Again the beauties of the grand humanitarian system of protecting and encouraging crime are manifested to a grateful public. The police were misguided enough to interfere with some young professionals for trying to break into a fur shop. One young man was shot fatally. In 1916 he had been convicted of burglary. His sentence was suspended. In the same year he brought forth fruits meet for repentance. Advancing gradually toward reform, he contented himself with petit larceny and was sent to the penitentiary therefor. Since then he had been arrested twice for grand larceny, once for burglary. The police have rudely interfered with his further steps toward reclamation. Six of his partners in public service, nabbed by the police, have consonant records. Thus one whose career began in 1917 with arrest for burglary, sentence for which was mercifully suspended, was arrested for grand larceny in 1919 and discharged; for burglary in 1920 and discharged; for grand larceny in 1921 and discharged; for attempted burglary in 1921. Released on ball, he resumes his old trade.

Another of these innocents, arrested in 1918 for grand larceny and discharged, was arrested for the same offense in 1921 and put on probation. Rearrested the same year, he was released on bail. Thus he has been twice stimulated to go on with his virtue. Parole, suspended sentence, probation, bail, easy discharge, all the bounties, so to speak, for the commission of crime, were offered to these precious innocents. These are instructive, but milk-mild, cases of that beneficent justice that spares the criminal and despoils the public. The police records are full of much more striking cases. Possibly this quick-forgetting community still remembers Hoey, the paroled convict from Sing Sing out on bail, who murdered Patrolman Neville. Possibly it will remember for a few days Boddy, "the cop-fighter," freed from the seclusion of Blackwell's Island on parole, who justified the thoughtful tenderness that let him loose by murdering two detectives.

It would be superfluous to preach a sermon on this text. The facts preach it loudly and often enough. This awarding of prizes for criminal merit must stop. Criminals must be punished, not coddled. Ball must be made a good deal stiffer. The suspended sentence should be most intelligently used or itself be suspended. The parole business should be greatly reduced and watched with the utmost carefulness, if any carefulness suffices. Instead of throwing its arm lovingly around the poor, dear criminal, justice should put him, where the community will be safe from him, and keep him there. He is sure of advantages enough in the technicalities of the law and in delays, negligences and mistakes. There is no danger that he will cease to have a full opportunity and all possible means of keeping out of jail. Give the community at least something like a fair chance. Protect the public safety a good deal more and its enemies a good deal less.  --New York Times