Peter Hallock, committed on a charge of abducting Lena Dinser, a
young girl thirteen years old, whom, it was alleged, her father,
George Dinser, had sold to Hallock for purposes of prostitution, was
again brought yesterday before Judge Westbrook in the Supreme Court
Chambers, on the writ of habeas corpus previously obtained by Mr.
William F. Howe, the prisoner's counsel. Mr. Howe claimed that
Hallock could not be held on either section of the statute for
abduction. Under the first section the complaint, he insisted,
should set forth that the child was taken contrary to the wish and
against the consent of her parents. On the contrary, the evidence,
he urged, showed that the father was a willing party. Under the
second section, it was contended that the prisoner could not be
held, as there was no averment that the girl was of previous chaste
character. Judge Westbrook, a brief counter argument having been
made by Mr. Dana, held that the points of Mr. Howe were well taken,
and ordered the prisoner's discharge.
Here was a father who, as the newspapers allege, had previously sold two
other daughters, body and soul, and against whom the evidence seemed to be
in this case clear. Yet through the defectiveness of the statute, or the
remissness of the prosecuting attorney, he goes free, without even a trial,
to carry on his infamous traffic for other children. Grant that the points
were technically well taken and irresistible,--though this is by no means
certain,--it is very sure that there should be laws that should reach such
atrocities with punishment, whether the father does or does not consent to
his child's ruin; and that public sentiment should compel prosecuting
officers to be as careful in framing their indictments where human souls
are at stake as where the question is of dollars only. It is upon such
matters that the influence of women will make itself felt in legislation.