The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1907-07-12
rs THE CRIMINAL Lay A SHIELD?
The Disregard of Human Lie a VIC
Laws Tenderness to the Maieiac-

OfeSe's hand may snoVt ny JoS'ISe'
And oft It's seen the wicked prize
Itself buys out the law.
But 'tis not so above. Ihere Is uo
shuffing;
There the action lies in it's true merit,
And men are judged by what they are,
And not by what they SEEM
The press of the country has long
been doing it's full duty to the public
In solemn warnings against h grow
mig disregard and callousness OF hui
man life: the growing Indifference to
and almost contempt of the law. the
man with the hip-pocket a~rsentl. so
man with the hip-pocket arsenal, as
homicidal on little or no p~rOvocation
as the Malay running amuck' with
his bloody creese, whips out his So
% caliber revolver, and goes to pepper
ing up an ~unoffending community,
whenever he thinks that he is in an
ger of bodily harm, or that somebody
is about to do violence to his sensi-
tive feelings. Or another nan after
celebrating a whole night on
the matter, takes the "unwrit-
ten law into his own hands and hunts
down his victim over hill and dale
with a Winchester of a double barrel
ed breech-loader.
Some one has almost ap~OlOgeticatly
attributed the prevalent disregard Of
human life to the Civil, Spanish-Amer-
lean. and other great wars during the
past half century, farmiliarizing mems
minds with suffering, and wounds and
carnage and all the forms Of violent
death. The guard has been broken
down about the sancity of life-Gods
only to grant or take ~aWay-and men
have ceased to feel how solemn it Is
to live. how solemn to die.
eff there Were no Revelation, and
death were to us an unknown event;
if we were called apon for the iirs-
time to stand at the death beT of a
friend. how little would We know, and
how confused would be our thoughts
respecting the mystery before us
What is it?' we would ask, and we
would wonderingly watch for come
signs of awakening not giving up
all hope until decay began it's rav2ge5
upon the covered form before rs.
Then, as we should, from the dictates
OF reason. consign to h earth the
remains of one but little While before
among us. feeling, thinking, enjoying
so14oWing, now a mere mass of pulse
less clay. we would feel that we bur
led there not the body only, but all
that made that body in life-the Sen
tient, inspired man. ThOughNand teel-
ing, as we'll as life and motion, Wouid
appear to us, untaught of God, to be
ssAtinguished in the grave. Nature ut
ters no voice to tell us otherwise she
ca s no lamp to illumine the tomb.
D.. ness and silence rest there, unE1
the light of Revelation shines upof
upon it, and God proclalms na1f
Immortality"
Strangest thing about this whole ma
y ter is that the law, the bench and the
bar straightway regard as priceless
To be defended to the bitter END: u
be preserved at all hazards, the III
Of the man who has shown a feCHles'
disregard of some other mans lie
Holding him up on the highway at IN
rrnuzzle of a pistol; splitting his oloo'
,on his own hearthstOne or unde III
own roof-tree, murderously strlKh;
him down, full Of bread n Wine
In the carnival Of music or the dahc'
II is as old as the hills, and as Jus
as heaven that the criminally accuse
shall be considered innocent untll l.
is proven guilty, and that the oefelit
ant at the bar shall AVE a fair. sQud'
chance for his life. But nowadays :
soon as d man becomes crimlnally a
FUSED or a defendant at he par, ne
intrenched by the "unwrltten "a"
"amotional insanity "brain-storms
and all and sundry the laws dei&
tn keep him out Of his deserts. re
wood Justice'' is better than this
Justice which the Black Douglas me-
out to Sir John Ramorney on the u
dement's of Falkland castle, In SCOT
'Fair Maid of Perth"
Worst of all, there seems no RENE
for this fragrant perverslon OF j
tice. except in a radical reform a
ramodelling of the criminal law
in its Interpretation uuI III |h0 ~
self. In the Thaw trial in New 70
and in the Loving trial in virgin
the Inference is fair that Judges +
gerald and Barksdale were rlght
their rulings. and that in making ID
rulings they were conscientious
ponders and interpreters Of the
But the results nave been lamenta
We pitied poor Evelyn Thaw in
brave fight to save her wretcE
worthless husband--but nobody
1ieved her; we admire Elizabeth |
ing, doing, suffering. daring all, fl
ing away that priceless pearl, her {
name. to V her fathers life
nobody believes her.
In Fayetteville in 1890 or 1891,