Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 October 1882 — Perjury. [ARTICLE]

Perjury.

We need not assume that perjury if more prevalent than it ever before was. It is well known that, in spite of the natural character for downright veracity the commonness of this crime in English courts was always a subject of lamentation among our moralists. The pillory was especially reserved for it until recent times. The bishops actually met in 1751 to take counsel how to cope with this crying sin. The professional perjurer with the straw in his shoe is as prominent a figure as any in our legal history. In view of all this, we are not disposed to strand the remarks of Lord Coleridge and Lord James Bagallay, and say that things are worse than they were at any previous time. There is nothing to show that the alterations first largely introduced into the law of evidence in 1851, and «x----tended, with misgivings in many minds, to the Divorce Court in 1860, have led to an increase in perjury. After thirty years trial of a liberal system of evidence, no clear reason for retracing our footsteps can be adduced. But no one can be acquainted with the inside of our courts without being aware of the enormous amount of pptty perjury which is perpetrated there and which passes unpunished. Men perjure themselves because they wish to make good their claims or escape liability. They do so because they are friendly to one of the parties, or because they have once incautiously .out of court told some one a certain story and resolve to stick to it when they are subpoenaed by an enterprising solicitor, or because they are vain and wish to figure in public pr&ceedings. These motives will always operate,and cannot be effectually resisted. But men commit perjury also because they assume, with too much reason, that they will not be punished, and this is a temptation which might be diminished by means too obvious to require explanation.—London Times. A State Legislature repealed the charter of a street railroad company and transferred its franchises and the track to another street railway corporation, and, as the company refused to attack this statute in, the courts, one of its stockholders filed his bill of complaint in the United States Circuit Court, at Boston, Greenwood vs. Union Freight Railroad Company, and from a decree in his favor the defendant appealed to the Supi’eme Court of the United States, which, in May? affirmed the judgment. Judge Miller, in the opinion said: “The stockholder’s bill is maintainable, and if there was in the act incorporating the old company no reservation of the right to repeal it, a repeal cannot be sustained, for the obligation of contract of' the -barter is hereby impaired, in violation of the provision of the Federal constitution. The Judge added that the rights of the shareholders to the real and personal property acquired by the corporation aud the rights or contract and other valuable rights, are not taken away from them by the repeal, and if tiie Legislature has not provided a specific mode of enforcing and protecting these rights the courts will do so by the means. within their power. And the new company, under the right of eminent domain, must compensate the old corporation for any valuable property belonging to it which is taken.” In crossing a railroad track a traveler must be as careful as a prudent man, and in approaching it lie must exercise the caution which is ordinarily used by careful men "for the prote«r tion of their lives; but the mere fact that a traveler on stepping on>, the track does not look to ascertain if a train is approaching is not comdusive evidence of a want of due cautiofls on his part, in the opinion of the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine, in Plummer vs. Eastern Railroad Company, decided on June 12.