It is no exaggeration to say that there is scarcely a man or woman in the community who, upon taking up a morning newspaper, is not prepared to find recorded in its pages at least one case of wilful murder or some other atrocious infraction of the law, human and divine. Whether it be homicide or uxoricide, attempt at either, or the criminal indulgence of the baser passions; whether the result of artificial excitement or the wilful premeditation of bad or diseased minds, the effect is the same on the public, and the dreadfully frequent recurrence of such offences--that the lives of the most harmless among us are put in jeopardy equally with those of the most belligerent; while the law, the first office of which is to protect the life, honor, and property of the citizen, is practically ignored and defied. This terrible prevalence of crime has been a fruitful subject of comment, and while the supineness of the legal guardians of the general welfare and the unaccountable stupidity or weak sentimentality of jurymen have been unsparingly denounced, very little has been done in the way of intelligent legislation to check the ever-flowing stream of criminality. It is true that the common and the statute laws have long ago prescribed death as the penalty for the commission of murder, arson, treason, and one or two other high crimes, long terms of imprisonment in state-prisons and penitentiaries for felonies, and shorter terms in local prisons for minor offences, but all these wise enactments do not appear to check the onward march of outrage and lawlessness. The result is that abroad the good name of the Republic suffers, while at home the very familiarity with deeds of violence and dishonesty created by the sensational and minute newspaper reports is debasing the youth of the country, and, by throwing a halo of romance over their commission, robs them of half their repulsive and disgusting features.