Butterworth's Theory

(Joinniissioner oí Patents Butterworth is one of the men who believe that a prosecuting attorney is better engaged in side tracking embryo crimináis on the road to perdition and getting them on the road to righteousness than in corralling them for shipment to the penitentiary, where they are thrown into association with professional crooks. Several years ago Major Butterworth was prosecuting attorney in southern Ohio and he had the opportunity to test his theory regarding the discriminatiou that should be used in dealing with men newly launched into crime. A young farmer was arrested for passing counterfeit shinplasters, as the 50 cent note was known, and the case was put in the hands of Major Butterworth. The young man told his story. He had saved several hundred dollars, had left his wife and little children and had taken a boat down the Mississippi river, purposing to settle on a new farm he was to buy with his hard earned savings. On the boat he met an extremely pleasant and well dressed strauger, who learned of his missiou and proceeded to make himself agreeable. i a moment of extreme confidence the stranger told the young man of a large quantity of money he had which was made from plates that had f ormerly belonged to the government and which the government had long since sought to recover, etc. The young man was struck by that remarkable method of acquiring wealth when he had toiled and saved for years to get his few hundred. In a burst of geherosity the stranger offered to exchange some of his money for greenbacks belonging to his new found friend, so that the latter should have two dollars for every one he possessed. The bait was tempting and the fish bit. At the next landing the well dressed man disappeared from the boat and the dupe becarne alarrned. He became suspicious of his new money and waf afraid. to offer it iu paynient of his passage. He, too, left tho boat, determined to go back home. He started to walk and became f ootsore. He began shoving the money to buy something to eat, the counterfeit was discovered and the arrest was rnade. Major Butterworth took in the situation. "I told that yotmg man," he said, in relating the story, "that if God had made him a dishonest man he had f ailed to put a sign on his face. I told him to go home to his wife and children as an honest man. He could scarcely realiza that he had escaped the penitentiary. He went home, anü a more honest or better citizen I do not know today. That man had not the heart of a criminal, but if he had been sent to the penitentiary his children would have been disgraced for life and probably he would have belonged to the criminal class for life."