Semi-weekly herald., 1913-12-15
census report made to congress. How

census report made to congress. How
humilating that the United States
should have to bear this stigmai
While crime has increased alarm
ingly in this country, in Great Britain
there has been decrease of nearly
fifty per cent during the last half
century, although in the same time
the population has increased nearly
fifty per cent. Assuredly, the penal
servitude system is not to blame for
the discreditable showing made by
the United States as the same system
exists in this country and in England
Coincident with the increase of
crime in the United States has been
the movement for prison reform
which began a short time after the
civil war and the last few years has
developed into hysteria among few
feather Drained officials and political
demagogues, and their misguided fol-
lowers, who exhibit maudlin SYM
pathy for criminals, and which is
marked by an excess of remedial
legislation and radical changes in the
management of some of our penal in
stitutions, the effect being to weaken
discipline and defeat the purpose of
the law to inflict punishment on the
malefactor. The pardoning power is
abused, vicious criminals are pardoned
and murderers under sentence of death
are reprieved without sembance of
just excuse and in violation of law.
There are now in the Arizona state
prison upwards of dozen murderers
who have been reprieved by Governor
Hunt, and thirty-five or forty mur-
ders have been committed in the state
this year-twenty in Cochise county
alone-yet the law is impotent to in
fiict the death penalty on any of
these red-handed assassins, because
Hunt has repeatedly declared that no
murderer shall be hanged as long as
he has the power to prevent it, de-
spite the fact that he is sworn to up
hold the law, which prescribes hang
ing as the penalty for numbering.
Under the reform theory the protec-
tion of the community becomes of sec
ondary Importance and the reforma-
ton of the criminal the first, and to
this vicious policy an authority on
penology ascribes the tremenduous
growth of crime in the United States.
In England the criminal gets a
quick trial, without appeals or tech
niealities, and a stiff sentence, grad
ed according to the nature OF his
crime. The prison is sanitary, the
food and clothing are good, but there
are no comforts, and there are in
eYitaoie penalties for violations of
the rules. London, with a popula-
ton of seven and half million. had
only thirteen homicides in 1910, and
of the number eight were hanged. In
Chicag, the total number of homi
cides in ten years was Ito!
The above from the Arizona Rec
ord, published at Globe, certainly
shows terrible defect in our courts.
Men commit crime because they ex-
pect sympathy and law technicalties
to clear them just like Henwood con-
tinues to cheat the gallows. The law
is so technical that if certain words
are not used and oft repeated in the
indictments new trial is granted by
the trial court or the supreme tri
bunai Again, the laws against car
rying of concealed weapons are not
enforced In this or most of the other
states. One of these days it will be
unlawful to sell firearms unless the
name of the purchaser is recorded and
that person takes out a permit to
carry gun and have it exposed,
The handy hip-pocket is a crime
breeder. We have gotten along the
past thirty years without carrying
a gun. 1t may mean we will get
licked some time but there will be
no killing