The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-08-17
FROM OTHER PENS
WAS 1T WORTH THE COST?

A man who had. risen from the
ranks to the head of great industrial
army and to much wealth grew weary
of the woman who had linked her life
with his when he was obscure-the
wife of his youth and the mother of
his children-and in middle age took
a course shrewdly calculated to drive
his wife from him while keeping for
mally clear of the criminal law. He
succeeded in the enterprise. He forced
or induced the wife of his youth and
the mother of his children to appeal
to the courts for relief from a situa-
ton which no self-respectfng Ameri-
can woman can or will endure. He
married the other woman-the young
er and fresher woman with whom he
preferred to be pleased. He did ex-
actly as he pleased. He had his will.
OF course there was a scandal
long drawn and nation filling scandal.
The mans business associates were
forced seriously to consider whether
they could continue to associate with
him, even in business. OF course none
of his associates who were not also his
parasites thought of associating with
him outside of business, or of admit
ting him or his companion to thee'
homes. For some obscure reason OF
business policy they decided, however
that they would, for the present, con-
tinue to associate with him in a bust
ness way. But the pressure of social
decency was too strong and the man
and his companion left the country
for a foreign land. ostensibly on a
pleasure trip, but in reality, as IL
proves. into social exile for both and
into actual exile for the woman. He
returns now and again. ror in his
hands are great affairs of business
Such is the story and such is the pres
ent situation of William Ellis Corey
solved to do exactly as they pleased,
regardless of those considerations of
decency which mankind have agreed
to respect. They are doing as they.
please.-Chicag Inter-Ocean.
RETRIBUTIoN NOT VENGEANCE.
Revenge said Lord Bacon. lis a
sort of wild justice;" but retributive
justice is not vengeance. The idea that
it Is the purpose of penal statutes to
avenge wrongs is foreign to modern
penology. This notion is now confined
to the apologists for the "unwritten
law" The paranoiaes who kill in or
der to defend the honor of women"
pose as avengers and Fighters of
wrongs; and some of the opponents of
this kind of knight-erranty reach the
most grotesque conclusions. A well
known Italian nobeman and self
styled publicist, discussing three recent
vulgar tragedies in Italy leach of
which involved a deceived husband, a
faithless wife and a lover). uttered the
NOhNiStlOI tlldl III SUCH cases
the most satisfactory denouement
would be the elimination of the hus-
band. And why? Because forsooth
he would be the most likely to plead
justification and he most likely to be
justified, which would be discouraging
to lovers and fraii DANES!
In this argument not only have the
borders of anarchy been reached, but
crossed. 1t is little less anarchfstic,
however, than are the arguments of
the sentimentalists who are shocked
at the barbarity of judicial retribution.
The social instinct is a safer guide,
even when it goes so far as to demand
life for life in aggravated cases
as the surest means of self-preserva-
ton. Not vengeance, but the preser-
walton of ordered human society, is
the object of criminal Jurisprudence
and the great jurists who. like Lycur-
gus, recommend the extinction of the
unfit, or, like the late Justice Fitz-
James Stephens, the execution of the
incorrigible. do SO dispassionateiy and
with no other design than the better
ment of the race as whole The logic
may be stern, but the men who EN-
ploy it are not therefore savsEes.-
PMiadelphia Record.