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Show SERIOUS OMISSION. A Legal Flaw that May Depopulate the hximns Penitentiary. Atchison. Kan.. July 20. Two years ago Arthur C Lett, a young colored barber, was sent from Atchison county to the state penitentiary for five years for seducing a girl under 18 years of age, such a seduction being regarded as rape under the provision of a recent statute. The punishment for such an offence of-fence is "confinement at hard labor." The crimes act says a felony shall be punished by'Vouliuonieut at hard labor in the penitentiary." The act making Lett's offence a crime omits tho words "in the penitentiary." B. P. Waggoner, Wag-goner, a prominent lawyer of this city, says this discrepancy is sufficient to secure se-cure Lett's release, and next week he will present a petition before I'tiited Mates Judge Foster for such a release. If Mr. Waggoner is successful in carrying carry-ing his point, it means not only the release re-lease of Lett, but the discharge of several sev-eral hundred prisoners now in the penitentiary peni-tentiary for various offences w hose sentences sen-tences are authorized by the law which omits the words "in the penitentiary." |