execution of the law is the alleged and maybe the actual,
cause of the community crime of lynching. Even where the
administration of justice is seen at its best many people who
have been wronged believe that there is so little likelihood
that the offender will after all be punished that the cheapest
and easiest course is to let the matter drop. All this gives
aid and comfort to the powers of darkness.

The widespread impression as to the uncertainty of the law is
not entirely a misapprehension. "We have long since passed
the period when it is possible to punish an innocent man. We
are now struggling with the problem whether it is any longer
possible to punish the guilty." It is a melancholy fact that
at the present time "penal statutes and procedure tend more to
defeat and retard the ends of justice than to protect the
rights of the accused."

The subject of criminal-law reform is too extensive to be
discussed here even superficially, but historically the
explanation of existing conditions is simple enough. The
present overgrown state of the criminal law is the direct
result of our exaggerated regard for personal liberty, coupled
with a wholesale adoption of the technicalities of English law
invented when only such technicalities could stand between the
minor offender and the barbarous punishments of a bygone age.
We forget that the community is composed of individuals, and
we tend to disregard its interests for those of any particular
individual who happens to be a prisoner at the bar. We
revolted from England and incidentally from her system of
administering the criminal law, by which the defendant could