The Islander

There is a striking little story in McClure's magazine this month by Herbert D. Ward entitled "The Silent Witness," which admirably illustrates the cruel injustice and hardship which "the law" often works upon poor and friendless witnesses of crime who are unable to give bail for their appearance to testify for "the state," or "the people." and are therefore ruthlessly thrown into jail to await trials which seldom take place for weeks and often not for months. The sad little story may or may not have been drawn from actual facts, but whether it is or not it points clearly to the need of devising some means by which the humiliation and misery often consequent upon the forcible detention and confinement of honest and innocent people as witnesses "for the state" may be avoided. "The people" should not knowingly permit injustice to be done the innocent in order that justice be meted out to the guilty.