The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1917-01-03

,
flint
When Solons only ask for leave t
print;
When legislators practice with forl
Because the tool is used. in handling
pork.
All high debate is banished from tn
floor:
To grant five minutes talk, then Sian
the door.
Time gives the statesman ranl
Though It's PITY
And honored place on this or that com
mittee.
A service tag upon money bag
Is honor's prize for which we strut
and brag
"1f no other argument is to be had
the candidate urges, or his friends de
for him, that though he may be short OF
useful discussion, he will be a real Nj
agara of power in the committee room
That he will be is just about as posi-.
BILE as it is to put the great falls into
such a room. DIR. jackson declared pa.
triotism to be the last refuge of scoun.
drel The argument of committee serv-
ice is the last refuge of an incompetent
candidate. Service in committee room Is
largely hidden from the public eye and
incompetency is not easily detected by
| the electors.
"The faith our people appear to have
in the power of legislation is another
source of many laws. The people are
sovereign and feel that nothing is impos-
sible to sovereignty. They may not di-
rectly attempt to legislate that our
northern soil shall produce four crops
of wheat a year, but they have often
undertaken or attempted equally impos-
sible tasks. In the social and economic do
mains, the absurdity of law is not so
readily apparent as in an attempt TO
change or contravene physical laws, so
that many laws pertaining to these do
mains are proposed and some OF them
are enacted that prove to be futile. The
restriction of the choice OF legislators
by our residential qualifications has an
influence. The local instead of the state
or national point of view of the need of
laws is the natural result, and legislation
is attempted according to it.
III our food of legislation were bene'
fetal, we should welcome it, however it
may exceed in volume that of other ma
tions, but it has the usual characteristic
of floods, OF doing some good and much
damage. If we take our own state and
make brief comparison of tie laws as
they stood in the revision of 1907 with
the laws covering the same subjects to-
day, we will not find that the changes
have been so extensive and beneficial as
to warrant the large number OF enact
ments that we have had
"The early criminal offenses have been
retained, the principal
being in the modes OF punish
ment At the early date six offenses
were punishable with the pillory, seven
with the whip and one with the cutting
off of one or both ears. The pillory and
whipping with filming and Imprisonment
might sometimes be combined in the |
same sentence. In certain cases the |
court might award damages to the COM
plainants and in default of payment the |
convict was subject TO assignment to |
service until the damages were paid. The |
might in any manner with |
out cruelty, chain or otherwise, shackle |
Or confine him in the common jail or
elsewhere to procure the performance OF
he task enioined upon him. This
was kind of slavery that was bound to
disappear in a state where the sentiment
If freedom was SO strong that judge
.efused to order the return OF a slave
until the owner exhibited bill of sale
rom Almighty God The complainant
5 now left to a civil remedy to which is
rot attached the service assignment. The
'bloquy and pain of the pillory and the
ash have been abolished aud punish
nents are restricted to fine and impris
The excision of the ears might
ppear to us as falling under the ban Of
he federal constitution against cruel and
unusual punishment. if we did not recall
hat at the time the punishment was
rst prescribed, the mother country had
more than two hundred and forty capital
fenses, and that in England as late as
1872. woman was drawn and quartered
or stealing a bolt of cloth worth sixty
ents although her husband had been ,
into the navy and she was in
ore need of it for her nursing babe.
"The fact that certain crimes are com
non to different ages is perhaps sufficient
eason why we cannot find any marked !.
Improvement in the laws concerning them
side from the modes of punishment. But )
he same reasons ought to have saved
5 from the many changes and attempts ;
t changes that we have had. Whether an /
might have been made in two
lstances is a fair question. We still re- :
lin the early statute that prescribes a
ne not exceeding two hundred dollars y
Or any person who publicly denies the be-
~ and existence of God or of the Su-
RENE Being, or contumeliously re- !,
reaches his providence and government :
7e doubt If the statute ever was OF :
i'll be anything more than an express =
on of piety. We find no record of a :
under it, but it would not =
, safe to conclude that no atheist has ;,
Ter made public statement of his I'M !,
lief. or that no citizen has ever con- :,
reproached providence in a n
ate like ours with so many varieties !,
weather. q
"The statute stands as a single in n
ance of an attempt TO control belief or Ia
lbelef by law 1t may serve the pur-
,se of barring out some cult obnoxious a
our people, but as a means of spread If
9 piety. its claim is small. Ii may d,
We come from Connecticut. for in that 4,
ate under statute two hundred and sew h,
ty-four. years old denouncing any per- IN
n who calls into question any portion al
holy writ a Lithuanian minister was 6,
oseciIted in 1916 for EXPRESSING a dis %