Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1846-04-25

! J
horrcnce, no seriousness nothing but
ribaldry. debauchery, leyity, drunken
ness, and Haunting vice in fifty other
shapes. | should have deemed it i'm
possible that could have ever felt any
large assemblagc of my fellow-crea-
lures to be SO odious. | hoped, for an
instant, that there was some sense of
Death and Eternity in the cry of Hats
off !" when the miserable wretch ap-
Ipeared but | found, next moment,
that they emily raised it as they would
at Play-to see the Stage the better
in the final scene.
Of the effect upon perfectly differ
ent class, | can spcek with no less con-
| idence. There were, with me, some
gentlemen of education and distinction
in imaginative pursuits, who had, as |
had, a particular detestation of that
murderer not only for the cruel decd
he had done, but for his slow and sub
tie treachery, and for bis wicked de-
fence. And yet, if any one among us
could have saved the man 1--WE said so,
afterwards, with one accord, he would
have done it. 1t was SO Ioathsome,
pitifnl, and vile sight, that the law
appeared to be as bad as he, or worse :,
being very much the stronger, and she'd
ding around it far more dismal con-
ltagion.
The last Of the influences of this
punishment on society, which shall
notice in the present letter, is, that
through the prevalent and fast-increas-
ing feeling of repugnance to it, great
offenders escape with very inadequate
visitation. Only a few weeks have
elapsed since the streets of London
presented the obscene spectacle of a
woman being brought out TO be killed
before such a crowd as | have de-
scribed, and, while her young body
was yet hanging in the brutal gaze, OF
portions of the concoursc hurrying
away, to be in time to see man hang
ed elsewhere, by the same executioner.
A barbarous murderer is tried soon af-
terward, and acquitted on fiction Of
his being insane-as any one, cogniz-
ant of these two recent executions,
might have easily foreseen.
will not enter upon the question
whether juries be justified or not jusii-
fled in cvading their oaths, rather than
add to the list of such deeply degrad-
ing and dcmoralizing exhibitions, and
sanction the nAiction of a punishment
which they coascientiously believe,
and have so many reasons for believ-
ing, to be wrong. 1t is enough for me
that iuries do so and | presume to
think that the able writer Of power
ful article on Johnstone's trial in the
Daily News, does not sufficiently con-
slider that this is no new course in
jurics, but the natural result and work
ing of law to which the general
feeling is opposed. Mr.. Abercrombie,
five-and-thirty years ago, stated it in
the House Of Commons to have be-
come a common practice Of jurors, in
cases Of Forgery, to find verdicts 1" con-
.rary to the clearest and most indisput-
able evidence of facts J" and cited the
case of a woman who was proved to
have stolen ten pound note, which
the jury, with the appreciation of the
Judge, found to be worth only thirty
nine shilling. Sir Samuel Romily, in
the same debate, mentioned other cases
of the same nature and they were of
frequent and constant occurrence at
that time.
Beside-that juries have, within our
own time, in another class of cases,
arrived at the general practice of re-
turning verdict tacitly agreed upon
beforehand, and of making it applica-
BILE to very different sets of facts, we
know by the notable instance of Sui
eide. Within few years, iuries fire.
quently found that man dying by his
own hand, as guilty of self-murder.-
But this verdict subjecting the body TO
a barbarous mode of burial, from which
the better feeling of society reyolted
las it is now revolving from the punish
ment of DEATH it was abrogatcd by
common consent, and precisely the
same evasion established as is now, un-
fortunately, so often resorted TO in cases
OF murder. That it is an evasion, and
not a proceeding on soundly proved
and established principle, that he who
destroys his own life must necessarily
be mad-the very exceptions from this
usual course in themselves demon.
strate.
So it is 10 case of Murder. Juries,
Ike society, are not stricken foolish
Or rnntirnlcss Their hive fnr the