Year: 1873


ton by the escape of Genet, and by the evidence
il furnishes that the reforms in the administra-
ton of justice here which drove out two or
three judges did not go deep enough to afford
any rational security to the public for the
punishment of rogues. Much has been done
recently and done well to purify our local ad-
ministration-so much, indeed, that natu-
raj terror has seized the hearts OF the culprits
and inclined them to seek safety in flight.
Norton, Conan, Walsh and Miller have not
ventured the chances of trial before
running away, and Genet has indicated his
perception of the fact that the last rotten
place he was likely to pass on his journey
through the hands of the criminal authorities
was the Sheriff's Office, and he has tried that
rotten place with success. That the bravado
and audacity of rogues has given place to
fear is a gratifying evidence that they are at
last convinced that the days of sham justice
are gone, and that they are just now dealing
with the genuine power; but this qualification
will scarcely compensate the public for the
failure of justice in the case OF convicted
offender, whose escape impeaches our whole
system of detaining prisoners.


Genets case is typical. His disgrace was
settled forever by the verdict against him, and
could be made no worse by flight. All that
he could hope for by longer facing justice was
that some legal technicalities might prevent
the inficton of the penalty for the crime OF
which he had been pronounced guilty; but
this was dim possibility, and all the chances
were against it. In this position he found
himself on Sunday night and between his
freedom and a term of years in the State
Prison, what was there? Only two human
creatures of that particular kind of which in
this city we make deputy sherifs-that is to
say. two men without any clear sense OF any
moral obligation to the public, incapable OF
conceiving the higher idea of duty,
venal and coarse, who sought their
positions and received them as the
reward for party services that we're perhaps
just within the category of acts allowed by the
law, but very near the limit, and who regarded
their offices not strictly as the means of fur
nishing an honest support, but probably as
affording opportunity for further pecuniary
advantage. Into the keeping of two men OF
this stamp the Sheriff placed such d valuable
piece of property as the personal liberty Of
a man who could, and doubtless would, pay
fifty thousand dollars rather than go to prison.
SO there was q sum of twenty-five thousand
dollars for each, and ali the lesser magnates
of democracy-all the roughs and strikers who
have sought or held in past times these places
in the Sheriff. ofice-are filed with chagrin
that the opportunity was not theirs and envy
with epic force the grand good fortune of the
two who are now weeping over Genet's es-
cape, and one of whom Mr. Brennan supposes
could almost ''cut his own throat"


| But the culprit is gone; and who is re-
sponsible? Sheriff Brennan, of course. 1t is
moonshine to pretend that, as the law regards
it, the prisoner was in the custody of any
other person. As convicted prisoner he
passed, by the ordinary and we'll recog-
nized operations of our system, into the
custody of the Sheriff for confinement; and if
he was not confined it was through the exer-
else of an indulgence that was improper
without grave necessity, and that in any case
the Sheriff could venture upon only at his
ID d.
opinion that gives backbone to justice, and
State government with positive ideas on the
subject of official honesty, it is possible
Mr.. Brennan may discover that there
are other things to be considered in
the office he holds besides the large fees
paid to the incumbent. Let it be noted that
this case is not at all to be confounded with
one Of ordinary negligence in the discharge of
official duty. 1t is Of totally different nature.
But little while ago we saw Mr.. Brennan de-
| flying public opinion and the whole administra-
ton OF justice in refusing to infict the penalty
pronounced against Tweed, and in shielding
that criminal from the law until he discovered,
| by intimation from Albany, that he could not
put his will in place of the will of the whole
people Of this State. In the case before us we
see repetition of the same sympathy with
convicted criminals as against the people and
against justice but this time there are diff
ferent consequences. 1t would, perhaps, have
been difficult for the State authorities to take
hold Of this fragrant abuse of power in the
Sheriffs Office without case in which such
proceedings had defeated the operation of the
law but such case is now furnished, and
the proper authorities will be derelict
if they do not make it the occasion
of vigorous action, and do not util-
ze it to furnish an example that will
deter any future occupant Of the position now
held by Mr. Brennan from these immoral if
not criminal lenities that defy justice and by
which one man takes it upon himself to nullify
all that may be done by prosecuting officers,
judges and jures in the detection and the
trial and punishment Of offenders


1t must yet be learned in how great degrees
the fight of Genet was the result Of con-