiving commuta-
tion OF sentence. there promises
70 be an unusually large lumber Of
hansings this year. There has al
ready been one, and there are to be
six hanged in a bupch April 10Th,
sen enced having been pronounc, {
few weeks ago at the close OF the
last term. There are nov in the
federal prison forty seven prisoners
awaiting trial for murder, and depu
tics arc on their way here with ff-
teen or twenty more.
Tie court has almost exclusive
Jurisdiction over the Indian terri
tory, and is the only terror that
the desperadoes of that crime in
tested country know. Take it away
aud CRIME would run rampant. Al
it is, forty mounted deputy mar
shals are kept busy the year rounC
making arrests, and the cour
grinds without cessation from on,
years end to the other. The dock
ct is never cleared. One term run
into the next, and sessions are of
ten held until midnight. Their,
are no vacations. Most of tn,
trials are for criminal offences
ranging all the way from selling
LIQUOR to murder, and the punish
ment is severe. For merely takin,
a hottie of whisky into the terrific
ry men ere sent to prison for thre,
months. A horse thief general,
gets ten years in the penitentiary
and banging is almost invariabl,
the verdict in the case of a con
victed murderer. Rape is punished
by death. Judge Parker, person
ally a pleasant and genial gentle
man, and not at all the stern mag
istrate one might expect, says tina
scvere punishment is absolutel,
necessary in order to hold tn
criminals of the Indian country il
check, and as so many escap
through lack of evidence, he almos
invariably, in case of conviction
pronounces the extreme sehtenc
allowed by law. At the tine h
WIS assigned to the court murder
in the territory averaged ne RI
one a day, and in der to chez
them he began his first term b
pronouncins the death sentence o,
every convicted murderer tina
came before him. At the close c
the year he had sentenced fittee
men to be hanged and had sen
about 200 to the peniteutiary, man