EDITOR'S TABLE. 



499 



so that government at last becomes the 

 instrument and partner of the great 

 agencies of oppression and wrong-doing 

 in society. Nor is this the worst : in- 

 stead of concentrating its attention upon 

 the transcendent duty of working out 

 the great ends of justice, and laboring 

 to improve and perfect the methods 

 and appliances for attaining this object, 

 it stands convicted as the open and 

 shameless perpetrator of wrong, viola- 

 tor of the most sacred rights of citizens 

 and the defiant executor of palpable and 

 rank injustice. The prosecutor of crimi- 

 nals, it becomes itself the criminal, and 

 cuts off its victim from all possibility 

 of redress. 



An illustration of this has just oc- 

 curred, which is worth pondering over 

 in this year consecrated to political 

 vainglory. The newspapers inform us 

 that " in November, 1874, Charles and 

 Mary Fisher were sentenced in the 

 county of New York, the former to 

 seven and the latter to five years' im- 

 prisonment in Sing Sing, for being ac- 

 cessory to an outrage upon a girl. The 

 governor has pardoned both, upon the 

 representation of the prosecuting officer 

 that they were innocent of the crime." 

 Government has here perpetrated a 

 gross injustice upon two innocent per- 

 sons deprived them of their liberty, 

 extorted labor from them, and robbed 

 them of the results of it, subjected them 

 to a cruel degradation, and, when con- 

 victed of its own blundering, it lets its 

 victims go without lifting a finger tow- 

 ard repairing the wrongs it has in- 

 flicted; Charles and Mary Fisher are 

 without redress. If their rights had 

 been similarly violated by other indi- 

 viduals, government would have recog- 

 nized their claims to large compensa- 

 tion. But when its own court and its 

 own officers are the self-convicted of- 

 fenders, those who have suffered may 

 ask reparation in vain. If a citizen is 

 wrongfully deprived of his property by 

 government, he may prosecute and re- 

 cover it to the uttermost farthing ; but, 

 if wrongfully imprisoned, stripped of 



his wages and disgraced by the very 

 authority that was constituted to mete 

 out equal justice to all, its victims are 

 helpless. If an American citizen were 

 unjustly imprisoned abroad, the gov- 

 ernment would have redress from the 

 offending nation, though at the cost of 

 war. But when the same thing occurs 

 under its own jurisdiction and by its 

 own fault, all reparation is denied. It 

 may be said that such things cannot 

 occur often; then they are the more 

 easily rectified, and the excuse for with- 

 holding justice is only an aggravation. 

 But it is probable that they occur far 

 more often than the public is aware of. 

 For what have we to hope, in the strict 

 administration of justice, from an au- 

 thority that can itself outrage justice in 

 so glaring a way? What are we to 

 expect from an authority that refuses 

 to hold itself accountable for the wrongs 

 it does. If it be said that the govern- 

 ment must assume the infallibility of its 

 ministration of justice, then why liber- 

 ate Charles and Mary Fisher ? And, if 

 the machinery of justice can work so 

 ill as utterly to defeat itself, the proof 

 of which we have in this flagrant case, 

 what confidence have we in the pro- 

 portions and measures of penalties that 

 are meted out to real criminals ? With 

 such obtuseness and indifference to 

 right and wrong as are evinced in this 

 scandalous case, there is surely little 

 confidence to be reposed in the general 

 equities of criminal adjudication. There 

 can be little doubt that the coarsest 

 and most barbarous part of our admin- 

 istration of law relates to the treatment 

 of the criminal classes. 



PROF. HUXLEY'S LECTURES. 



Pkof. Huxley has decided that, 

 from the nature of his engagements, 

 he must give up all expectation of 

 visiting the United States during the 

 winter, and that therefore it would be 

 impossible for him to devote a season 

 to lecturing here. But he is coming 

 over in August to spend a brief vaca- 



