Arizona republican., 1904-05-23


 day of this uncertainty. A capital ist named Wentz, who was in excellent | spirits. a few minutes before his death, is alleged by a coroner's jury, in the moonshine country of Virigina, to have shot himself through the heart. It was shown that'he held the revolver eighteen feet from his body when he fired. MT. Wentz recently bought land in the mountains with the expectation of establishing some Industries there The squatters resisted dispossess;on, and they especially objected to his clos ing of their whisky stills, so one Of them lay in ambush and killed him. The jury respects local feeling and de- clares the capitalist a self murderer. The squattcrs will stay for a while. the fires will be relighted under the stills. schools will not be Immediately estao- lished. and things will go on as they used to for another series of years.
 In the more civilied state of New York a jury lately acquitted g man " in the street. It was rot denied that he had killed his victim. But the vic tim had been intimate with the slay- CTS wife. The woman shamelessly ad- mitted the fact on the witness stand. The jury was made up entirely of mar ried men. If the district attorney had any notion of putting a bachelor rep resentation into the box he was disap- pointed. but probably he. too, is satis- fled with the verdict. A married jury was not going to be enthusiastic over a betrayal of marital faith, so a little thing like the law did not stand in it's way. The killing was proved, and the judge laid down the axiom that it was not proper to kill, but the defendant was found not guilty and set at lib- erty amid the cheers of the populace. 1t would be a queer populace that would not support that jury.
 Unfortunately the law is unequal in it's workings, so that while it does jus tice to some it expresses in ether in stances. For example, general in our army discovered that his wife was un- true to him. He did not resort to the law to right him, although he is a lawyer. He assaulted the man in the case in the street and shot him dead. The general was not punished. After ward. private soldier in the army had exactly the same experience, and he killed. in the same way, the destroyer of his peace. He was sentenced to l death. As the cases were identical. ii l follows that the law was wrong in one of them. The ideal court would be enc that was made up of Intelligent | citizens and that would treat every | case as it arose, without reference to | written law or legal precedent. strictly | on the facts and with no regard to ar | sions. But even the law, with it's cum brous and obfuscating methods, can | not suppress the instincts of the jury, | and moral right will often assert itself. | Killing is not a common way of deal ! ing justice, but for some affronts there | is no legal punishment. An injured | husband can sue for money from one | who has injured him, but even here ! the jury is as apt to Tebuke the hus- | band for putting a price on his honor ! as it is to rebuke the adulterer. There ! might be a suit to compel the scound- | rel to pay a large sum to q charity or | a public work, yet for e rich man this | would have no terror. The revolver is | a weapon of last resort, and it's use is never Justified in a land where the ! law is operative, but jurics will al- ways consider more than the legal | cause for using it.