Instances of this kind could be retailed without number, but this one
case is typical. It is something more than relentlessness. It is more
than keeping politics out of the courts. It is a tacit national
recognition of two basic truths: that the protection of innocence is the
business of the courts more than the protection of guilt; that having
delegated to the Department of Justice the enforcement of criminal law,
Canada holds that Department of Justice responsible for every infraction
of law. The enforcement is greatly aided by the fact that criminal law
in Canada is under federal jurisdiction. An embezzler can not defalcate
in Nova Scotia, lightly skip into Manitoba and put both provinces to
expense and technical trouble apprehending him. In the States I once was
annoyed by a semi-demented blackmailer. When I sent for the
sheriff--whose deputy, by the way, hid when summoned--the lunatic stepped
across the state border, and it would have cost me two hundred dollars to
have apprehended him. As the culprit was a menace more to the community
than to me, I went on west on a trip to a remote part of Alberta. I had
not been in Alberta twenty-four hours before the chief constable called
to know if this blackmailer of whom he had read in the press, could be
apprehended in Canada. The why of this vigilance on one side of the line
and remissness on the other, I can no more explain than why American
industrial progress is so amazingly swift and Canadian industrial
progress is so amazingly slow.
There is very little wish-washy coddling of the criminal in Canada.
While in the penitentiary he is cared for physically, mentally and
spiritually. When released, he is helped to start life afresh; but if he
keeps falling and falling, he is put where he will not propagate his
species and hurt others in his back-sliding.
"I regret," said a judge in a Winnipeg court, "to sentence such a
youthful offender." The prisoner was a young foreigner who attacked
another man viciously in a drunken brawl. "But foreigners must learn
that Canadian law can not be broken with impunity," and he sent the young
man to what was practically a life sentence.
"Hard on the poor devil," said a court attendant.
"Yes," retorted a westerner who lived in the foreign settlement, "but
it's an all-fired good thing for Canada."
The case of a judge in British Columbia is famous on the Pacific Coast.
It was in the old days of murder and robbery on the trail to the gold
diggings of Cariboo. In the face of the plainest evidence the jury had
refused to convict. The astounded judge turned amid tense silence in
fury on the prisoner.
"The jury pronounces the prisoner not guilty," he said, "and I strongly
recommend him to go out and cut their throats."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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