ARISTOCRACY IN AMERICA.
THE most marked difference between society in England and society in the United States is the existence on the other side of the Atlantic of highly privileged classes. No one in Western Europe—or at all events no one in France or England—is quite beyond the law, for although a Peer of Parliament can in cases of felony demand to be tried by the House of Lords, the " privilege " has not been claimed for fifty years, and would not, if it were claimed, shield the claimant from any consequence of his acts. The lay Peers, we imagine, would not now vote, and the Law Lords would form a terribly experienced and consequently stern tiibunal. In America, if we may judge from the reports of the Law C arts, and the view of society given in all popular fiction, the case is widely different. It is very difficult to obtain justice against a rich man who is also popular, or who, for any reason, has many around him whom he can benefit or injure. It is not that he can bribe Judges or jurymen, though there are cities in the States where this allegation is frequently made, so much as that money buys lawyers who avail themselves of highly technical and tardy methods of procedure, that jury- men are most unwilling to convict " respected " or "power- ful" citizens, that judges are unwilling to incur unpopularity by heavy sentences on such men, and that Governors are exceedingly ready to pardon or to diminish penalties. Even in New England it appears t3 make the greatest difference to an accused person whether he has troops of friends or not, which in France or England would be matter of no im- portance, while in the wilder States that is the first thing -1 a sheriff would consider. Positive resistance to the law is probably unusual, though we think we could quote cases ; but if an accused man is popular or very rich, or, for any reason, important to the community, and the crime is not one on which opinion is of iron hardness—as it is, for example, in all cases of outrage on women—the jury is very apt to disagree, or the Judge to give a very lenient sentence, or the prisoner to escape. The powerful are permitted to defend themselves by hiring armed detectives in a way which in France or England would be treated as levying civil war, and it has long been noted that in such cases the verdicts of juries are almost invariably for acquittal. Apart altogether from the influence of money, which it is impossible to prove, and which is probably exaggerated, there appears to be a great wish in the community that law should not be rigid, that it should be modified in each individual case by the opinion of the public, and that in particular a special and lenient treatment should be applied to persons who are " respectable " or " prominent " or "valuable citizens." A sentiment not far removed from the strange Italian pity for a criminal, as in a way a person marked by misfortune, appears in such cases to influence the whole community, and undoubtedly helps to develop that readiness to repair the failures of the law by individual vengeance, which an Englishman notices in most of the newspapers and all the social legends of the South and West.
Take this case of Miss Flagler, daughter of General W. Flagler, of Washington, repo te I in the New York Journal, as quoted in the Daily Chroniee of Monday. Miss Flagler saw some coloured boys robbing her father's orchard, fired at them with a pistol, and killed one lad of fifteen named Ernest Green. She was, of course, 1roaght to trial, we presumo for
manslaughter, and the bare facts must have been proved, for the Judge immediately sentenced her to imprisonment for three hours and a fine of £100, which her father, a man of large means, of course paid on the spot. Such a sentence seems to English- men a direct denial of justice, but it is of course impossible at this distance, and in the absence of the witnesses, to say that there were not circumstances which, in the opinion of the Judge, proved that the offence was rather in the nature of a melancholy accident than of a crime of any kind. We do not understand why, if that were the case, the Judge did not return a verdict of acquittal; but still it does occasionally happen that a Judge and public opinion differ as to the precise value of evidence when its object is to prove what is never absolutely provable,—namely, motive. We cannot, therefore, -comment on the sentence beyond saying that, as a sentence was pronounced, its lenity indicates that a very different -value is placed on human life in Washington, even when it has been destroyed by mere recklessness or carelessness, than is placed on it in Europe. There was, however, much difference of opinion in the States on the subject, a heated controversy arose, and the editor of the New York Journal adopted the odd expedient of asking twelve well- known ladies for their opinions. He wished, in fact, to em- panel a female jury. The ladies gave answers in writing, and while five condemned Miss Flagler, not of course for murder, but for culpable carelessness in the use of dangerous weapons, seven, a majority, congratulated her on her escape, or con- demned the Courts for allowing her to be brought to trial. That is wonderful enough, but it is not so amazing to our minds as the fact that of the twelve seven alluded plainly to the high social position of the accused either as a reason for acquittal or as a reason sure to operate unfairly on that side. The majority, in fact, believe, either with pleasure or in sorrow, that caste feeling has in America a distinct influence upon Courts of Justice. One lady, Mrs. A. M. Palmer, writes : — "A woman in Miss Flagler's high social position could have no object or motive in injuring, even slightly, that poor little lad—that in itself should have cleared her at once in the minds of the people. My heartfelt sympathies are with Miss Flagler and her family." In other words, high social position is of itself a guarantee that an accused person could have meant nothing wrong. Miss Clara Folz, a prominent female lawyer -of New York, writes, saying just the same thing, but with deep regret The step is but a short one to the conclusion that the rich and high in place may secure favours that the poor and unknown cannot reach." Mrs. H. T. Collis writes : — " The young lady was criminally careless, for she certainly shot at the boy. She should have been punished for that. I do not know how old the young lady was [nineteen], but she was undoubtedly old enough to be more careful. If she bad occupied another position than was hers, she would probably have been punished to the full extent of the law." Mrs. George Home Wheeler says :—"I think the young woman was culpable in the careless use of the weapon. She should have been punished for such criminal careless- ness. If she was guilty the punishment is a farce." While Mrs. E. Cady Stanton, a lady well known here as a warm advocate of women's rights, and of many philanthropies, gives the following amazing opinion :—'• I am delighted that Miss Flagler escaped with so light a sentence. We women do not help to make the laws, why should we be condemned to suffer through them ? Miss Flagler was surely a lady of refinement and gentle breeding. I am confident that she had no thought ef injuring the child. The parents of that child cannot pos- sibly blame or condemn her. Poor young lady, it must have been a frightful shock to her. I don't think the Judge should be criticised for being too lenient. He was only carrying out the accepted idea that women are weaklings, an therefore not capable of appreciating justice or injustice. Usually, sad to think on, women suffer oftener from in- justice ; for example, witness Mrs. Maybrick's pathetic case. That woman was undeniably innocent. If a burglar should enter my house, to frighten him I might fire a pistol, thinking to save my valuables. If by accident I fatally wounded him, would it be justice to imprison me? No. Miss Flagler was, in a way, protecting her property." Mrs. E. Cady Stanton is, we believe, a woman of strong religious feeling, and would doubtless declare that she was bound to obey either the Ten Commandments, or the inner light always perceptible in her own conscience. Does she think that women decreed the one or created the other, and if not, whence, on her theory, do they derive their sanction ? And, finally, another lady writes that she" does not believe any woman holding the position of Miss Flagler would commit murder [of which Miss Flagler was not accused], unless it were contingent upon her affections," or in other words, that no lady of position ought ever, except in the specified case, to be tried for murder, whatever the evi- dence might be.
It is a melancholy record, but the astounding part of it to us is not the lenient sentence which, as we have said, may have been justified by evidence patent to the Judge, though not to persons who did not hear the witnesses, or the foolish- ness of some of the opinions, for opinions collected at random are often foolish, but the testimony which the letters bear to the strength of caste feeling in America. It cer- tainly does not exist to the same extent either in France or England, the tendency in both being to a slight bias against those who are highly placed, and a readiness to believe them guilty of any charge, except perhaps ordinary theft. What is the origin of that difference ? Mere disrespect for law does not explain it, for why should not that disrespect take the form of prejudice against those in good social position instead of prejudice in their favour ? In this country it is always asserted that the respect for law as law, and wit hout reference to opinion, tends to support a graduated society which a laxer observance of law would, it is contended by both the great party divisions, tend to pulverise or throw down. Nor can we believe that indifference to the lives of coloured per- sons was the sole cause of the verdict of the majority of ladies, for the minority would feel that prejudice cqually, and it does not affect their judgment. Nor for the same reason can we con- sider the case merely an illustration of the woman-worship in America which so greatly modifies many social arrangement. The ladies who condemn would defend the privileges of the sex as fiercely as the ladies who acquit. Is not the true con- clusion that to which history compels us, that caste is a natural product of the human mind, that when society has been pulverised by ideas of social equality, an aristocracy springs up just as it sprang up in the old world ? The rich, the powerful, and the popular surround themselves with those whom the Romans called elientes, and the Americans "friends," they insist on all who are connected with them defending them against the law, and they habitually judge each other's acts as the French aristocracy did when the old lady said,—" Depend on it, God thinks twice before be damns a man of that quality." Gradually a caste opinion becomes formed, and by-and-by to condemn an aristocrat, as we say, or a "prominent citizen," as the Americans say, becomes bad form, a reproach which even Courts are reluctant to incur. If that is not the explanation we do not know what it is, and if it is, the case is a singular illustration of the old truth that political institutions do not alter manners, and that to secure equal rights to all there is but one efficient instrument, an impartial and rigid maintenance of the regime of law.
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