Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 05.pdf/507

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The Green Bag.

pen." The judge having charged the jury to " leave out of view anything that has been said as to the character of his newspaper, about which there is no evidence before us," it was held that the remarks were not error. (This is an amusing case. Fry was a man ager of Italian opera, who had the usual quarrels with his singers; and the comments of the " Herald " were in respect to his con duct therein. The report covers fifty pages.) In Turner v. State, 4 Lea (Tenn.) 209, a prosecution for larceny, the district attorney told the jury that there was a regular band of thieves in the neighborhood in question; that the defendant was one of them, naming others known to the jury to have been recently convicted; and added : " If the jury

fail to convict the defendant in this case, I would not blame the people for taking the law in their own hands." The conviction was reversed on this account. On the other hand, in Scott v. State, 7 Lea, 236, the attor ney's remark that " if the juries don't punish the crime, the people will rise up and punish it," was held not material error. And in Northington v. State, 14 Lea, 424, a prose cution for bringing stolen mules into the State, it was held that references to the crimes of Guiteau and Buford were not fatal to the conviction, as those crimes were not facts not in proof, " but only matters of current history used by way of enforcing an argument." So a reasonable amount of historical scholarship is tolerated.

THE PARDONING OF THE ANARCHISTS: IS GOVERNOR ALTGELD LIABLE TO IMPEACHMENT? BY GEORGE H. SHIBLEY. the evening of May 4, 1886, in the city of Chicago, a dynamite bomb was thrown into a squad of policemen, numbering one hundred and eighty, whereby seven police men were killed, and sixty more wounded. In the endeavor to find the guilty party or parties, several arrests were made, and an indictment returned against eight persons, charging them with being participants in a conspiracy having for its object the destruc tion of the police and militia of the city of Chicago, and that in pursuance of such con spiracy the bomb was thrown which did the killing. At the end of a lengthy trial the jury returned a verdict finding seven of the defendants guilty of murder, and fixing death as the penalty; the eighth man, Oscar W. Neebe, guilty of murder, and fixing the pen alty at imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of fifteen years. The case was by the defendants appealed to the Supreme Court of the State. The judgment was affirmed. The court, in a unanimous opin

ion of one hundred and sixty-seven pages (122 I11. loo —-267), reviews the evidence and dis cusses the principles of law which properly govern the case. The findings as to the conspiracy, and the defendants' connection therewith, are, in short, as follows : First, that the bomb thrown was made by Lingg, one of the defendants; second, that Lingg was a member of the " International Asso ciation," the members of which entered into a conspiracy having for its object "the destruction of the police and militia of Chicago; " third, that all of the defendants were members of the association, and took an active part therein; fourth, that the bombs constructed by Lingg and his asso ciates " were made under the auspices of the International Association, and in further ance of its objects and purposes;" fifth, the bomb was thrown by a co-conspirator, and in furtherance of the conspiracy. The evidence of this being that the bomb was one made by Lingg (see first finding), and