The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1907-02-23

chemically from an exaggerated ego" into public
expressions of opinion on an unsounded matter;
INTO wise dissertations. unexplored subject
for the guidance of unborn generations; into
learned conlectures probably effective line OF
legal defense on Il case knotty for judicial
mind. And all this has been built and elaborated
i'll great measure on mere rumor. on haphazard
news gossip. on wildly snatched and voraeiously
gobbled presumed facts All this has been CON
structed, with marvellous facility by unframed lay
minds while the learned members of the legal pro
fession are delving laboriouslv through an intri-
cacy of facts; while the police department of
great city is cropping in the very sub-cellar of
great case for hidden wires of evidence; while emf
nent attorneys are laboring assiduously to draw
from the frank judgment of blind, impartial justice
some justification or at least some palliating cir
cumstance for presumably criminal act
1t had been better for all concerned. and more
to the credit of the nations common sense if opin-
ions and judgments and disquisitions and disserta
tons had been wisely withheld until presumed facts
had been sifted. and the legal aspect of the case
clarified through their duly appointed channels.
the learned court of law. 1t is all fresh conir-
nation of the truth of the wise old "Cobbler
stick to thy last" After this garrulous tumble of
undigested theories the majesty of the unwrit
ten law of whose field few have clear conception
and some no conception at all; after wholesale
coriations due to the lamentabe state of the mar
tistc conscience of New York artists, knowledge
of whose conduct is founded on mere hearsay what
practical conclusion any one at present draw?
After two weeks trial occupied by direct testi-
mony and intricate cross-examinations. dare
not, we the self impaneled jury dare not if we are
honest pretend to give a clear and unbiased iudg
ment on the merits of this case. SO humiliatingly
prolific in verbosity aye some of us and so CON
fusedly prone to form indigested opinions
questions that are admittedly knotty for those
whose profession it is to determine and whose
minds, by learning experience and practice best
fitted to pronounce judgment.
But to cap the climax of this seemingly public
folly, there has been added the other impudence
of spreading broadcast through the land detailed
account of testimony which had been better pent
up behind the closed doors of courtroom.
There is sometimes justification for the dscos-
of evil practices and exposition of crime,
for we are best guarded against evil when we have
been made acquainted with it's methods of attack
and the location of its ambush; but there is
tive details that do not so much teach a defense
against evil as develop a morbid desire to become
better acquainted with the very lineamens and col
oring of vices disgraceful features Not where it
is and how to avoid is, the lesson taught by these
imprudent disclosures; but how it may be prac-
ticed with impunity and how artfuLy may be con
cealed our acquaintance or intimacy with vice is
more often inculcated. Vice naked we abhor. but
vice half concealed under the dress of artful die
ton vice presented by suggestion that fires the inn
agination attracts us. And vice is naked only to
the experienced mind but vice particularly some
forms of it, in the eyes of the young and mex
perienced generally the painted face and the
padded form of those whose lost physical perfection
has been restored by the magic influence of the
subdued footlght and the coored calcium spot. 1t
is therefore, to say the least manifest mprudence
to spread out profusey printed page the glow
ing pictures of ruined virtue, to display the
quests of cunning crime and the arts of vehement
passion to the untutored minds of those who are
impressed more with the tactics of vice than with
the means of defense against its attacks.
That mother were rightly deemed prudish. who
through weak and injudcious delcacy to
fail to forewam her daughters, according to their
age, against the physical and moral dangers that
might beset them; but that mother deemed
foolish indeed, that under the pretense of teaching
worldly wisdom were to acquaint their pure mag
nations with crude scenes of unveiled debauchery
and corrupt their hearts with experience in i'm
moral practices. Warp delicacy of feeling, abash
modesty, dethrone pure ideals and uproot pure af
fections by barefaced exhibition of their contrares
and you have robbed the girls home of its fresh
ness and It's grace and whilst you have made moral
amazons you have unmade Christian madenhood
Yes. it is we'll that timely warning against future
dangers; but that warning is most eff
fective for good when it is given with the prudent
secrecy of watchful parents counses. The abhor-
ence for vice is not most effectively cultivated when
vice is clad in attractive paraphernalia and made
to ride boldly and proudly parade in the gaze
of the multitude but rather when its ungraceful
form is described under bated BREATH as when the