VIII.
THE COURTS.—ONE JOURNALISTIC WARNING
OUT OF MANY.
“One of the main reliances of the criminal element of our city for escaping from the clutches of the law is the subornation of perjury. A class of professional false swearers has grown up, and their aid is invoked without hesitation in the criminal courts. This startling and shameful fact was fully revealed to the public on the Ford trial. Society can find no protection under the ægis of the courts until this iniquity shall have been uprooted and cast out. The ermine sits under a upas-tree as long as men and women in droves dare commit the crime of perjury. No jury can justly decide any case if a terrible blow be not first struck at false testimony. And there are back of these perjurers the suborners. The master should be reached as well as the hireling.”—Editorial in the New Orleans Picayune, March 2, 1885.
IX.
THE UNPROTECTED ATLANTIC COAST.
Early in February, 1885, the New York Produce Exchange presented a Memorial to the Congress of the United States, setting forth, among other things, that the city of New York and the adjacent cities of Brooklyn and Jersey City “represent an interest in house ownership and real estate amounting to over $3,000,000,000; that all this realty is entirely unprotected from an attack by hostile fleets, which could bombard the city and the neighboring populated districts without even entering the Narrows.
“It is known abroad as well as at home,” the memorialists say, “that the shores of this country are entirely unprotected; and it would be only an act of reasonable precaution that New York, the chief city of the nation, should be defended by such permanent forts, floating batteries, gunboats, and torpedo service as will give us a guaranty against sudden invasion until the country shall have time to build an adequate fleet for defensive purposes.”
X.
A SINGLE ILLUSTRATION OF THE IRISH-AMERICAN
SPIRIT.
The hundred and seventh anniversary of Robert Emmet’s birth was celebrated in Faneuil Hall by the Irish citizens of Boston in February, 1885. The chief address of the evening was delivered by the Rev. P. A. McKenna. In the course of it he said, as reported by a Boston daily paper:—