Arizona weekly journal-miner., 1895-11-27

III poSSiuS SeuleuNc tuc utuei Odl | .n Phenix on a man who had but re- gently been paroled from the pen tentiary Judge Baker delivered A very appropriate little homily on the subject of tho abuse of the par doning power. The subject was Thomas Galano, who had been con victed of burglary. Before passing sentence upon him Judge Baker asked him 1T he had ever before been ol a crime. It was drawn out that Gatano had been but four months out of the penitentiary. He was sent there in 1893 for an assault on woman. Though sentenced for three and half years, he served but a year, being then ''paroled" by the governor for good behavior Over this Judge Baker waxed indignant, and said that courts were of little use if their work could thus be rem dered idle by the action of the par doning power. The exercise of the pardoning power in many cases is to be commended, but in this assuredly a mistake had been made. The court ended by duplicating to Galano his Yavapai sentence-three years and a half in the penitentiary, plus three mouths.
 Judge J. J. Hawkins last evening passed sentence on C. E. Hobart, the murderer of John Miller, sen tencing him to life imprisonment in the territorial prison. The sentence was a surprise to the community, as the murder was one of the most wanton and unproYoked of any of the scores of murders which have been committed in this county dur ing the last decade of years. A life sentence in Arizona, while to the court it no doubt means life inn prisonment, in practical experience it means term of about four years and a half in the penitentiary, as that has been the average time served of life termers since the es- tablishment of the penitentiary at Yuma. In another column. in this issue, is published an article from a New York paper, in which Hon. Geo. H. Christ defends the name and reputation of Arizona, and in which he tries to correct the false impression in the east that Arizona is inhabited by cut throats and thieves. Is it to be wondered at that eastern people form such an opinion of Arizona, when human life is placed at such low estimate, as is demonstrated by her criminal hiStoryl Is it any wonder that not only the press at home but her citi- zens abroad are called upon to de- fend and apologize for the reputa- tion which she bears, when 8 man shoots a fellow man down in cold blood without provocatlon, and with in less than five years be at large again as a menace to society! The criminal history of this county dur ing the past ten years is absolutely appalling. During that period be- tween thirty and forty homicides have been committed in this county. A few of the parties committing them have been sentenced to i'm prisonment for life, but of the entire number only three or four can now be recalled who are doing time in Yuma. As an illustration of the in crease of homicides, oEing to the leniency of courts and juries, our county has the startling record of not less than ten. committed within the last thirteen or fourteen months. Two men have been sentenced to imprisonment for life and two others, convicted of killing a man are under sentence of death, awaiting an ap- peal of their case to the supreme court of the territory. This Is his tory and no exaggerated statements. Bad as the record is, We doubt if Yavapai county is any worse than any other county, and yet when these things are referred to by the press of the east, and when exag- gerated opinions ar+ formed of Ari- zona, on account Of them, how our righteous indignation arises within us and how we do cuss our "malign- CTS" and the libelers of the fair fame and name of our territory.
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