Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-04-06
EDITORIAL COMMENT.

there should be attempts made n
nually to increase salaries of some
branch of The courts. The recen eff
fort to increase the salaries of the
circuit court judges was very prompt
~ and justly rejected by the assem-
bly, by more than a t~hree-fourths
vote of the members, and their action
merits and will receive the common
dation of their constituents. When
Speaker Robbins, from the floor, OPP
posed the bill providing for the in
crease, he stated a fact that many of
the Judges did not earn the sun in
their practice al the bar which they
are now receiving as members of the
bench. They were never in the way,
perhaps, of becoming great corpora
ton lawyers, with d promise of phe-
nomenal fees, and their promotion to
the bench was an advancement imam
cially beyond their present hopes as
practitioners, and this is not said by
way of disparagement of their pro-
feSsional abilities. The state is now
supporting the most expensive judic-
iary, comparatively speaking. in the
country. and the members of the bar,
almost without exception, and a vast
maiorityq + the people of New Jer-
= NtN dit llttll lliN AlA'h VI IN 'AA'h
quated judicial system. The able
men comprising the commission to
revise the latter have prepared a re-
port suggesting changes which do
not find favor among the members
of the bar generally, because they do
not promise TO do away wholly with
he ancient forms of proceeding and
establish the judiciary on a more
American plan. However, any i'm
provement of the judiciary system
will be welcome, as will also any re-
ductiOn of the great expense of Main
tanning it, and rejection of proposed
increases of judicial salaries is Il
step in the right direction.
New Jersey having adopted cleo
trocutiOn, which is described by its
advocates as a perfectly painless and
pleasant method of going out of ex-
i%stence, in the place of hanging, all
persons of evil and violent passions
may o reaSon something like this:
Death will come anyhow and the
chances are that in my case a natur-
al death would be much more eX-
cruciating than that provided by the
state. There is no reason then to re-
frain from any bad impulse because
of the physical consequence.
All that need be considered is the
matter of time. If the law gets me
ii may hasten the end. But on the
other hand there is the chance of
escape through the failure of the law
to detect. or, having detected, to con-
Wet. Murder, if it brings money or
long sought revenge. is worth, in
such circumstances, a trial.
This seems to be a brutal doctrine
but it is precisely what the advocates
of e~lectrocution have been and are
now teaching.
1t was the fear of the horrible glib
bet that deferred many men from
numbering, and hat horror has been
abolished.
Doubtless now the number of muir
ders in New Jersey will begin to in
crease. as they have increased per
capita in New York since the electric
chair was substituted for the gallows,
and mistaken persons began to talk
about the perfectly lovely manner in
which the electric currents sent the
m%urderers into the great beyond.
Elizabeth Journal:
The bill providing pensions for
men in the life-saving service OF the
government appeals to most people
as d just measure, and one which
congress should not hesitate to make
a law. The fact that there is not al
ready such a law is little less than
shameful. The li%fe-saving service Is
conducted in a peculiar, hand-to-
omuth manner All the fresh water
crews are discharged at the end of
each season, and every spring new
crews must be gotten together. The
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