OCR Text |
Show A SOUND PETITION. The petition -which the Board of Par? dons has received from citizens of San Juan county, against tho pardon of Charles B'ojfha, is entitled to ver' earnest ear-nest and serious consideration. This for two reasons. First, for tho principle princi-ple involved, and the facts in the case, as recited; these show that a monstrous mon-strous crime was committed, and that. Botha, convicted of thnt crime, desorves in fact the full rigor of tho law. Second, Sec-ond, tho standing of tho petitioners is such that what tho' say is entitled to respectful attention. We full believe thnt a great -wrong would bo committed upou the community commu-nity if Botha wore pardoned. Tho utmost ut-most limit of clemency reasonably possible possi-ble in Iris case was extended when his scntenco -was commuted from tho death penalty to imprisonment for life. For, his crime was a most atrocious one. Ho took a young girl out into tho -wilds of a now region, put her iu a mero loan-to, such as would heardly serve as a sheep shelter, and left her alone there days and nights together, sometimes as long as a week or more, with scanty and unfit un-fit food, at times hardly enough to keep her from starvation. Ho -was utterly callous to all idea that he was treating his young -wife shamefully. Ho was coarse, brutal, cruel in the treatment of hor. Finally she decided in one of his frequent aud long absences to go homo to her mother in Colorado. She was invitod by Mr. Tibbetts, against whoso good faith and honesty in the matter thorn was not the faintest suggestion sug-gestion during tho trial, to rest and recruit at his home. She did so, and was about to start to her mother, when Botha appeared, enraged at not finding find-ing her in the shack where he had left hor, and shot hor dead, then shot Tibbetts. Tib-betts. At no time until long afler the trial was there any suggestion against the good name and wifely fidelity of Mrs. Botha. Even now the scandalous nnd slanderous allegation of undue intimacy between her and Tibbetts are mere tattle tat-tle that would not stand the test as evidence evi-dence in a competent court for a minute, min-ute, A single and uncertain affidavit is the only thing that is brought forward for-ward in support of tho assault upon her good name. Surely something more than this ought to be required in order to justif3' the Board of Pardons in granting further clemency in this case, a clemency that would be at once misplaced mis-placed as to him and manifest' unjust. un-just. There is general!' too much sentimentality senti-mentality in the 'consideration of criminal crim-inal cases; gush and twaddle are never absent in capital cases; too often they overbalance -sound judgment and a due regard for the law; there has been too much of these extraneous irrelevances in the Botha case. It is timo the sentiment senti-ment gush wero shut off and that tho sway of tho law resumed its even and proper course. ' |