The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-08-24


responsibility to bear for the existing stu
alton. Sentimental sympathy with GRIM
inals has largely taken the place Of right
eous anger against them.
A case in point, which Mr.. White might
have cited. is that of Oliver Perry, the
desperate. inscriptions train robber, who
is now lodged in Auburn prison. This
man became q criminal not from necessity
or accident. but from choice: he is hard
ened, ferocious ruffian, whose hands
are dyed with blood; in his efforts to rob
an express car he shot the messenger re-
peatedly. dong his best to kill him. Since
his confinement this brutal enemy of
society has been the recipient Of sympa-
thizing letters from all parts of the country,
chiefly from women. One woman sent
request to the warden to be allowed to
furnish the criminal with mice new
mattress" purchased with the proceeds Of
her Sunday-school missionary fund.
One of the worst female criminals that
was ever known in New England, . wo-
man who was privy to the murder of her
benefactress who had adopted her when q
child, was the subject Of enthusiastic re-
gard by the church women of the city
where she was confined; this female mis-
creant pretended to be pious when SEN
fenced to prison, and was pronounced "a
very interesting woman" in spite Of her
record of cold-blooded crimes from youth
to middle life. A Mrs. Druse knocked
her husband down with an Ak at
the breakfast table q few years ago
in presence of his children. and when he
begged for his life. cut OFF his head and
burned his body. A doctor Of divinity did
his best to save her from the gallows, and
preached her funeral sermon, declaring
that he had no doubt that she had 'found
Christ" The chances are that the people
who do not find Christ, or try to find him,
in Christian land until they reach the
gallows in this world, will hardly find Him
in the next.
The weakness of juries defeats the ends
of justice even when tho judge and the
prosecuting officers do their whole duty
with unflinching sternness of justice.
Judge MARITIME, Of New York city. in his re-
marks to jury in q case Of wife murder,
said: "Crimes of this sort are growing
more numerous daily. and, in my judg-
ment, the blame must be placed upon the
jurors who refuse to act upon the evidence,
and who travel outside it to find excuses
for crime. The jury box has become .
nursery for such crime"
A Kentucky governor during his term of
Office pardoned 801 prisoners, and in the
last month of his term Governor Hill, Of
New York, pardoned nine convicts, two of
them under sentence for heinous murders.
President White urges that thinking
men, clerical and lay, should seek through
the press to create better public senti-
ment regarding crime and its punishment.
President White above all holds that
there should be developed a better public
sentiment. more stern, more determined
to hold to their duties judges, juries. pros
ecuting attorneys, legislators and govern
ors. 1t il question whether it would
not be far better than the present system
to have our highest court in each state sit
from time to time as a court Of pardons to
receive statements regarding any changed
or mitigating circumstances in any given
case in open court, and pass upon them
in formal decisions. But finally, it is of
the very greatest importance that the pro.
cedure in cases of crime should be made
simple and the penalties speedy. Thus
far the death penalty seems indispensable.
No other has ever been found 90 effective;
none responds more perfectly to the uni
Yersal sense of Justice"