New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1860-03-27
NUMBER 10.
DooMED TO DEATH.
BY A JAIL CHAPLAIN.

Not very long subsequent to the time when the
pllfering Of loaf of bread by starving fingers was
heid deserving Of death by the bloody statute book
Of Great Britain, and when Burglary ,rds Death,
and Forgery tsds Death, equally with Murder, and
Wnen Murder, by consequence, was three times
more rife than IT is now was chaplain to county
JAM, was not resident there. nor even bound to
be there regularly, as would now be the case, ex-
cept on the Sunday; but was called in when any
| one was lying under the capital sentence-with six
| days left TO him or her in this world at the fur
| thest-aimost along with the sheriff and the execu
| tioner. was, as il were, the shadow Of the gal
lows.tree, and predieated its approach surely, If
not, as humbly hope, SO darkiy and despairingiy.
/ Nevertheless it is far harder than some persons
/ would have us imagine to make a doomed man
4 take trustful view Of that dark gulf which lies
| so Immediately before him.
4 When man is ever so ILL., death is not ce,tdi,s
and often with all bis large and genuine accept
ancc OF religious conversation he still keeps pri-
vate corner of his heart for earthly hope. Since
4 Providence, as we tell him, and he allows, is SO
merciful and omnipotent, Providence, says he, can
i save body as well as soul. When soldier or
| sailor volunteers upon service, however danger
/ ous, he has q secret expectation Of coming out
| alive from it after all. Far be it from me--who
| have stood by a hundred death beds, and know
| well that death is met, in the large majority of
! courage of my fellow-creatures; but / do affirm
that the hope of e-that is, the chance of its not
| being extinguished-is far more necessary to the
4 doing of great deeds than poor boastfu human ma
ture is apt to own. The heroic acts that have been
performed at great risk by the nobest of our fell
| low creatures, are numberless; the heroic acts
that have been performed with death for their cer
i tain end are exceedingly rare; and the greater
| part of those will be found to have been an
4 ticipatons Of doom-f death had not been forced
to make his spring. he was lying in wait, and sure
i of his prey in any case.
Thus the thoughts of almost every man con-
4 demned to die by the law are taken up with, and
concentrated upon, the hope Of reprieve. Not
Wlthstanding that N many cases the doomed per-
son Is ready to admit the justice of his sentence
although have my doubts whether there is much
genuine candor in that statement, and am of opin-
ion that it is commonly made with some dim,
pteous notion of exciting commseration, and
eventually pardon-yet, it being in the power Of
his brother-men to save his life, the taking Of it
seems to him to be an action absolutely monstrous
and Incredible. That the prison authorities, the
government, the nation, the whole world, should
quietly suffer him to be led out under the open sky,
and in the face Of great multitude to be put to
death-to be hung by the neck till he is dead-ap-
pears to him not only revolving, but (although he
knows it has happened to hundreds Of others be-
fore him) a thing utterly ineonceivable. He shuts
his eyes to the fate awaiting him, as long he can
almost always up to the last night he has to live
very often up to the moment when he sets his foo
upon the scaffold ITSELF believe that, in the ma
nate wretch are directed to this one impossible at
tempt of gaining reprieye. ] mistrust, for tn,
most part am sorry to say, even his willing ac
ceptance of my good offices-of my fervent en-
matters. " More Important" thinks he Wha
can be more important to a man than the question
of whether he is to die on Monday, Tuesday, to
morrow, in an hour, perhaps-or whether he Is to
live?n
. / fear ! shall shock many worthy persons who
read this sitting by their fresides with crayai
round their necks instead Of rope, when say thai
this state Of mind in condemned persons is not out
rageous, nor to be greatly Reproduced. Felons, as
general rule, uneducated, irrellglous, wicked
folks, who have never thought do not say Of the
Great Hereafter, but - of anything whatever be-
yond the qualification of some mean and present
desire. Within the limit Of six days. it would be
difficult indeed for the best directed efforts to alter
to reverse such natures; but when, in addition thu
minds of those with whom we have to deal are pre-
occupied with one Overwhelming terror, mad,
! darker by the intervals of frenzied hopes til,
iqnes fdtui of reprieve-our task is arduous in
deed. say nothing of its painful and affecting ma
ture of the watching of the il-concealed ankle
! ! ties, the trembling expectations fated to end i
! disappointment, the useless fiutterings of tn
tethered bird. If it rested with jailchaplains
! there would certainly be no more capital punish
! ments. 1t may be urged and perhaps with reason
that we not quite fitted to be judges Of such
!, matter, nor do wish to argue the question here
. only let no man imagine that !" an eye for an eye
and tooth for tooth " is the measure that is &C
/ corded to the Murderer; that we do but unto hir
as he has done unto his fellow. He did not tell hi
victim that he should surely die at the end OF Gel
tain number of days and at certain hour, ant
q keeping him shut up until that hour then carry OF
|
a doomed man dies sometimes five hundred death
II There is no such thing as man being game
3 then whatever may happen in the last scene OF al
when there are thousand rnftian hands to appau
~ his assumed fortitude.
!; The iailor who is always in the condemned ce
Is to guard against the poor wretch laying violel
Il hands upon himself, is not appreciatye Of an
Il such display; and though an atheists laugh
+ + may be some exchange for Deity offended u I
y man alone and without that hideons sympath
70 will defy God. have seen doomed men in almo
n every disposition Of mind, sunk in the stupor
b despair, graceless furious, malignant and even
rare cases affectedly jocose (by far the most pal
20 full sight of any1 but in their own cells and aol
Il with myself and the jailor have never known ol
~ to be what is called game, nor, as before sal
y have ever known-upon looking back upon
u the circumstances, although may have been d
i, ceiyed at the time-one doomed person not
~ times buoyed up by secret or expressed hope
II escaping his fate. There We're two cases OF th
n kind in the jail wherein Offciated, which, comir
s under my notice at precisely the same period, e.
of hibited singular dversities.
~ :, Mary B--was condemned to death for the mu
4 der, by poison of her own sister, for whose hu
a. band she had conceived guilty passion Thel
al was no doubt Of her having committed the Grim
At at or of her having deserved the punishment. 81
n | had, when first saw her. nearly week to live,
NJ being about that time to the ensuing Monday. 81
told me, in our first interview, OF how many mi
utes that space consisted-for she had been allows
pencil, with which CLOSELY watched lest 81
should swallow it) she had made the calculation
Gi2tG uTE flNIltiEft uN6t tt6tIuy gone
she whispered with shudder, when Itook my fir
leave of her.
he The female jailer told me that during this po
. creatures last two or three days, whenever Il
great jail clock struck the hour overhead, she won
SIS scream like one in pain; and upon waking in t
mornings, would ask with eagerness what time
was, and then hemoan herself that she had sic
SO late. Those hours-passed in miserable ce
- shut out from any sight of the green earth, Gor
e er was mdJuly) and almost every sound, except til
eIy of the hum of the town beneath up thither
90 remind her of the world with which she was new
" more to mix-must surely have been wretched
I deed and yet her cry was, q Oh, that they mig
iss be again ~ Notwithstanding her evident agony
Y the thoughts Of her approaching end, she actual
"A attempted to anticipate it by some twenty.fo
m hours by suicide rather, think, she pretend
ss S to attempt it, with some faint notion that such
le evidence of her utter misery might procure
IS pardon for these miserable persons always imag
s Tj in their frensied terror, that the Governor,
St Chaplain nay, the very jailor himself, has pov
~ in the matter, and could get them off, or at le
ne respited, il he pleased. How often, when BIZ
Il. been leaving some poor wreteh's cell with
- comfortable hope that what had been so greed
J listened to by the ear may have taken root in
Nc heart also, have been suddenly made consci
nd nd of the real motive that had actuated my unhaI
on convert, by his pluekng my sleeve, and whisper
in tone Of heartfelt earnestness which there
MT, no installing:
8 50" And you will tell them that am penit