The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1899-01-13

chiefly for Jail delivery, and these
summer term should be short; equity
c"ses might be heard, but no com
mon pleas jury causes during these
terms. The last place on the roster
of Courts in each circuit should,
when desirable, be fixed for moro
than one county. One county might
have it in the spring, another in tho
summer, and another in the fall.
Inasmnch as the General Assembly
now sits in January and February,
it would be advisable to hold no cir
cult courts until about the middle of
February-just as formerly they
were uot held till the middle of De-
cember.
Perhaps the best method TO ac-
complish tho desired results in this
matter would be the appointment or
the election of a standing commits
sion, composed, of the Attorney Gen.
eral and the Circuit Judges, who
should meet, for the direction and
management Of all these matters, not
oftener thin once in five years
LYNCHINa.
During the last several years thero
has been an apparently increasing
disposition among us to attempt the
rIghting of real or supposed wrongs
by the lawkreaking practice Of
lynching. 1t is impossible not to see
in this tendency n serious menance to
society. 1t means the abolition of
the regular order of justice, and this
is simply the first step in the de-
struction of the social order. The
deed that, even in the name of law
and order, puts the law out of office,
is as serious crime against society
and morality as the most vicious act,
execrated of men and denounced of
God. How deeply criminal, then,
must such lawless acts Of mis-
taken justice become, when they are
the expression less of righteous in
dignation than of mad vindictiveness
less of the instinct of self. preser-
vation than of the instinct Of ycn-
geance, that marks our nearnoss to
the brute. But this is what this
lawless practice of lynching means;
to this alone it tends.
In new settlements it is sometimes
necessary to use this method as Il
heroic remedy for the ruthlessness of
desperadoes and scourges of society.
But this is always in new commun-
tiles, before the law has had time to
become established and confirmed.
We have no snch pretext for the de-
moralizing savagery that breaks out
now and then in our State, like
plague, and that with increasing
menace threatens the course of law,
whenever an unusually heinous of.
fense is committed. We have the
law, with all it's agencies and sane
tions, and it can always be relied on
to guard and punish, if we will but
back it with public confidence, and
sustain it by an enlightened public
opinion. If, however, we suffer it to
be disregarded and dishonored by
riotous and irresponsible mobs, we
shall find the lamp of justice become
firebrand of lawness and her pro-
tecting sword an assassin's dagger.
We should not longer permit this
usurpation of the highest functions
of Justice by tho unchecked brute
force of the mob.
Kennedy suggests itself; 500 to it,
as conservators OF the peace of the
State, as makers Of its laws, as the
guardians Of its sacred honor, that
its laws are 80 enacted and admin
istered that conviction and punish
mont shall follow crime with tho Ger.
tainty that links effects to causes. It
is possible, it is necessary, in mere
protection of society and vindication
of justice, that stop bo put to those
legal bubbles, those astute techni
calltles' that vice-encouraging dill
atorlness in the administration of
justice, which tend not so much to
the protection Of individual rights as
to the subvcrsioD of the rights of 80
socloty, and to utter loss Of conf.
1nnnn n tho .,koL.l.k-. A, -