Pittsburg Ahead by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Nov 28, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 46.

Pittsburg Ahead.

By Editor

According to a press despatch of the 12th inst., Pittsburg has rather forged ahead of her sister cities in the matter of disorder. The despatch says:

"Pittsburg terrorized and likened to a mining camp or a frontier town, is the tone of all this morning's issues of the papers. With three murders, a number of robberies on the highway, accompanied by violence, and an attempt at crucifixion, in twenty-four hours, added to the large number that have occurred during the past two weeks, there has been such a public demand for extra police that Mayor Guthrie and Director of Public Safety Ridgway last night put on a number of extra police without legal provision for their compensation, trusting to the effect of public clamor upon the Select and Common Councils for favorable action upon this move."

That is decidedly a heavy Sunday record, considering Pennsylvania has such a stringent Sunday law, and Pittsburg was for so many years the seat of "National Reform." Some California clergymen and politicians are proposing to squelch outlawry in this state with a state Sunday law. Californians will do well to make a note of Pennsylvania's experience in face of her century-old statute, before adopting such a measure as a cure-all for crime. The "crucifixion" case was that of a young woman whose neighbors, hearing her screams, rushed into her house and found her with her two hands nailed to the sink-drain. She soon became unconscious, and was taken to a hospital.