The Express.
London, England, 1860-04-10 00:00:00

PETTED MURDERERS.

In referring to the proceedings preliminary
to the execution at Bedford of Jana Cagle, be
the murder of his wife, the isrffeed Mawr, says e
We publish the details forlekramee doalteks
tastagainet the treatment
murderer experienced at the hands Ttholt"Y. wises
tody he was placed It is long since we have read
so thoroughly disgusting as the record of the daily
this petted inmate of • condemned cell. We have ahoy,
been opponents of the punishment of death, on the ground
that it is unauthorised, brutal, brutalising, and undone ;
but if we had ever looked with favour on the gallows as a
social defence or • moral teacher, our faith in ite edlesey
would have been shattered by the arguments which aro pes-
seated in the treatment of Castle. Here was • min coevided
of the murderof his wife under eircunistances of extreme atro-
city. The crime was not the result of sudden passion : the
murdered woman was not struck down by an angry Wow
which did injury beyond the intent of him who delivered
it ; nor weir the crime regretted. The murder was dabs
rate, premeditated ; and from the time of its conusimica
to the last moment of life the law allowed him the mur-
derer had no thought except for himself. While he bed
yet days to live, he was only intent on what he should alit
and drink, and selfishly and morosely sensitive if the
pleasures his sensual appetite demanded were not famished
on the instant, and without objection. Even when his
sands were nearly run out, and while the hammer was yet
ringing upon the bolts of the gallows, he was solicitous ante
about himself. He had no regret., and experienced no re-
pestence, so far as the report discloses. For hiss=
sleeping the sleep of death in the bloody
he had wrought for her with guilty hands, he
had no sorrow. She seems rarely to have occurred
I. his mind ; and the heinousness of his guilt
appears to have been wholly unfelt. He grew restless Us-
wards the last, but give utterance to the language of tenor
rather than of yid and self-abasement. But this phase
pawed away, sad when the hour appointed for the execu-
tion drew so neer that the unexpired minutes might be
molly counted, and the decent feeling of the °facials wog-
'sited that the man who was appointed to die should be
roomed from his slumbers to confront the awfulness of
loo.position—the murderer petitioned for • little more
slp ke thesssi.* ores his saaind "
is not for us to question that in his Wert moments
better thoughts were given to him ; or that hope, who
never Mrs her golden gates, opened them to him fis
his extremity—if perchance the self-seeking man, de
the dread tumult of the death-hour, sought pease
through repsetarice. Our object is—without repeat-
ing the recital which appears elsewhere—to indicate
the fact that throughout his imprisonment and
after his condemnation, Castle was brutally sensual, and
selfishly indifferent to everything except the gratification
of his appetite, and to his own personal danger; and that it
was upon this man the officials of the gaol lavished their
sympathy
and regards in such • manner as to make con-
demnation to death rather a thing to be desired than
avoided by that class of morbid egotists which furnishes ne
with murderers and suicides. It naturally suesesta itself
to one's mind as most proper in the case of a murderer that,
after his condemnation, whether he he sentenced to be
hung or to be imprisoned, as little notice should be taken of
him as possible. He should receive the prison allowance of
food, and the visits of the chaplinn. For all else he
had better be kept out of sight and out at
Wad. It is utterly revolting that • man con-
victed of the worst of crimes should be feasted and petted,
tai his mind is overwhelmed with • sense of his own
importanos. There is no conceivable reason why we should
feel more interest in the murderer than in the pickpocket,
whom we relentlessly consign to hard fare, the treadwheel,
and forgetfulness—really nothing, except the fact that he
is doomed to die. That probably is the explanation, and In
itself constitutes a strong argument against a punishment
which devel men in • gaoler, the kind of sympathy
which boardops,echool girls used to feel for the villains of
the sickly romances they read. But while the penalty
of death remains, let us summon to our assistance
enough of common sense, if not of hardness, to carry the
law into effect with as much dignity and decency as is
possible under the circumstances. Let us cease to
fatten

murderers for the gallows as oxen for
market, and to conciliate their humours by them
the option of reset fowl, or beef and plum-p . Jus-
tice should be stern, though not cruel ; and she makes one
doubt whether she be not • counterfeit,when she unites the
functions of the restaurateur with those of the executioner.
Certainly, much harm is done by the imprudent sympathy
of her minister for those whom she has doomed to die the
death ; and, perhaps, the Beechwood tragedy, so closely
following on the heels of the disclosures of the discipline
observed in the county gaol at Bedford, may to some extent
have been caused by them. To desperate men, foiled in
their unlawful pursuits, and with the fear of • renewal of
vulgar imprisonment before them, the honours accorded to
Castle, and the observation concentrated upon him, may
have been too powerful • provocative to crime, which being
as henious, ought be regarded as entitling them to equal
indulgence, and to a similar ovation.

WIFOLDIALZ SWINDLING a? YORIL—At the sea-
mless held at York, an Saturday, a man, who gave his
aims keep►k Cockhill, was indicted for having obuined, by
fs spefaeam,ofMr.Taylor, cabinet maker, oftheabovecity,
larly NM worth of furniture. The circumstances of this case
are of a peculiar character. The prisoner took ► house to Hold-
gatelane, in the suburbs of York, and applied to the prose-
cutor for some furniture. On that occasion he represented
himself as the brother of the postmaster at Sunderland,
said he was a supercargo, and was in the re-
ceipt of 1,0001 a year, independent of mom pro.
pert,' of which his wife was possessed. He also alleged
that he had some furniture coining from Brixton, is
Surrey. It was on there representations that the allega-
tion of the false pretence was founded, and it was esti-
factorily proved that all his statements were untrue.
Soon after be had got possession of the furniture he sold
a portion of it, and took the rest to Hull, where he was
apprehended after attempting to take a revolver from his
pocket for the of preventing hi capture. It
seemed that in December and January last not osly had
several tradesmen in Sheffield and Leeds been honoured
with the patronage of the prtwner, but that previously the
good people of Salford had been favoured with a visit from
him. The jury found bim guilty, and he was sentenced to
12 months• hard labour.

MANCHETrad., SHIFYIZLD, kith LENCOLNSHIRS
Raitmar.— The total expenses of this company's railways,
including rents, tolls, duty, Ice., from Jan. Ito April 1,
1860, amounted to 76,48.11., as against 70,8851. for the cot,
responding period of 1859. The proportion of the South
Junction receipts &owning to this company from Jan. 1 to
April 1 amounted to 5.9624, as against 5,7411. for the
correspooding period of 1859, and the expenses to 2,9061. se
against 3,190/.
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