p. 9 | Coal and Crime

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 4, 1903

Coal and Crime.

A press despatch from Toledo, Ohio, says that “the work-house board has issued an order setting at liberty all prisoners held for stealing coal from the railway yards and tracks. The order includes directions to the superintendent to receive no more prisoners from any court sending them in for petty coal thefts. It is said that no prosecutions for coal thefts will be recognized by the board during the coal famine.” As this whole so-called “coal famine” has been the result of lawlessness, it would seem rather inconsistent to punish the victims for the lesser grades of crime to which they are driven by suffering, while those who instigated the trouble and those who persistently maintain its vicious consequences are treated with such marked consideration by the powers that be. Yet it seems rather anomalous to see such conditions in a wealthy and prosperous nation, a professed “Christian nation,” that law officers find it expedient to condone crime for charity’s sake. But such is human rule, and may it be short. May He soon come who will rule in righteousness. 2 Peter 3:13; Rev. 22:20.