Connecticut western news., 1889-04-17
A NOTED COURT.
Dispensing Justice at Fort
 Smith, in Arkansas.
Fifteen Hundred Criminals
 Tried Every Year.

lTloO Every rear.
 The United States District Court at Fort Smi tn, Ark, is one of the most noted in the world, chiefly because of the large number of criminal cases that stain its dockets. 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 fifteen years has, during that time disposed of 847 murder cases. He has pronounced the death sentence on 100 convicted murderers, 71 of whom were hanged just outside his court room, the others being pardoned by the President or receiving commutation of sentence. There promises to be an unusually large number of hangings this year. There are now in the Federal prison 47 pris oners awaiting trial for murder, and deputies are on their way there with tif teen or twenty more.
 The court has almost exclusive juris- diction over the Indian Territory, 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 round making ar rests, 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 ses- sions are often held until midnight. There are no vacations. Most of the trials are for criminal offences rangin g all the way from selling liquor to mur der, and the punishment is severe. For merely taking bottle of whiskey into the Territory men are sent to prison fer three months. A horse thief generally gets ten years in the penitentiary, and hanging is almost invariably the verdict in the case of a convicted murderer. Judge Parker, personally a pleasant and genial gentleman, and not at all the stern magistrate one might expect, says that severe punishment is absolutely necessary in order to hold the criminals of the Indian country in check, and as so many escape through lack of evidence, he almost invariably, in case of conviction, pronounces the extreme sentence allowed by law. At the time he was assigned to the court murders in the Territory averaged nearly one day, and ill order to check them he began his first term by pronouncing the death sentence on every convicted murderer that came before him. At the close of the year he had sentence 15 men to be hanged, and had sent about 200 of them to the penitentiary, many of them for life. The desperadoes became terror stricken, and some of them, rather than come before him for trial, killed them. selves.
 The room in which Judge Parker holds his court is located in the barracks of old Fort Smith, which was aban doned as military post in 1873. The fort had quite history. It was estab' lished in 1920, and was the scene of nu- merous thrilling engagements with In dians. At the beginning of the late war the Federal troops were driven out by the Confederates, but the fort was recaptured in 1862, and was hell unt finally evacuated by the Government 1t years ago. The barracks, or Court House as it is now called, is surrounded by high stone wall, now in state o1 decay, but the battered portholes tel the story of many hard-fought battles The western wall runs almost up to tho boundary line of the Indian Territory and one can stand upon it and throw stone into the na ion of either the Choc Jaw or Cherokee tribe. Adjoining thu court house is the Federal prison, massive structure of brick ane iron that is at all time crowded 10 overfowing with crim inals. It now contains 1S6 prisoners some of whom are among tho mos noted despcradoes of the Indian coun try. Most of them arc whites, the aver age being seven whites and two ncgroe to one Indian. This is partly account ed for by the fact that an Indian wh commits crime against another Indian is tried before court in his own couu try, the United States Court here cEl, having jurisdiction over Indians wh commit crimes against white mcu 0 negroes. Judge Parker says, however that the Indians are generally prctt : good citizens, and crime in Indian Te. l, titory would be comparatively unknowl if the white renegades were driven out Chlcago Tribune.
 A Floating Theatre.