Your initial impression reveals severe life threatening bleeding

The public forms its impressions of the administration of the criminal law in the county of New York—very naturally—from the accounts it reads of important and intricate cases, and therefore—very naturally, again—believes that defendants languish long in prison, awaiting trial; that the majority of them go free, or that, if convicted, the punishment of most of them is either defeated or delayed by technicalities and appeals. As a matter of fact, these impressions are entirely erroneous, so far as the general enforcement of the criminal law in New York County is concerned. During the year 1903, the average length of time between a defendant’s arrest for felony and his trial—in cases where he was imprisoned awaiting trial—was less than two weeks. There were 2400 convictions by plea or verdict, to 615 acquittals; while out of 11,011 convictions during the five years 1898 to 1902 inclusive, the number of appeals brought to hearing was only ninety-five, and out of that number the ratio of … [Read more...] about In the District Attorney’s Office

FIFTY years ago Charles Street was still fashionable. Now it is impossible. Then it signified peace and position. Now teamsters and the trolley rumble and jangle in undisputed possession. It was once, for Boston, a broad, quiet street which people loved on account of its proximity to the water. Especially were the houses on the west side preferred. There, behind plain brick fronts many a rich family lived a placid and luxurious existence. Some of those houses are left to-day, islands in the ocean of a roaring trade. Their occupants might be called prisoners of the past, marooned by tradition, memory, or habit, into inherited homes. One of these mansions, whose back may be said to front on the Charles River Basin, had been the home of Nathaniel Morley of East India fame. The days of the old merchant princes have passed away, and have left behind them their priceless carved teak, imperial jade ornaments, silk brocades, and sandal-wood chests; their descendants maintain an unassailable … [Read more...] about The Tangent of a Crime

II THE first characteristics which the book of Grotius revealed were faith and foresight. Great as it was, — the most beneficent among all volumes not claiming divine inspiration, — yet more wonderful than the book itself was the faith of its author. In none of the years during which he meditated it, and least of all during the years when it was written, could any other human being see in the anarchic darkness of the time any tribunal which could recognize a plea for right reason in international affairs, or enforce a decision upon it. The greatness of Grotius lies first of all in the fact that he saw in all this darkness one court sitting supreme to which he might make appeal, and that court—the heart and mind of man. What the darkness was which his eye alone could pierce was stated in his preface. He says: “I saw many and grave causes why I should write a work on that subject. I saw in the whole Christian world a license of fighting at which even barbarous nations might blush. … [Read more...] about The Warfare of Humanity With Unreason: Hugo Grotius