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[For live Dispatch.]The Tate Tynetting AfifitEr In Stock inx-tinmhas elicited so, much censure that I think it proper to ask a hearing for the other side ; and that other side is simply this: that when the law-making power fails to provide adequately for the punishment of crime, and thereby for the protection of society, society will protect itself; and I thinkit ought.Take these classes, to illustrate what I mean : Rape, horse-stealing, and incendiarism.As to the first: What man is there who would not kill at once any one who should so abuse any relation of Ids own ? And where is the jury that.for such killing will bring in a verdict of murder? Why is it so? Because the penalty for this most dreadful crime is either not sufficient, or is so difficult of proof, for obviousness, that the offender in u large majority of casesescapes with his life, and often without any punishment at all. Now, however much this may accord with law, it does uot accordwith public opinion or with the sense of what is necessary to secure the virtue andvery often the lives of our women. Not only justice but safely requires swift, sure, and fatal punishment in such cases; and the more irregular it is the more salutary, be-cause the more ^terrifying, it becomes. I knew a ease of rape, real or attempted, which occurred in one of the Piedmont counties of Virginia about ten years ago. The rav-isher was caught—an elder in the Presbyterian Church, and a very excellent man, : leading in the detection and arrest. The relatives of the injured female took the culprit in charge and shot or hung him. From tliut day to the present the weakest woman in that neighborhood can go from home by herself with as much safety as if she had the escort of a lion, though none of them will risk it voluntarily. The physicians in that case declared that the act had not been accomplished, but only attempted. If even this could have been proved by dragging the woman to court, the penitentiary—and not the gallows—would have been the sentence of the convict. And what punishment is that to a negro? Look at the Capitol Squhreand learn.As to the second: The difficulty of preventing that sort of theft is so great in certain cases, and detection and arrest are attended with so much danger from the resistance of the desperadoes, that a punishment proportioned to the danger in which they place thelives of those Who would capture them is necessary to prevent the crime; and expo- ! rience Lins taught that the risk of a term in the penitentiary has not that effect. But hanging has. In another part of the country1 have just referred to, about ten years ago, at or near the foot of the Blue Ridge, where the topography was favorable to such of-fences, borsc-stcaling became almost epidemic. The people at last caught two of the gang and hung them, and broke up the stealing completely. The same thing with,I am informed, the same result, occurred some years ago in Augusta, when a man was taken by night from the jail in Staunton and hung about four miles from that very respectable town.In the case of incendiarism the law is ridiculously inoperative because the penalties in such eases arc ridiculously small. Great as is this crime there is'only one casein which death is its penalty : that is when a dwelling in which people are asleep is tired in the night. All other acts of incendiarism lire punishable by confinement in the penitentiary, which in most cases, and in allnegro eases, is as foolish as to say that if you cateb a hare that has eaten your turnips you will punish the animal by throwing itinto a brier-patch.Now, J happen to know that in one class of these cases relief in the shape of severer penalty has been referred to the people. The Senate of Virginia three years ago passed a bill enlarging the penalty of deathat the option of the jury in some other and less heinous eases of lire; and that bill wasunanimously thrown out by the IIousc committee, on the ground, avowed by the chairman of that committee, that lie would in no case impose the death penalty, except where death was the consequence of the crime I thus proscribed; whilst another member said we had more laws now than we exe-;oil ted-If these views of these gentlemen—both excellent men—arc to prevail in the Legislature, be It so. But they do not prevail among the people, and therefore it should not excite surprise if, finding the Legislature unwilling to protect them, they choose to protect themselves. I repeat, they are right to do it. It is all very well for*gentle-men of the press, whose wives and daughters are guarded by a policed city; whose homes arc assured by all the appliances ofvigilance and prompt concentrated effort,or whose picasure-horse can be recovered by a swift detective officer; it is well enough for such people to denounce the ferocity of Lynch law, and to declare it a descent from a higher plane of civilization, but to a man isolated in 1 he country,who wakes tip in the morning to find thathis plough must slop because his horse has been stolen, or who is aroused from slumber, as some men have been more than onceat the dead hour o? night by the awful cry of ifre, to witness the helpless ruin in which an incendiary has involved them, the work of years, it may be, or of a lifetime, reduced to ashes in an hour; and stiff more to the man who, when his wife or daughter gets out of sight of his house, listens for her shriek. To a man thus environed with perils I venture to suggest the case is somewhat different. Such an one will very likely agree that in the rearrangement or reconstruction of our society wc have descended—been made to descend by a sort of forcible readjustment— to a lower plane of civilization ; but he will contend that the way to elevate society again is to make men secure in the enjoyment ot their dearest and primitive rights. J9nd until that isdone he will protect liimself because hemust, and in doing it, and thereby setting an example to his fellow-citizens and fel-low-sufferers, he will have earned their thanks, * * *
Newspaper Details
Richmond Daily Dispatch
Richmond, Virginia, US
Thu, Mar 21, 1878
Page 1
Full Page
Clipped by
Library O.
USA 23 Oct 2019
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