Show PECULIAR NONSENSE Recently there was a case before the United States Commissioner for polygamy polyg-amy and unlawful cohabitaiion in which one Newsom was the defendant The same case is now before the grand jury and the same witnesses are to be examined ex-amined there as were examined before the Commissioner One of these witnesses wit-nesses is Lucy Deveraux and she is supposed sup-posed to be the plural wife of Newsom To establish this she was cited before the grand jury and there asked certain questions by the jury which she declined de-clined to answer The jury submitted the c questions to the Court desiring to know if they were proper and such as the jury in the discharge of its duties had a right to ask The Court decided they were The jury again asked them of the witness wit-ness Lucy Devereaux and she declined to answer The question was one trying to elicit information as to who was the father of Lucy Devereaux child This I she flatly declined to tell and upon the jury reporting her refusal to the Court the Court held that it was a case of contempt con-tempt and remanded the witness to the custody of the Marshal until she should S see nt to answer me quesuuuK cu uu onu has not seen fit to answer them and she still remains the custody of the Marshal Mar-shal But this case is about to become another case of persecution and already is being used to show how partial the administration i ad-ministration of the law in Utah is i This morning the Herald speaks of the case and says that this case will strike people peo-ple as being somewhat strange when it is considered in connection with another one that was disposed of by His Honor a few days ago Now what was this other case of which His Honor disposed a few days since It was this A man had seduced his wifes sister and was arrested by the officers and held for the same The man sued out a writ of habeas corpin and on the hearing he was discharged as the Penal Code does not declare seduction a crime and says there shall be no crimes save those defined and declared therein Why the legislators of Utah who passed the Penal Code did not see fit to make seduction a crime they themselves them-selves best know But they did not and for this reason the Chief Justice discharged discharg-ed from custody the man who was held for the seduction of his sisterinlaw and it was for no other reason The Herald makes this ungenerous and dishonest remark re-mark about the Chief Justice But the I Chief Justice the same who now commits com-mits the Devereaux woman to jail for contempt held that the debaucher of his sister was guilty of no crime and released re-leased him without reprimand even Considering these two cases together at what conclusion must one arrive The conclusion at which the majority of people will arrive who know the facts in the cases and the condition of our local Jaws as regards such crimes will be that His Honor could not have done otherwise seeing that there was no law in Utah declaring seduction a crime and that it is necessary for any court to maintain dignity and authority to have the power to punish those who hold it in I contempt and to exercise that power just so often as witnesses or other persons are guilty of contempt of court But this is the conclusion to which the Herald 1 comes Perhaps there is another explanation ex-planation though we would not like to say it is the correct one however forcibly it presents itself upon the mind when thinking of the course of the Court The man who seduced his sisterinlaw not a Mormonwhile the Deveraux Mormon is a member of that church It is a very poor and weak conclusion to come to in view of all the facts and more especially when one remembers the law of parsimony which forbids such an explanation We suggest the It wisdom of a halt so far as I I such explanations are concerned and think that all parties would be much better bet-ter off if fewer explanations of this kind were given |