The Sun. — 1869-04-28 (London, England)

CRIME IN PHILADELPHIA.  Judge Brewster's charge to the grand jury which commenced the Quarter Session of Philadelphia on the sth instant contained some remarkable statements. Noticing that there were more than 400 indictments, and the great increase in the cases of murder and homicide, he said-"It is time that the bad should be made to feel the power of the law. It has been announced in the Police Courts of London that in certain places in that city the Queen's writ will not run. The same remark may almost be applied to us. There are certain men in Philadelphia who cannot be brought to justice. They can beat down, almost murder our policemen, secure bail, and abscond until opportunity permits their return. Others take life almost w ith impu nity. The homicides committed in this city in the year 1868, as compared with those of 1867, are in the proportion of 133 to 91, an increase of 40 per cent. Infanticides have increased nearly 50 per cent., and the total of murders in one year is four times the convictions for ho:nieiles in thirty years. This is all due to the perverted sympathy which exalts the assassin into the position of a persecuted victim of the law. An able writer has sai I In the legal duel between a murderer and justice, we give the prisoner not only a fair start, but we throw every obstacle in the way of getting at the truth. ' Criminal liberty' will soon have to be toasted with ' Civil and religious liberty.' It has thus come to pass, gentlemen, that men are shot down or stoned to death upou our highways, and that the law seems as powerless for their vindication as it was for their protection. Grand juries hesitate to find true bilk and petit juries often refuse to convict except of inferior grades, frequently coupling those verdicts with recommendations to mercy. And even in au occasional case of great atrocity, when a coaviction is followed by a sentence to death, the Executive is besieged for a pardon. It is owing to these efforts to thwart justice that it has come o pass in Philadelphia that it is more dangerous for a man to pick a pocket than to take a life. The thief is much more certain of being punished than the murderer. This will continue until public opinion undergoes a change. Illinois has recently been compelled to restore the death penalty to her statutebook. Maine has just refused by a large majority to abolish it. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Rhode Island are now the only States in the Union in which capital punishment is not inflicted." Commenting on this the Philadelphia Public Ledger says :-" At a time when our criminal courts are kept busy trying prisoners charged with the gravest crimes known to the law-when the prosecuting attorney found so heavy a calendar that he was obliged to keep two Criminal Courts in almost continual session for three consecutive months- at a season when no less than 19 homicide cases have been tried at three terms, short terms, independently of all other criminal business-when at the commencement of every successive term the Judges are exhorting Grand Juries to inquire earnestly into this condition of affairs-when the same Judges publicly state that in the year 1868 there was an increase of homicides of nearly 40 per cent. over the year 1867, and a similar increase in the proportion of infanticides-there is seen on the other hand the most extraordinary and persistent efforts to screen offenders of all grades from the punishment due to their crimes, and to relieve them from the penalties of the violated law. Counsel for accused prisoners are seen going far beyond their duty to their clients in securing them fair trials under the protection of the law, far beyond their duty as officers of the Courts in which they prac • tise, and seem to have adopted the rule of seeming impunity to offenders at all hazards, regardless of the demoralizing effects upon society, and the immediate peril to the public.