and so arrange the circumstances that he can hardly escape their toils sometimes they appear in court as witnesses against him and swear the crime directly upon him a single legal work contains a list of one hundred cases in which men were hung for crimes which they were afterward proved entirely innocent of and for every such case there have doubtless been many wherein unwilling to take life where there was a possibility of innocence have given the prisoner the benefit of a very faint doubt and him had the penalty been im death by human law they would have convicted notwithstanding the e possibility of his innocence since any future in his favor through the of witnesses the clearing up of circumstances or the confession of the actual would at once lead to his and to an earnest effort by the community to repay him for his and suffering but choke the prisoner to death and any development in his favor is too late next year may prove him innocent beyond or doubt but of what avail is that to the victim over whose grave the young grass is growing and thus through the inexorable character of the death hundreds of the innocent suffer an and death while of thousands of the guilty escape any punishment by human law it a sympathy for the � we ought ever to be merciful toward the sinful and guilty remembering our own and ought to regard with a compassion those whom crime has doomed to suffer but the criminal is not a hero nor a martyr and should not be made to resemble one a crowd of ten to fifty thousand persons witnessing the of the law s just penalty on an and half of them sobbing and crying from sympathy for his fate is not a wholesome spectacle � far otherwise the impression it makes is not that of the majesty and divine of law � the and of justice thousands are hoping praying that a pardon may yet come � some will accuse the of cruelty and hardness of heart in it while this furnace of sighs is at red heat this tempest of sobs in full career the is swung off � a few faint many shudder more feel an acute shock of pain while the great mass to take a general drink some of them swearing that this hanging was a great shame � that the man did not really deserve hints toward it do you fancy the greater have and will profit by the intended lesson � but i do not care to pile argument on argument consideration on consideration in opposition to the in this day and section of putting men to death in cold blood by human law it seems to me a most and practice indeed the recent of our own with most if not all of the free states whereby are henceforth to take place in private or in the presence of a few select witnesses only seem clearly to admit the fact they certainly imply that are of no use as examples � that they rather tend to make than to reform those already when i see any business or and in dark lanes and little by streets which observation i conclude that those who follow such business feel at least doubtful of its utility and they may argue that it is a necessary evil but they can hardly put faith in their own logic when i see the bright array of many colored which formerly filled the post of honor in every tip top hotel now away into some and finally down into a dark out of the sight and knowledge of all but those who especially seek them i say good for so much one and they will be � where they should be � out of sight and reach altogether � so when i see the gallows once the of some swelling eminence the of ten thousand eyes the observed of all and hiding itself from public view in jail yards shutting itself up in i say you have taken the right road go ahead one more drive and your detested is out of the sight of civilized man for ever land land reform the rights of man � his natural rights as man � have become in our day the theme of general and earnest discussion we find little of this in the world s early ages and their enduring monuments � in or or � in or the so called of ancient or more modern limited only since met the crisis of our struggle with those brief vigorous essays which brought the whole philosophy of government into the strong clear sunlight of common sense � only since the truths so into the declaration of our independence � have the rights of man been considered and discussed and when and the continental proclaimed in tones to which the world however unwilling has been compelled to listen that all men are created equal and that among the rights with which their creator has endowed them are those of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness they uttered truths of whose fullest import even they were not clearly conscious and whose ultimate influences on human well being and destiny no man can even yet conceive let us consider their bearings on the newly agitated land question � on the right of man to the soil the earth s surface undoubtedly contains good land enough to give to every family in existence a farm of ample dimensions even though all the or portions of the globe were left utterly but of the one thousand millions of human beings who are supposed to be in existence what proportion j y o p hints toward to any soil except that with which their lifeless bodies are finally covered what proportion are at liberty to obey god s command six days shalt thou 