The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1898-03-03


less well known.
The first person in modern times to
call attention to the barbarities of gov
ernments in the punishment of crimes
was the marquis of Beearria, in italian
philosophical writer, who published in
1854 his celebrated Treatise; it is be-
yond question that never did so small a
book bring about so great reform.
The principles laid down by Beccaria
We're Immediately accepted by every
European government; even Catherine
II placed the treatise entire in the Rus
sian code, and it was translated even
into modern Greek. The seed, however,
which terminated in Beccaria, was
planted by another and not less great a
thinker, Montesquien, a French baron,
who published his Spirit of the Laws"
in 1T43. Well might Voltaire have writ
ten commentaries on these books, for
they We're the universal codes of hui
mainly.
While the governments of the world
were advancing in the hunianizing d.
rection, the government of Rhode Is
land was either retrograding or holding
back The criminal code of Rhode Is
| land, which in 1647 was a model of ex-
cellence, far beyond the age, had be-
come in 1885 a masterpiece of brutal
| wrong. The government by the Gener-
| al Assembly from the year 1912 back
| ward had been government Of stolid
| conservatism; one continual tale of I'M
| lawful usurpation of power, and just as
| steady a story Of intrigue or refusal to
make any efforts at political, legisla-
tive of judicial reformation; thus was
| perpetrated a political crime which
kept Rhode Island from any advance
| ment in any material or in any intel
| lectual way whatsoever for many
| years. This political pail was lifted in
| 1912; and the judicial pail, while it was
not wholly lifted until that same year,
had, nevertheless, experienced some ad-
vantageous changes in the five or seven
| years preceding. The people of Rhode
| Island had long condemned the system,
| but the General Assembly could be
| neither educated or moved to action.
| When the modern state prison came In
| 1888, the infamous criminal code of
| Rhode Island went out, 1t certainly
! cannot fail to be interesting, and it
may not be improbable, to look back
| for moment at the provisions of this
| barbarous code, and study it in the
light of such personal illustrations as
we may easily fall upon.
1t was in 1926 that Captain Starbuck
sailed in his sloop along the Narragan-
sett bay on a trading voyage to Provi-
| dence;. on his arrival there he discover
ed that a roll of bank bills, Of the old
! state banks, had been stolen from his
cabin; his suspicious rested on a man
on board the sloop who had served as
an assistant by nameObadiah Gorton.
| So Obadiah was arrested and taken to
| the old Jail on Canal street; after de-
/ tention for some days, and no evidence
| being found, Obadiah was set free;
/ but little while later somebody in
! the Jail, while using cake of soap,
i discovered the roll Of bank bills which
| Captain Starbuck had lost, in cavity
within the cake. So Obadiah was
again arrested and confessed the fact;
| he had bored hole in the cake and
! plugged with soap the money within it,
| but forgot, when discharged, to take
| the cake with him. Obadiah was SEN
/ fenced to restore the money, to be
/ whipped 80 stripes on his naked back
/ and to be imprisoned IS months.
/ It was in 1929 that Brenton Bartlett
was accused, tried and convicted Of
4 setting fire to cotton mill in Cumber-
land belonging to Smith Arnold and
| Waldo Earle. The sentence was: First,
imprisonment for some years; second,
| his ears were both to be cropped; third,
a letter B was to be branded on his
cheek with a hot iron; fourth, he was
obliged to stand in the pillory for a GER
tain time. The only part of this sent
ence which was ever inflicted was i'm
prisonment. The General Assembly re-
mitted the other parts. This was also
the case with Obadiah Gorton. The
statute imposed upon the courts the
duty of imposing specific sentences, the
court had no discretion generally; but
| whenever the court had discretion ii
did not impose these corporal sentences
and whenever obliged by statute to i'm
i pose them. the court fixed the time for
infection sufficiently far ahead that the
General Assembly could have an OPP
i portunity for renting, and this was
almost uniformly done.
| When whipped, the convict was lash
ed to a whipping post In the court
the sheriff applied the '.cat." When
ever the ears We're clipped the smallest
piece was taken off. When branded, a
spot was selected which could soon be
or already was covered with growth
of hair. Such an emelioration of inf1ic-
ton was entirely the effect of public
sentiment. Whenever a judge imposed
such a sentence, he stated that under
the statute he was obliged to do so. The
! General Assembly continued to resist
! until such things became intolerable
then came the Dorr war.
Malbone Briggs seems to have been
1 the crack bank burglar of the time; he
seems to have operated outside OF
Rhode Island. In an old Worcester
newspaper find an account of one
James Briggs, noted Rhode Island
rascal. The writer says that Briggs
had been convicted and punished fol
various crimes, such as forgery, count
erfeiting, etc, in Rhode Island, under
the ferocious penal code of that anti
quated little republic; both Of his ears
had been cropped, and his face has
been branded several times; his head
now looked MANNED, disfigured and hid
eous. To conceal his deformity in part
he has cultivated to full maturity 6
vigorous growth Of whiskers so thai
neither the loss of his ears, nor the
wounds on his cheeks are observed by
fro nporc - The RriooS family of thai