Justice Delayed in New York
Referring to the results of the Becker trial in New York, the Thrice-a-Week-World remarks that New York City alone pays the enormous sum of $6,000,000 a year for its administration of justice, chiefly because of the prolixity and procrastination of procedure, and it cites the Becker case as an instance of proper and rapid work, consuming, as it did, but seventeen days. And it closed 100 days after Rosenthal was shot. On the other hand, there has been in most cases unjustifiable delay. London promptly convicts eight murderers out of nine indicted. New York slowly convicts one out of nine. Greater London had in 1909, 19 murders and 27 cases of manslaughter, not including negligence killings. New York in 1911 had 198 murders and 13 executions; and in seventy of the largest American cities, in a list compiled recently for the World, only six murderers were executed within the calendar year. President Taft well calls this procrastination a “disgrace to our civilization.”