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Show COST OF ENFORCING LAWS. A close even if not absolutely correct cor-rect calculator has made (or says he has) the discovery that President Roosevelt's famous declaration regarding re-garding Moycr, Ilcywood and Petti-bone Petti-bone is costing the tax payers of Ada county, Idaho, ten cents each per hour. Assuming that the calculation is near enough to the facts to be set down as unassailable, the shock produced pro-duced to the mental organism thereby, there-by, if any, is speedily recovered from when the cause of it is fully considered consid-ered and digested. Ten cents an hour surely counts up, especially if the sleeping as well as the waking hours arc figured into the computation; even ev-en if it be but a long working day that is embraced in the operations of the penalty, the assessment would be a dollar a day; and as there are 5,000 or 6,000 taxpayers in the county spoken of, the amount drawn from them because of the Presidential ejaculation ejac-ulation is a corresponding number of dollars quite a snug little fortune in itself, a goodly one in a week, and a handsome one in a month. Let ' us confer. ' The money paid for the support of courts generally and the prosecution of criminals, particularly is what might be called a direct requisition " upon the people's substance, from which there arc no visible returns in kind. It would be much more pleasing pleas-ing to the normal mind if the only means .by which they can cease so long as civilization in its Ijighcst aspects as-pects prevails the cessation of wrong doing, the complete and unresisting obedience of all people to the Ten Commandments. Such a condition being merely theoretical, if not Utopian, Uto-pian, a discussion of it except for abstract and intellectual purposes is 4ft time thrown away; ther"e is none such anywhere, never has been and, so long as the human animal retains his inherent frailties and continues to rule the earth, never will be. The fact that laws exist is all the argument needed for their existence. As Richard III said, "Why should the laws be made but that we're rogues by nature?" This need not " be construed individually, but collectively collect-ively its exact application is plainly manifest. Our primeval parents be- gun business in their Edenic home- stead, not by observing the laws given them for guidance, but by first1 slighting, then evading, then disregarding, disre-garding, then trampling under foot; and their children are like unto them. Those who have lived in the more remote frontier districts have often had occasion to observe that with the relaxation of the set rules obtaining elsewhere which such remoteness engenders, en-genders, come along with apparent -, naturalness the various kinds and dc- grces of crime incident to frail and perverse humanity. It lakes not only laws, but rigid ones, equitably drawn and impartially enforced, to keep the body politic anywhere near the normal nor-mal condition of hcalthfulncss, and sometimes, as is also frequently seen, bad eruptions occur even with the closest surveillance, those who arf-naturally arf-naturally disposed to concur in the rule of right being themselves occasionally occas-ionally drawn away from the straight and narrow path. Ill v Since it is manifestly the case that law is the only reliable and enduring safeguard, it naturally follows that its existence and employment mean a cheaper condition of things than can be had in its absence; but this cheapness cheap-ness docs not go to the extent of gratuity. It takes time, skill and money to make laws, and still more of these to uphold and enforce them; at special times, when the violations have been unusually flagrant, when the outrages committed have been uncommonly un-commonly flagitious and the means of determining where and when the crimes have occurred arc curtailed by the skill and preparation employed em-ployed in concealing them, extra evils are a matter of course, and all that the good citizen should do under un-der such circumstances is, to use a sporting phrase, "ante tip and look-pleasant." look-pleasant." It is not the amount of money spent in maintaining government and enforcing authority that we arc to find fault with, but the manner and purposes for which it is spent when these arc viciously or incompetently rerformed. As to the President's conclusion regarding re-garding the gentry on trial, that is merely his view of the situation. As he is not a despot, and could not 1 ractice despotism in this country if lie were one and desired so to do, others arc not compelled to adopt his method of reasoning or his conclusions conclu-sions thereon. It would probably be surprising, though, if the number of those who .agree with him in general and in detail were to be made known to the family of man in these United States. |