Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-05

discussion. The people of this State through !
their representatives have enacted, or, to speak
more exactly. the representatives of the people
have enacted in their behalf a novel law,
which may prove 10 be either model for all
the world to initiate or tragical failure. 1t is
of the highest importance that the people
of its operation, uncolored by Official sympathy
or opposition. We suspect that they will learn
the facts in that manner in spite of the law,
but it would be better if they could learn them
in conformity with the law.
We fail to see wherein resides the i'm
portance to the people of any other report
of the operation of the nsw system, than
the facts proving it efficacious or a
failure. The purpose of the law in ex-
Guiding reporters from executions was born
of the highest moral and practical econ
omy. 1t is simply indisputable that the
sensational re ports of hangings, in which
the press has INDUCED, demoralize, debase,
harden and reduce the terror the scaffold
should inspire to the lowest possible mini
mum. These reports familiar1ze the
reader with the machinery of death and
the scenes of last hours, until morbid curl
osity takes the place of horror and repul-
siveness, or else pulseless Indifference sits
in the seat of sensitiveness. The gallows-
tree from being terror, by the sensational
press has been made an object of seeking
by criminals, who, to enjoy the opportu-
nifty for such brief tragic posing and cheap
notoriety, boldly court death and infamy.
What is the ''liberty of the press that
tends to destroy the liberty of the people
by clarifying with legal martyrdom, ac
cording to their thinking, the assailants of
life and property, and the class that feeds
upon the invasion of human rig hts? What
exchange is that which purchases liberty
of the press to reyel in sensational details
of executions at the sacrifice of the sensi-
tiveness that should distinguish youth and
innocence, and that cannot be exposed to
the attrition of these melodramatic reports
without being rendered insensible to the
terrors of the gallows. We want Just such
law in California as they have in New
York-a law that says to the sensational
press, when it attempts to dramatize the
scenes of executions, 'Stop! At this point
the exertion of your energies in the scheme
of corrupting the public shall cease"
The rebuilding of large section of the
city of Naples is the most important sani-
tary measure ever undertaken in the Old
World. 1t is proof of the splendid ad-
vance that is being made by sanitary sci
ence. In 1870 the city government of
Naples began the construction of the
Strada del Duomo, to run nearly parallel
with the famous Toledo, and leading di-
rectly to the sea. Very few of the other
streets exceeded so feet in width and many
not more than 10 or 20 feet Under the
new system Naples will have thirty streets
80 feet in width; 10, 60 feet, and 81, 40
fetal paved, thoroughly severed and
constructed after the most approved meth
DDS. Only few of the chief thorough
fares had sidewalks. Now they will nearly
all have six, ten or sixteen-foot walkways.
The city is, from the east to the west sub
urb. four miles in length, and at the widest
part is not over two and a half miles in
breadth. The tearing down of 1900
houses and sixty-two churches in such an
area is monstrous work, especially when
it is remembered that in Naples the houses
are mainly lofty structures and haye over
hangs that still further narrow the streets
above the ground floors, on which the
business of the city is principally carried
on, in arched and opened cells, or recesses.
the upper stories being used as tenements
Heretofore Naples has had very few open
spaces or squares, or what Colonel Waring
so aptly terms 'the lungs of city" Now
she will have twelve new fine, though not
large, parks, well distributed longitudinally,
in section where there has heretofore
been the most crowded condition of things.
The enormous expense to which the
Neapolitans are now going, in order to
place their city in fair sanitary condition,
involving as it does $22O,OO0OOO of ex-
pense, should be lesson to the builders
of modern cities, to take plenty of room. to
provide for thorough drainage and ample
breathing places, and to require observ-
ance OF the proved economics of sanitary
science.
THERE is something amazingly stupefy-
ing in the GOODNESS and nonchalance with
which the managers of the bruising match
announced between the two chiefs of pugil-