The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-09-14
PROTECTING COUNTRY PEOPLE.

l n a The Richmond Times Dispatch is an- other prominent newspaper to come out in favor of rural police organiza- tions, and, speaking of the crimes of black brutes on defenceless women, 1t says:
 When one of these brutes has commit | ted a nameless crime men are only too willing to organize and searcn TOT nim | until they capture him. and 1t oiten happens that they deal with them then and there without judge or jury. How much better 1t would be for men to use diligence in advance to prevent the crime. Tn great measure this can pc accomplished with the right sort of work and organizations: it may be ex- pensive; 1t will certainly involve some additional cost, but money could not be
 would be in the interest of safety: in the interest of law and order. if not in the interest of economy. We verify be. lieve that 1t would be cheaper to expend
 money in preventing crime than in jail fees and expensive trials.
 Not only would an efficient rural po- lice force prevent many crimes. but would. incidentally. prevent many of the resultant outrages committed by mobs.
 However much we'may deprecate and condemn lynching 1t seems destined to follow the commission of certain crimes. and one way to prevent mob law is to prevent the crimes which incite 1t. Pre- vention of crime is much better than taking revenge out of criminals, and one method of prevention Is to make escape difficuilt.
 We will not venture an estimate of the probable expense of an effective rural constabulary. A writer in The acre taxes annually would keep up an efficient mounted patrol, and gives it as his judgment that such an organi- zation would in a few years add one dollar per acre to the value of much of Virginia's land" Whether that esti- mate is correct or not we cannot say, and the cost might depend somewhat on circumstances, but we do not think there can be any doubt of the good that would be accomplished. There are sec- tions in most Southern States in which a white family is all the time in dan ger, and that danger would be largely lessened if the country could be con- tinually traversed by mounted police men. As our Richmond contemporary observes:
 We have learned a valuable lesson h the matter of protection from fire. We have learned that the sensible thing to do Is to use all thes means at hand to prevent fire, and those cities which comply with the scientific regulations of insurance companies get the lowest rate of insurance. We should apply the same principle in fighting the bea st in human form who prowls around and does mischief, We should employ all the means possible to apprehend him in advance, and not wait until some horrible crime has been committed and then mete out punishment.
 Suppose one of our large cities had no police protection, would not condi- tions soon become unbearable? It is not so bad in the rural districts as 1t would be in a city without police. but the principle Is the same. One of the duties of policemen is to both prevent crime and apprehend criminals and a rural police would have like duty and produce like results. It is at least matter worth discussing and think ing about, for the suggestion is a good