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Show I CHANGE OF FRONT. . The decision of Judge Zane in t he city prosecution cases for lewd conduct, has given rise to many and various comments. We lielieve Judge Zane decided according accord-ing to what he deemed the law. to be, and t hat he so decided because he thought it the law, and for no other reason. Apparently, Ap-parently, others do not think so. The Herald, of yesterday moning, in commenting com-menting on the decision, used the following follow-ing language in regard to Judge Zane : And we have hoped that he was not a canting hypocrite, but a person who enter-tamed enter-tamed a real horror of sexual sins and marital ma-rital incontinence. We certainly did not believe be-lieve that after all his professions, after all that he had said and done, he would have the brazen effrontery, the bold inconsistency inconsist-ency to stand before the community as the proteotor of the lecher and harlot, the defender de-fender of the adulterer and the shield of the prostitute. ... Does Judge Zane so stand? That the ordinance under which the prosecutions were brought was not sufficient to cover the cases brought under it, is sincerely to be regretted, and that there should" be ample provision made for that class of cases no one with anj' proper instincts can doubt; but did the Court render its decision for the purpose of. becoming "the defender of the adulterer and the shield of the prostitute ?" It was charged I by some that the city brought these prosecutions pros-ecutions for the purpose of blackening j the characters of men who were active J in the enforcement of the Edmunds law, j or who were known to be hostile to the I institution of polygamy. The Herald of ! November 25, in commenting on these j accusations, said : , l The friends of the men who are under arrest ar-rest for alleged lewd and lascivious conduot, and the " suspects" generally say that this movement is not in the interest of morality, but m purely-retaliatory. No -one has any right to say this, for so far the police officers have not gone outside their sworn duty: they have simply made the arrests, and have not been given an opportunity to prove the charges. Should not the same indulgence be given to Judge Zane that the Herald asked for the police? It seems to us it should. If his decision were wrong, was it" wrong I honestly or was it wrong corruptly? In ! answering this question, the important im-portant element of intent comes in, and according to whether that intent was honest or dishonest must Judge Zane be i j acquitted or condemned on the Herald charges. Has not the Herald changed front on the question of motive which ac-1 tuates sworn officers? j In its comments on the decision the j Herald also had this : Ilia Honor's reasoning and language in ' this opinion are not marked by the clear- i ness characterizing most of -bis decisions, i Heading the opinion one gains the impres- i sion that the writer set out to reach a on- I elusion by a course of reasoning, and fail- j ing with his reasons, reached the conclusion ' nevertheless. We have heard this opinion of His Honor's decision expressed by others, ; and this opinion, or one very like it, is j entertained by a very large proportion of j the bar, and we understand it is shared : by the attorneys who conducted the city's ! side of tlie case. But all these seem to ! think that the reasoning of His Honor I - - -was attenuated and that he strained a point to uphold the ordinance, and that if he stretched the law, he stretched it in favor, of the city and the ordinance. ordi-nance. This is an entirely different view from that taken by the Herald, and shows that if Judge Zane erred in his decision, he erred on the side of virtuej and not because he desired to become the "defender of the adulterer and the shield of the prostitute." When thellerald makes the . charges against Judge Zane that it does, we answer in the language of tlie Herald, " No one has a right to Bay fliio" ' - |