So far from feeling surprise at the frequency and boldness of crime, we rather wonder that the few checks which are imposed on it, maintain their power. No one can carefully note the manner in which crime and its perpetrators are treated, without perceiving how much is done to provoke and countenance it, in comparison with what is done to punish and suppress it. We have neither space nor inclination to enlarge on such a subject, but it is due to the cause of humanity and the welfare of society, that the plague-spots in the body politic should be plainly pointed out. Not long since two men were together in a drinking house. A. is influenced with liquor sold to him in violation of law. He attempts to provoke a quarrel with B. B. leaves the house, and A. follows him with taunts and threats. B. is peaceable, says he does not want to quarrel, and retreats to a distance from the house. A. pursues him and deliberately, without the slightest provocation, and in spite of B.’s attempts to avoid a quarrel, stabs him to the heart! The dead man is buried--the murderer arrested and tried, and the jury find him guilty of murder in the second degree, and, moreover, recommend him to mercy! Why did he try to provoke a quarrel before he executed his murderous purpose? Why, because he had ascertained, by watching the proceedings of the courts, that the quarrel, however picked, would mitigate the offence. “Stabbing a man in a fight, gets only five years in the penitentiary.” This was his own statement. A laborer is returning home from his daily toil on Saturday night--peaceable, if not sober--and within a few steps of his dwelling, is assaulted and murdered. After one or two false pursuits, two young men are arrested--tried and convicted of murder in the first degree. The most revolting details of the steps which immediately preceded the perpetration of the first deed are spread out before the public in the daily papers, and show a recklessness and indefinite malice which makes one’s blood run cold. Not a shadow of doubt rests on the minds of the jury. The verdict is followed by the sentence, and the time is fixed for their execution. But no--hundreds and thousands of citizens unite to arrest the arm of justice, and to screen these desperate felons from the just reward of their deeds. Can any one fail to see the influence of such a proceeding, in relaxing the authority of the government, and bringing the highest sanctions of law into popular contempt? But another case, and a still more flagrant one, may be cited. It presents various points of interest involved in our present inquiry.