Year: 1865




midst, to shock and staftle the moral
sense of the community. While we
admit that our police regulations,
especially in our larger cities, have
not been as efficient as they ought to
have been, and that sometimes crim-
inals have gone unwhipped of justice,
by reason Of the connivance and COR
ruption Of officers, the doubt and hes
itation of jurors, or the defect and
laehes Of law, yet we think we can
safely assume that for the past twenty
years, the general good order and the
administration of justice in this State,
will compare favorably with any of
our sister States where crime has been
punished by death on the gallows. A
stranger, living where the death pen
atty is in full force, passing through
the State at any time during this
period, would have seen nothing to
Indicate that life and property were
not as secure here as elsewhere We
say, then, that the actual experience
of these twenty years, in this State,
has fairly proved that executions Of
public or private nature have not been
necessary for the protection and safety
of society.


But We are told that We are in tho
midst Of a great war, that like all
war, is demoralizing our young mon,
and training them to deeds Of violence;
ana that when the war is over, and
the soldier returns he will bring back
u propensity for blood, and disre-
gard for life, the qualification of which
can only be checked by the terror Of
an infamous death on the scatfold. -
We ars not prepared to admit the
force OF the proposition. A glance at
the past will show that disbanded
armies have not always returned homo
to increase and enlarge the calender
OF crime. Speaking OF the disbanding
OF the army Cromwell, the English
historian says: I'm a few months
that the most formidable army i'll tho
world had Just been absorbed into the
mass OF the community. The royal
lists themselves confessed that III every
department of honest industry, the
discarded warriors prosp cred beyond
other men that none were charged
with any theft or robbery; that none
were heard to ask an aims; aud thlt
ii a baker, mason, or WAGNER at
tracted notice by his diligence and
sobriety, he was in all probability one
of divers old soldiers" The soldiers
Of our own revolution, although dis
charged and seut home half paid and
poorly clad, at time when the coun-
try was embarrassed, the treasury ex-
hausted, paper money deprecated,
and the cost of living enormously
high, like their great commander,
quietly betook themselves to the pur-
suits of civil life, and it was remarked
of tha,n ss.ha. .La ;nstances were rare
where a veteran had returned 10 ms
home to disgrace it,"


1t is no exaggeration to say that the
men who have left the peaceful pur-
suits of life, and have gone forth to
ill the ranks of our army, and who
now stand, or have st, od, in this war
between us and the foe. MS body, are
as intelligent and virtuous as any
army that ever trod the earth. If
other armies have been disbanded
without producing an increase OF crime
and misery, we think it fair to pre-
sumo that this may be also. Indeed,
large proportion of the men enlisted
at the commencement Of the struggle
have already been discharged, and are
now civilians in our midst, yet we have
no proof in their conduct OF this ap-
pretended recklessness Of law and
life.


We cannot persuade ourselves that
it is best upon a mere apprehension
OF suspicion of danger, to change the
policy of the law upon this subject,
and recommend a return to a system
which, ON practical trial for genera
tons, has proved Of doubtful utility.