The Pensacola journal., 1907-07-17
PENS Aco1A FLORIDA wEDN EsDAY MORNING JULY IT, 1907

burglar who is trying to get away.
seriously Injuries by word or deed his
wife, daughter, mother or sister, and
much of public opinion and most of
the press will be found arrayed with
the dead man, even though it be thus
against living women.
Perhaps this is as fundamentally
right as it is proVably true. In any
event, however, there are times when
no amount of statutory law is ade-
quate either to punish the offender
or to deter others from like crime,
and the ''unwritten law" is, to very
great extent, mans incurably primal
instinct to protect from and to avenge
for those things which are more
sacred than any system of statutes
and, thank God, more valuable to
some than any vested right. Whether
the manifestation be by an individual
or a mob, the underlying principle is
the same.
Newspapers, like men, are prone to
bC CdtIlS Ou lHO1l 1O0t ny IUc OIIIU-
boleths of Progress" and Law and
Order Is the reason far to seek or
hard to see? Investments prefer
statutorily correct community, ire
spective of its morals or its morale
A wealthy bawdy house chieftain gets
far more consideration in material
ways than deserving widow, though
the latter have half a dozen children
dependent upon her. Law and or
der" is more important tnan heart and
souls, in the view of modern civiliza-
ton, the statutory expression of which
is built up with property rights as the
thing above all else to be regarded
We will cheerfulIy put in jail the man
who steals loaf of bread when, for
sooth, he as a fact could go hungry
a day longeT1 in hope of finding work,
and far too many of us by listening
and repeating. help the whispering
cur who ISLANDERS, and, by extenuating
the debaucher, as cheerfully eneour-
age other debauehers. Against such
facts, the primal instincts of man nat
urally revolt when put to the personal
test, and the unwritten law sometimes
lifts individuals and coteries, mobs
and even whole communities, above
the dignity of the written law.
How far is the unwritten law justi-
fable? It is about time that juris-
prudence and the philosophy of law
turn their attention more seriously to
this question, and revert, perhaps, to
a custom that had much to commend
it in principle, but which fell into dis
favor because abused by lawmakers
drawing the protection of law from
men convicted of certain offenses.
When men are guilty of offenses so
grave that the law can not even by
death mete out sufficient punishment
if punishment be the aim of law-or
when men do deeds of a nature SO
base and debauching as to show that
they could not be deferred by the
fates of others and that, therefore,
their fates would probably not deter
others of their NIX, then it might be
well to let the law declare them out
law. and turn them loose-and their
blood will be upon their own heads.
No worse fate could be meted out
to certain offenders, and no less fate
satisfies justice, if womans chastity
and a woman's good name be the best
abstract and the most sacred thing in
life. And no less Draconian system
primal and per Sc glorifying quality
of stopping only at the gates of hell
in pursuit of vengeance for crimes
law, down TO the very depths of what
is best in humanity.