Evening star., 1914-08-16

death, their goods and
chattels confscated,
causing sometimes the
sudden extinction of direct genealogical succession.
These often represented the injustice, not the
justice, of the governing individual and ottener than
not actuated by selfish personal motives and car
ried out in such spirit that everybody was errorlzed
Although Justice is primarily intended to establish
security for the masses well the individual in
those days, from modern viewpoint, it was con-
spicuous by its absence.
Progress and civilization contributed change that
order of things Except in places where the foot of the
Caucasian has not yet been set and where barbarous
feuda customs still being practised, the offender
against the individual the nation is punished by due
process of law This process varies although most OF
our law based upon sound principles generally referred
to the Roman and old English laws So uniform has
been the system of dispensing justice that the sentences
provided in given offenseS vary but little.
Those nations which do not have capital punish
ment have imprisonment for life its equivalent; al
though European countries impose more or less
long periods of rigorous confinement, which preclude
the convict from speaking to his jaer, or being
spoken to by anyone, for stated length of time.
THE greatest progress of modern justice, however is
shown in the tendency to become more and more
humane, to temper the severest justice with the
greatest possible amount of mercy The scope of this
mercy is to give the convicted offender another
chance. This may be done by giving him the benefit
of the doubt until the smallest doubt has been set
aside 1t may be done by either appeal or retria Yet
the sentenced to die often has the opportu
nifty to share in this mercy which would be by commu-
tation of sentence. prisoner with life sentence to
apply for Communication to shorter term All
federal prisoners sentenced to periods of months
share the boon by automatic reduction of
their terms through good behavior Then there al
ways the chance of a pardon.
The greatest step, however, in this direction, has
with the establishment of the parole law, which
has been in operation four years. Its results have been
good From November, 1910, when the first prisoner
released parole, to June 80 of last year, 634
United States prisoners released parole from
all institutions, of whom only 16 about 22 per cent?
violated their paroles. The reports received by the
boards of parole show that paroled prisoners have
earned for themselves nearly S250OOO. Inasmuch
the expense of administering the parole law has cost
the government less than $4,000 year, it will be
seen that the economic results excellent
Perhaps there exists more interesting and yet
pathetic which the parole has figured than that Of
Davy Truax, eighty-two years old. He had been
prisoner for twenty-iv years; but he not
vct when he died. He had his parole papers clutched
tightly in his hands.
Davy was member of the 91st New York Infantry
in the Civil War; and when inmate of the Soldiers
Home at Dodge City he killed one man and wounded
another quarrel over liquor He tried and con-
vcted and sentenced prison for fe but he lost
hope believing that later he would be released
Early last June the old man was paroed, and after
dayor hewas ready home and sat oyousy in the
PRISONS executive office waiting for the hour of freedom
When friends drew up in car they found him cold