vict wherever sent for imprisonment will, under the recommended change, be subject to hard labor as a part of the prison discipline instead of a part of the sentence. The same result is therefore obtained and the existing incongruity overcome.

The committee has deemed it wise to make those who are accessories before the fact at common law principal offenders, thereby permitting their indictment and conviction for a substantive offense.

At common law an accessory can not be tried without his consent before the conviction or outlawry of the principal except where the principal and accessory are tried together; if the principal could not be found or if he had been indicted and refused to plead, had been pardoned or died before conviction, the accessory could not be tried at all. This change of the existing law renders these obstacles to justice impossible. An accessory after the fact is herein made subject to one-half of the term of imprisonment or fine imposed upon principals, or where the principal is punishable by death, then the punishment for the accessory is fixed at imprisonment for not more. than ten years.

The committee has also adopted a uniform method of fixing in all offenses not punishable by death the maximum punishment only, leaving the minimum to the discretion of the trial judge.

The criminal law necessarily subjects to its corrective discipline all who violate its provisions. The weak and the vicious, the first offender and the atrocious criminal, the mere technical transgressor and the expert in crime are alike guilty of the same offense. In the one case the utmost severity of punishment can scarcely provide the protection to which society is entitled; in the other anything except a nominal punishment may effectually prevent the reclamation of the offender. The argument most frequently urged against leaving the minimum punishments to the discretion of the trial judge is that it affords parties convicted of crime of a heinous character an opportunity to obtain immunity because of the weakness or dishonesty of judges. It has been well said by a distinguished authority upon this subject that—

Instances of the former are rare, and of the latter none is believed by us ever to have existed. The purity of our judiciary is one of the things which calumny has as yet left untouched.

This recommendation will be found to be in accordance with the humane spirit of advanced criminal jurisprudence. The early English statutes were proverbially cruel; the gravest crimes and the most trivial offenses alike invoked the penalty of death. Our own crimes act of 1790 reflected this barbarous spirit and denounced the death penalty for thirteen distinct offenses, but this spirit of vindictive retribution has entirely disappeared. We have abolished the punishment of death in all except three cases-treason, murder, and rapeand have provided that even in these cases it may be modified to imprisonment for life; and as humane judges in England availed themselves of the most technical irregularities in pleadings and proceedings as an excuse for discharging prisoners from the cruel rigors of the common law, so jurors here often refuse to convict for offenses attended with extenuating circumstances rather than submit the offender to what in their judgment is the cruel requirement of a law demanding a minimum punishment.

о

ADDITIONAL DISTRICT JUDGE, SOUTHERN DISTRICT, OHIO.

JANUARY 11, 1907.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. ALEXANDER, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 9976.]

The Committee on the Judiciary, to which H. R. 9976 and H. R. 23216 were referred, respect fully report H. R. 9976 favorably, amended as follows:

Strike out the title and substitute in lieu thereof "To provide for the appointment of an additional district judge in and for the southern district of the State of Ohio."

Strike out all after the enacting clause and substitute in lieu thereof the following:

That there shall be in the southern judicial district of the State of Ohio an additional district judge, who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and shall possess the same qualifications and have the same power and jurisdiction now prescribed by law in respect to the present district judge therein.

SEC. 2. That no vacancy in the office of the existing district judge of said southern judicial district of Ohio shall be filled by appointment, and in case of such vacancy there shall be thereafter one district judge only for said district.

The southern district of Ohio is divided into eastern and western subdivisions. The court sits, from necessity, at Cincinnati, in the western division, practically the entire year. There is a short term held in December and June of each year in Columbus, in the eastern division. The Ohio State Bar Association, by resolution, have declared the necessity for an additional judge. The Department of Justice, to which the question was referred, has reported that the business of the district requires the creation and appointment of an additional judge.

The unusual conditions found in this district and confronting our Federal courts may be illustrated by specific instances.

Within the eastern division of the southern district of Ohio, according to the report of the secretary of state of the State of Ohio, for the year 1904 there were more than 1,180 domestic corporations for profit and 228 foreign corporations for profit transacting business and having their address in some town or city within the subdivision. For the same year in the western division of the southern district of Ohio there were 1,243 domestic corporations for profit and 206 foreign corporations for profit, transacting business within that subdivision. In other words, there were more than 2,850 corporations for profit operating within the southern district of Ohio. In addition to this, as shown by the same report, there are several hundred corporations not for profit operating within the same territory.

The presence of so large a number of corporations within the district furnishes, on the grounds of diverse citizenship, a great volume of work for the Federal courts, a volume which would be immensely increased if the court was able to care for the business.

Again, as illustrating the condition within the southern district of Ohio, there are within its boundaries 17,132 establishments engaged in manufacturing, employing 175,114 men, with an investment of $290,000,000 and an output of manufactured product of more than $416,000,000.

The foregoing figures are taken from the census of 1900, and comparisons are made with bordering States in part and with others taken at random to illustrate the magnitude of the business done in the southern district of Ohio.

The railroad companies are frequently defendants and are often plaintiffs in our courts. The secretary of state's report for the year 1903 (p. 952) shows that the State of Ohio had a total main track railroad mileage listed for taxation of 9,861 miles, and, including second track and siding, of 15,566 miles. Of this total main-track mileage, 5,013 lies wholly within the southern district of Ohio. According to House Document No. 405, vol. 88, page 403, in the year 1903 the railroad mileage for the whole of the State of Indiana was 6,830 miles; Kentucky, 3,205 miles; Michigan, 8,572 miles; Missouri, 7,337 miles; Tennessee, 3,337 miles; Minnesota, 7,616 miles; Louisiana, 3,490 miles; Illinois, 11,426 miles; Pennsylvania, 10,705 miles: New York, 8,242 miles, and Texas, 11,344 miles. The magnitude of the railroad interests of the southern district of Ohio is shown by the foregoing.

Considering the area of the States and of the southern district of Ohio, excluding the square miles of water and including land only, it appears:

1. That the mile of main track in Ohio exceed per square mile that of any of the other above-named States.

2. That the miles of main track in the southern district of Ohio exceed per square mile that of any of the districts in the foregoing States.

According to House Document 88, supra, page 407, Ohio had in 1903 3,481 miles of electric street and elevated railroads, the largest mileage of any State in the Union.

A better idea will be obtained of the network of railways constructed in the southern district of Ohio, the density of its population, and the unusual concentration of capital and great industrial inter

ests, and additional light may be thrown on the statistical information herein given, if a comparative statement of areas be given. The land area of this district is 22,653 square miles.

Ohio is a great coal State. The statistical report of the last year, now in the hands of the printer and not yet issued, shows that there were mined in the State last year 25,834,657 tons of coal. Of that amount 22,155,735 tons, or 86 per cent of all the coal mined in Ohio, were mined in what is now the eastern division of the southern Federal judicial district of the State. The number of men employed in the mines last year was 44,193, and of that number 38,471 were employed within counties falling wholly within this eastern division.

When the enormous investment in coal mining is considered, and that a very large percentage of these corporations are foreign corporations, that damage cases arising from accidents at the mines naturally drift to the Federal courts, that if financial difficulties are encountered by any companies, or litigation involving any considerable sum arises, the natural place, and the place most desired by lawyers and clients, for the settlement of legal questions is the Federal court, it is not difficult to conceive to what extent the volume and importance of the business must be coming from this source alone into the Federal courts. It would be greatly increased if it could be transacted promptly.

Interurban railways have had a remarkable growth in Ohio in the last six years. According to the report of the secretary of state for 1905 the interurbans have a mileage in Ohio of 2,296 miles. Almost all of the important cities in the southern district of Ohio are now thus connected. A partial investigation made by me in January and February last disclosed the fact that there are now radiating from the city of Columbus alone seven interurbans, some of which have from 50 to 60 miles of main track, and the eighth interurban is fairly launched. Such cities as Zanesville, Dayton, Springfield, Xenia, Hamilton, Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Marietta, Portsmouth, Delaware, Newark, Lancaster, Circleville, Wilmington, etc., each have their interurbans, and several of them have a number of interurbans radiating in different directions, and many of these are operated by foreign corporations.

Oil is produced in the following counties in the southern district of Ohio: Vinton, Perry, Morgan, Athens, Washington, Noble, Monroe, Belmont, Harrison, and Jefferson. These counties are all in the eastern division of the district.

Natural gas is found in quantities in the following counties within the territory: Fairfield, Licking, Hocking, Knox, Athens, Morgan, Washington, Monroe, Belmont, Guernsey, Noble, Harrison, Jefferson, and Perry.

In the present eastern division of the southern district of Ohio there are steamboat ports on the Muskingum River at Zanesville, Eagleport, McConnellsville, Stockport, Waterford, Lowell, Devol, and on the Ohio River at Empire, Ironton, Steubenville, Mingo Junction, Bellaire, Warrenton, Martins Ferry, Bridgeport, Bellevue, Powhatan Point, Clarington, Sardis, Wittens, Hannibal, Newport, Marietta, Harmer, Belpre, Little Hocking, Hockingport, Long Bottom, Pomeroy, Middleport, Hobson, Kanauga, Gallipolis, and Crown City. There are, I should judge, about as many ports on the Ohio River in the western subdivision of the district. The proposed, and