East Mississippi times. (Starkville, Miss.) 19??-1926, 1911-05-12
AN ABLE CHARGE.
Judge Carroll Makes a Strong and In
teresting Charge to the Grand Jury.


convened on Monday morning at
II n e thirty O'Clock by Judge
Thomas B. Carroll.
After calling the roll of officers,
Judge Carroll proceeded to deliver
a very strong andab,e cha, ge TO the
grand jury, calling their attention
to the fact that they were selected
and set apart from The body Of rit-
liens Of the county to help see that
the laws were properly enforced,
and that The laws OF the county
we're enforced just as well as the
people wanted to see them forced
That substantially, the law of the
country was lie same as in the days
OF King Alfred; it was against the
law thcn 40 murder, rob, Luri
houses, steal, and SO it is today:
the laws Of the state are founded
on the divine law, but the admin
istration of the law has greatly
changed. 1t is not the severity of
the punishment, but the certainty
Of punishment that deters the
criminal. That crime is contagious
and catching. Let criminal To-
cate somewhere in the suburbs of
your town, and you will find that
there will soon be more criminals
around him; that we have quaran-
tine against smallpox and yellow
fever and other contagious diseases.
and following out that idea of the
law, where a man is criminal, he
is afflicted with contagious dis
ease, and should be qualantined in
a jail or penitentiary, where he be-
longs, and should not be permitted
to run at large with the people
where he could contaminate them.
The Judge said his theory was
that where there was one criminal
there more; that where you pull
out one fish from the river, you
will find there is a school of fish
about there.
That there was a certain portion
of this county where in the last ten
or twelve years FIVE men have been
shot down in ambush, some of
them shot in their own houses when
they thought they were safe in tue
bosom of their families, and on
the highway; that the county that
boasts Of the A. & M. College, the
largest institute in the state. al
most within sight of the College,
there have been five murders or as
sassinations, and not in a single in
stance has an indictment been re-
turned, and that while he did not
charge it as the fault of the grand
jury, and that possibly the mur-
derer or murderers may have coy.
cred their tracks so well they could
not be detected, that it was an old
saying that murder will out, and
that murder never goes out of date,
and that if the grand jury would
sift these matters some of them
ought to be unearthed; that while
Oktibbeha has improved, and wit
messed q marked improvement in
the last few years, that part of the
county had not improved in high
crimes, and that no mans life can
be safe where he lives in q county
where murder in the night time
happens.
In referring to the officers of the
county, the Judge stated that it
was not necessary to state their du-
ties; that they knew them, and if
they did not, most Of them had a
code, and any officer could find his
duty set out before him. and that
where he fails to discharge his duty
as such officer, he is subject to in
dictment, even if he does so honest
Is and ignorantlyi that there were
two kinds Of crime, inisfeasance in
office, that is, for wilfully not doing
his duty; and -feasance in Of
flee, that 10, for tailing to perform
I his dutyi not that be is crooked