Unpunished Crime.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume XIV, Issue 2920, 11 March 1893, Page 2

Unpunished Crime.

The San Francisco correspondent of the " Otago Daily Times," writing on the question of unpunished crime in the United States says : — The record increases year by year. Life is taken to an appalling degree, but the blood of trie murdered cries in vain for righteous retribution. I hava picked out the figures for the years 1891 and 1892, as furnished by the " Chicago Tribune " :— Judicial Murders. . Hangings. Lynching?; 1891 ... 5906 123 195 1892 ... 6792 107 236 Commenting upon the above, I would merely remark that the number of murders has doubled in four years, and the figures of 1892 exceed Ijy IQOO the number of men slain in the bloodiest battle between the .fliorth and South. So far as the judicial hangings are concerned, the figures show the chances 65 to 1 against a person being hanged for murder. It k almost impossible to carry out the death penalty in this country. The technicalities, the quibbles, the points, the delays, the sympathies raised up on behalf of some of the most awful brutes : in human form are positively sickening. I They a^e, as the result proves, a direct ■ premium upon crime. You will observe i Judge Lynch tried to even up matters a ! little, but the work was too much for I him. Meanwhile, and by way of relief, I append a comparison, instituted by the "Examiner," between the Old World and the .New: " while the countries uearer the rising sun may lay ostentatious claim to an older civilisation, they can advantageously take lessons for a better civilisation from this land." Something wrong somewhere, is there not ?