INCREASING BRIBERY AND PERJURY.
READ the following from an address of President J. J. McCarthy, of the State Bar Association of Iowa, delivered before that body at Council Bluffs, July 16:— Where is there a lawyer who has not seen a guilty criminal pass out of the court room, acquitted and set free because of perjured testimony? What one of us but has seen the rights of persons and of property sacrificed and trampled under foot, presumably under due form of law, but really and truly by the use of corrupt, false, and sometimes purchased testimony? One judge of long experience upon the bench writes me that in his opinion about one-half of all the evidence received on behalf of the defense in criminal cases is false. Another judge of equally high repute writes that he believes 75 per cent. of the evidence offered in divorce cases approaches deliberate perjury. Another writes that perjury is committed in a majority of important lawsuits, and that the crime is rapidly increasing. And now read these divine predictions of the last days:— “In transgressing and lying against the Lord, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood. And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there was no judgment. . . . And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.” Isa. 59:13–20. “That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh, and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man, he uttereth his mischievous desire: so they wrap it up. The best of them is as a briar; the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity” Micah 7:3, 4. “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-breakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” 2 Tim. 3:1–5.