Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-07-27
THE SLEEPING PERIODS OF THE Law

SACRAMENTO
eecond-class matter.
THE SLEEPING PERIODS OF THE LAW.
The Grand Jury of San Francisco in its
report filed last week SAYS:
Dives and disorderiy houses continue to dis
grace some of our principal Streets and it is
suggested that owners Of such houses should be
Tor Jealous efforts by the Police Department to-
ward suppressiDg prize fighting, and that prize
lighters will be forced to seek some other city
fessions.
The suggestion that the owners of the
realty where disorderly houses are main
tanned should be prosecuted is WISE That
may be termed striking at the root of the
evil; punishment of inmates of such
houses is but looping off branches. The
advice of the jury can well be taken in
this and other cities 1t applies with
equal force wherever the dive nuisance
exists.
But when the jury expresses the hope
that the officers of the law will drive the
prize fighters into "some other city" where
they can pursue their disreputable prac-
tice, it is uncharitable in entertaining
the opinion that there are cities where
slogging is encouraged by the authorities.
But of course the Jurors, while justified
by the example of San Francisco officials,
meant that San Francisco ought to expel
the offenders by making it impossible for
them to follow their base calling there.
The implied conviction is that the jurors
believe this can be done, and hence when
it was not done in the past few months,
with prize fighting openly conducted and
attended by thousands of brutalized spec
tators, the authorities were untrue to
their obligations and purposely blind to
the offenses committed.
1t is an interesting study to look into
the history of various suspensions of the
criminal law to which q cials have con-
sented. The obligation upon the police
to stop prize fighting is not greater to day
than it was years ago, or probably than ii
will be in years to come. But craze hay-
ing set in for fisticuffs for prizes, and
brutal face and body smashing for the
satisfaction of onlookers with blunted
sensibilities, the law, by some means diff
cult to define, became quiescent. 1t had
in that sleeping time no terror for the
evil-doers, and even countenanced their
crime, so far as the act of its official repre-
sentatives could do SO. But when this
shameful exhibition of the suspension of
the written law had continued a given
time, the statutes appear to have been re-
invigorated, to have regained their vitality,
and now the vigor of the statutory man.
date is felt by those who attempted to
defy 1t. Yet the sentiment of the great
mass of the people experienced no change
in this period of somnolence. 1t is now
precisely what it was before the opening
of the slogging era. The concession,
therefore, of the law to the lawless was net
real. 1t was apparent because its officials
yielded to the demand of brutal instincts,
and absolved themselves from the oblipa-
tions of their oaths.
That the American people experience
no special shock from these acts of official
disobedience, and that they quietly submit
to this open defiance of their DEGREES by
their official servitors, and actually con-
done their offenses by applauding them for
sudden return to duty, is one of the COM
ple1 phenomena of our system
These exhibitions of official yielding to
the clamor of the lawless are frequent.
Just now it is manifest in supreme disre-
gard by officials for the laws forbidding
the advertising of lotteries and the traffic
in lottery tickets. The idea of bringing
offending publishers and others to the bar
of justice for this impudent violation of
the law, does not even occur to Grand
Jurors, nor is there any evidence what
ever that District Attorneys or public
prosecutors, or police officials take on any
concern in the matter.
Yet it would be impossible in this State
to elect a Legislature upon pledges to re-
peal the law condemning these specific of
fenses.
The people simply submit for time to
wave of lawlessness, under the belief that
after period of indefinite length the law
will resume its sway, and respect for it be
re-established. Whether these things re-
veal elements of strength or weakness in
our social and our political system, is a
question susceptible of possible division.
Without entering upon its analysis now,
we hold them to be testimonials of weak
ness which tend to cultivate disrepect for
legal mandates, to encourage assaults upon
orderly government, the administration of
the laws and the maintenance of the in,
tegrity Of the judicial system.