The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1895-11-07

free from their prohibition. 1t is the
right, the undoubted duty of society,
to educate its members, by every means
in it's power, up to this high standard of
freedom.
When mankind believed God pun
ished the violators of his law with ever
lasting pain and torment, and that in
his wrath he graded not his offenders,
but consigned them, large and small, to
the bottomless pit, they tried to initiate
him, and meted out with vengeance,
what they were pleased to call retribu-
tive punishment.
Less than seventy-fve years ago there
were two hundred and twenty-five Of
fenses punishable by death, in England,
and that is what they called proper
tioning punishment to desert. There
is not prisoner in the Minnesota State
Reformatory today who would not have
paid with his life the penalty for the
crime he stands convicted OF, had he
lived in England eighty or hundred
years ago. AS we have become better
acquainted with the divine nature,
have learned that God is love instead
of vengeance, we have been more mer
ciful toward the erring We have been
constrained to tighten, somewhat, the
penalties, but they are still. in most
cases, retributive, and we are studying
the crime instead of the criminal. Some
of the Inconsistencies and injustices
of our penal code. and the way it is ad-
ministered, would be ridiculous and
amusing if not so serious in their eff
fects. The eloquence of an attorney,
the sympathy of the jury, or the whim
of a Judge, very often determines
whether the prisoner is hung, sent to
prison, or acquitted. The difference of
a dollar in the amount of theft deter
mines whether the thief shall go to
prison one year or five. 1t is not an
uncommon thing to find two men serv-
ing time in the same prison, for like
crimes, without perceptible difference
: of guilt, one sentenced for one year
the other for ten The infiction of pen
, alties by different officers of the law
: is unavoidably full of contradictions
and inequalities, and when the output
/ of all the courts of state is brought
, together in its prisons, it is travest,
1 on Justice, and reflection upon ou
civilization. Stealing property of an.
S value from the person of another, IL
t the night time. though it be in the cor
i ridor of a hotel, and in the glare of al
l. electric light, is grand larceny in tn
l. first degree, with maximum penalt
Il of ten years, and minimum of five
(, while one may steal any sum less tha
n five hundred dollars from the person 0
e another in the day time, and get onl
n such punishment, from small fine t
five years in prison, as the court see
l. fit to inflict. In any prison you ma
# find man serving ten years time fC
e. stealing an old pewter watch that some
e. one was willing to swear was wort
s. more than twenty-five dollars, whi
is next to him stands one who has bee
If sentenced for only one or two years ft
j. stealing many thousands of dollar
f, So long as we study crimes instead {
N criminals, these injustices will preva
10 They are the natural and logical Ou
to come of retributive punishment. D
bit F. H. Wines, an authority on penolog
ne says, "experience has shown that it
O. impossible to adjust penalties to d
e. grees of guilt" and that standards
We punishment are more easy to imagil
,ir than to realize" Superintendent Broc
ly way, of the Elmira Reformatory, Civ
)e. as the result of his observation tn
lst ''the attempt to retribute to the Grin
it's nal what is proportional to his offen'
its either by Imprisonment or by imposi
he fines, produces pernicious effect, bo
i'm upon him and upon all who are his
,ct terested observers, because the penal
MS must seem inadequate either insu
ng cient, in which case the effect is to {
be courage crime, if it exerts any inf1uen
nd whatever, or exaggerated, tending
'ut evaporation and depression; or, if
ny any possibility the penalty impos
nd should seem to be just, it is then es