Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1857-02-17

man was discovered alive, and that elevated
class of persons who throng about an execu
ton were disappointed of their expected graft
ication. Every county in the State of New
York has had at least one such case. And at
one Of the assizes in England, six persons,
afterwards discovered TO be innocent, were
executed together. SmolIett gives an instance
where the real murderers embraced their in
noeent substitute on the scaifold, and helped
to usher him to eternity
O'Sullivan's report to the N. Y. Legislature
gives the best summary of this class of deln-
sons-a specimen Of which. l think, your
crowded columns can favor me by inserting.
Groans have been heard from a chamber:
man is detected bending over dead corpse, a
lantern in his left had, in his right knife
dripping with blood: his face is horror-strck-
en-: his answers hesitating his previous char
acter suspicious: wears after the terrible
sentence OF the law has been inflicted, it is
proved that he was only the earliest spectator
OF the deed of blood and that the knife was
drawn forth by him from the wound which
one OF the witnesses against his own life had
made. A father is found murdered in an
outbu!lding suspicion rests on a prohgate
SON with whom he had quarreIled the son
would gain almost fortune by getting the
old man out of the way {; his hammer is
found, blood stained his shoes fit the
tootprintssn the snow what could be asked
more What protestations would turn the
gulf stream of public wrath away from his
doomed head? In the southwest he would
have been lynched at once. Long years after,
his unnatural sister confessed the contriYed
scheme of removing two persons who blocked
up her path to independence and comparative
wealth.
Two men are seen fighting in field, old
enemies are they; by and by one is found
dead, and near by is the stained pitchfork of
his deadly foe these treacherous appearances,
aided by the threats which had been over
heard, and the excited manner OF the suspect.
ed man, are enough: no one could have
imagined that the real criminal was amongst
the jury who so promptly brought in the YER
dict of guilty. The innkeeper has been
charged by his own servants with the death
Of traveller; one swears to having seen him
burying the victim money in the garden
before daylight; of course the money is found
atthe indicated spot, and of course the gibbet
closes the scene, TO the relief of several wit
nesses, who were the Gnsuspected criminals!
Last of all, father and daughter are over
heard in angry dispute; she screams out
cruelty, death, &C.. by and by low groans
are heard, and a stream of blood is seen to
issue from her locked up chamber. Who but
her father could have laid her low in death
Who else was known to wish her out of life
who else had any facility not to say motive,
for Fastening her last hour? and, who upon
earth would have suspected that this was
nothing else than the act of a suicide, intend
ing, perhaps, TO bring the utmost misery upon
a hated parent?
Now, it seems to me it must be cold COM
fort to wave national flag over the grave of
one judieially murdered, as is sometimes
done; end miserable retort to argue that if
the penitentiary were submitted for hanging,
all the earth could not make amends for one
year of unmerited incarceration [ cannot
understand this. Every other injury can be
atoned for save the taking of an innocent life;
it is absurd to speak of compensation for that
Public honor may wake up Tor temporary
disgrace. A handsome maintenance for life
may wash out the memory of temporary de-
prIvation. Others have, like the Apostles,
made prison walls echo back the cheerful balm
eff heroic foTtitude; but, the scaffold has no
such roseate hue of hope, no mitigating cir
cumstauce, nothing but lifelong disgrace for
for ones friends, and intense agony for ones
self. And SO | close with the words of Mr..
Livingston, no maudlin apologst for crimes
or criminals
"Ihe innocent have suffered the death of
the guilty; the innocent will suffer- The
horrible truth stares us in the face. We can
not evade it. l have witnessed more than
one condemnation which would be reversed
were the sufferers within reach of mercy,
And, did no other cogent reason exist this
alone would make me hail it, abolition as an
event so honorable to any country aid SO con-
soling to humanity as to be eheaply purchased
by the labor of a life"