Blue-grass blade., 1895-08-25
The State Of Kentucky Cannot Justly
Punish N. N. Lane for Killing two
Men While He Was Drunk.

lnere Is no principle IN law better
established than that no man shall take
advantage of his own wrong. This be-
ing true the State of Kentucky, having
made drunkard out of NJ. n. Lane, has
no right to punish him now that Lane,
in drunkenness, and as the result of
drunkenness, has killed two men, and
especially as one of the men killed was
saloon keeper and the other one the
governments agent to protect and foster
the whisky traffic.
Lanes father was a great drunkard,
and was made drunkard by his patron
age of business that the United States
government and the State of Kentucky
and the counties of Montgomery, Wood
ford and Fayette had all agreed in say.
lag was legitimate and proper business.
This government aud State and these
counties all knew that the evils of
drunkenness and the appetite for
liquors were transmissible from parent
to child, until the child, weakened in
moral courage, and possessed of an ap-
petite for drink that is almost irresisti-
BILE, becomes almost certainly, drum
kard, and in drunkenness, which is the
most dangeroug form OF insanity, Lane,
the son, born with this appetite in him,
kills two men, whose business it had
been to encourage the liquor traffic and
who probably were impatient with him
when he was drunk as the effect of that
traffic.
Recently patient, at the lunatic asy-
lum here, dug brick out Of the wall
tried it up in his bed sheet and beat out
the brains of another patient with it.
The murdered lunatic had never done
the other one any harm, and the one that
killed the other had no reason to be-
lieve himself in any danger from the
man that he killed, and yet no court ar
rested and tried the man who killed.
The law has decided, as general rule,
that no insane man is responsible for
his deeds, and the propriety of this dis
cision every sane man appreciates. But
if the law will not hold a man response
BILE for deeds done in insanity that the
law had no part in bringing about, it
should certainly far less hold man re-
sponsible for insanity that the law itself
has been largely. If not wholly, the
means of bringing about.
My short acquaintance with Lane is
such as leads me to believe he would to-
day be an innocent and valuable citizen
except for the liquor traffic that the law
has authorized and encouraged.
The first time ever saw or heard of
Lane was when he came to me, in a
very gentlemanly and business like
manner, and said to me that he would
be glad to show me wire fence for
which he was agent. l was at the time
and am now, making wire fence on my
own farm, and | told him l would be
| glad to go with him and see some that
he was making, two miles from town.
regard the making of wire fence one oi
the most important of farming indus.
tries.
When the hour came at which we were
to go Lane was drunk, and, soon after,
his name was in the papers, associated
with that of most prominent politicians,
Lane showing himself very dangerous
character in two political assaults.
The reputation of Kentucky is, today,
much worse than that of any State in
the Union. One distinction as a State
is that we are murderers, and that the
murders are committed as the result of
the whisky that is made here. Our peo-
pie also have the reputation of being
thieves ana gamblers and libertines and
fools.
The Kentucky Colonel is now a by.
word throughout the land 1t means a
bully who has no sense, and is always
Dragging on Kentucky He is always
intensely religious, and will insult you
or shoot you for anything said agains,
his religion as he would for anything
said against his honor
Lane is doubtless true believer il
religion, as is Breckinridge, whose de
voted friend Lane was during his Con
gressional contest.
Nobody has said more in favor of pun
ishing criminals than have, and nc
man has said more against drunkard
and drunkenness than l have but a
the same time am for justice, and d.
not think that this state can justly pun
ish Lane for killing man as the resul
of drunkenness, when the state itself en-