The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1860-07-08

republicans tell us what they propose to do with
the four millions of negroes in the Southern
States after they have set them free by habeas
corpus?
The EXECUTION OF HARDEN-A LAMENTABIE
SPEcrACLE.-It is customary with the provincial
press to reproach the city of New York
with its immortality, to represent any violence,
disorder or crime which may occur among its
rowdy class in the most heinous light, and to
picture the metropolis as united Sodom and
Gomorrah-a terror to the peaceful jewellers In
the rural districts. But a spectacle was wit
messed on Friday in the little village of Belvi-
dere, New Jersey, nesting in the very heart of
beauteous country, where one would suppose
the softer and finer feelings of human nature
might be nurtured, and that insensibility to
emotion which the Generalization of a great
city 80 often generates might be unknown
a spectacle was witnessed In that village on
Friday last which New York, or perhaps no
city in the Union, ever did or ever could pre-
sent-a scene calculated to shock the feelings
that human beings anywhere within the reach
Of Christian civilization could be so utterly lost
to sense of that decency and solemnity with
which, even among savage tribes, death is in
vested.
We refer to the scandalous occurrences which
took place at the execution of Harden around
the Court House at Belvidere. The chronicles
of Newgate and the Old Bailey, in the British
metropolis, furnish many melancholy examples
of human degradation, and the depth to which
the hearts of men and women can sink in the
slough of corruption. The orgies around the
gibbet have there been commenced at mid
night, the eager participants, men, women and
children, awaiting the dawn to welcome the
horrible spectacle, and vice and crime have
piled their trade in every shape, amid jests and
blasphemy in the presence of death itself.
tnat happily in American cities such scenes
are never witnessed. However desperate the
criminal, or however losthful the crime, the
people accept the infection Of the penalty as
vindication Of the law; and, though curiosity
may gather its hundreds in the vicinity of the
place of execution, the victim is permitted to
suffer in peace-if peace come to him upon the
scaffold-unmocked and unmolested by the
coarse jests, the heartless jeers and discordant
laughter of vulgar crowd. Women, even Of
the lowest class, rarely If ever present them
selves on these occasions, and children only
when they belong to q class over which parental
care or guardianship of any kind exercises no
control.
But how different was the scene In this little
interior village of New Jersey! Except in the
vicious character of those comprising the Lon
don mob who beset Newgate and the Old
Bailey, the comparison between them and those
who assembled to witness the execution of Har-
den would perhaps tell In favor of the former.
Ribald jests and vulgar epithets were banded
about from one to another; coarse mirth seemed
to vie with eager curiosity in characterizing the
scene, and the wretched victim actually stepped
from life to death-from the vigor of youthful
manhood into the shadow of the grave-with
shoughts Of laughter ringing in his ears, which
drowned the last prayer To God upon his lips
for mercy.
Women were there to gloat over the pangs
of a man whose evil and uncontrolled passions
sent one of their sex to an untimely grave; and
Chhuicu upou WuoSe younB nouES mat scfno
Of mingled agony and Dissertation will leave
scar for many day TO come. But perhaps one
Of the most revolving features Of the ease, and
one that speaks painfully of a vindictiveness
which neither age nor respectability could
quench, was the request of the father of Har-
denis wife to be permitted to witness the exc
cution of the laws vengeance. One would
suppose that the old man had had communion
enough with death already, and that the know
ledge that his unhappy daughter was avenged
would have suficed 10 close up the pages Of
that dismal tragedy.
Thank God, such lamentable scenes as this
are never witnessed even In our largest cities.
1t was reserved for the rustic community of
country village to present an example of human
degradation which outrages every conceived
idea of the simplicity Of a rural population, and
puts TO shame the worst manifestations of the
vice and hardheartedness Of metropolis.