The Law’s Delay.
It was confidently expected that a revision of the judgment upon Mr. Branch would have been had in the early part of this week. We, however, learn from Mr. Ashmead, that the Court being pre-occupied by civil business, have postponed consideration of his motion until the month of September, when the learned counsellor feels assured that the relief he prays for will be granted, and a new trial be had.
In this sacrifice of personal rights to the emolument of that of property, we notice the inconsistency of the law which thus creates an invidious distinction between things animate and inanimate. Here, then, we have a person kept in jail, in a state of vexatious misery, while the Court is occupied by the consideration of some quarrel of Smith and Jones over a bale of cotton, or some other triviality in a commercial point of view. Now, the most valuable of all rights is that of locomotion, and the dearest of all writs is that of habeas corpus, instituted expressly for the relief of the individual from unjust detention. And still all the provisions of this famous act are neutralized the instant the prisoner gets into the clutches of the judiciary, whose slow motions are too often a cause of unintentional wrong-doing.
In the case of the People vs. Haines, the prisoner served his time out in the State Prison, and was afterward granted a new trial and found not guilty. Ashley, tried for forgery, served eighteen months, when upon a new trial he was found guiltless of the crime charged upon him. Much as we talk about the freedom of our institutions, the rights of prisoners are too little respected by the tardy process of legal procedure. We trust that when the new constitution be framed that preference will be given to all cases involving personal liberty.
The First of September—let us remember.
It was observed by an English writer the heart of an alderman lays in his belly. It may be true of an English alderman, but with ours the centre of all affections rests in the pocket—touch him there, and you draw his life’s blood. Dining is the mere relaxation with our aldermanic council, by which they occasionally while away the fatigues of mathematical calculations on the gross profits of contracts. They eat not as a matter of duty, but from absolute necessity. We are to have a municipal banquet on the first of September, to testify our joy at the successful laying of the Atlantic Cable; and the same gentlemen, who did the mourning over James Munroe, have kindly condescended to do our merriment over the cable. Our Aldermen have acute sensations; at one moment they are plunged in the depths of woe, at another they are frantic with delight. In a word, they do everything, even praise God, not in church, but at the Crystal Palace.
We being of the poorer class feeders on pork and beans, are not expected to have stomachs, capable of being with fat capon lined, so we, tax payers will have to imagine the splendor of the scene, seen through the gloomy columns of a morning newspaper. And therefore let us riot in imagination and taste the pleasures of the honor in anticipation.
We see before us, seated in his chair of state, the great Puttyman, and we worship his Worship like unto the mighty Bendimeer, for him to speak, for us to hear. And as the words of humid eloquence are distilled from his lips, we will wonder how we could unfold so sound, unvarnished a tale, and admit that painting spoils the lily and the rose, until weighed down by the profundity of magisterial love, we unconsciously droop to balmy slumber. And then we shall have Alderman Clancy, whose soft persuasive tones shall wake thunders of applause, as he extols the fighting glories of the Sixth, and promises that if the cable has necessity of gallant defenders, he knows a band ready to fight for it.
And then there will be the grave and illustrious Peter, who will act the part of the skeleton at the Egyptian feast, with an occasional smile as a token of our approaching smile. He will make but few remarks; the most telling of which will be a short sentence, offering the use of the basement cellar of the Institute wherein to coil away the tail end of the cable.
And then we will have Simeon Draper, the facetious prince of diners-out, whose portly presence was never known to fail a municipal feast. He will illuminate us with jokes, such as were wont to enliven the monotony of an Alms House board. And then we will mourn to think that some day must come when the Corporation Yorick will be no more.