The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-01-23
SPIRIT or THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF TIE LRADNo JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIcs-CoMPILED BvRRY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
in .icipI Killing.

From The ". Y TRIBUNE.
An able summary OF reasons for abolshing
capital punishment is published in Pundm'S
Mdgdzine for February. We hope our present
Legislature, and the people aud press gene
rally, throughout this State at least, will
promptly give this matter the attention 1t de-
serves, by striking from the statutebook this
lingering relic OF barbsrism-the cool and de-
hberate killing of criminals by officers OF the
law. This custom has its rise in the same low
estimate of the value of human life which
constitutes savagery itself as distinguished
from civilization. We must not lose sight OF
the fact that legislatures, courts, and sheriffS
do not create justice; they only make law.
Eternal Justice, always mightier than the
law, denies that those who are powerless TO
confer life shall take it away, or that any
combination of men, or forms or teohnloantieS
Of statutes, or elections, or human WarraIIs'
can confer on one man, though he be styled
sheriff. the right to take the life OF anotheI,
whatever NAV have been his crime. 1t is still
brother against brother-Cain against Abel
whatever judicial forms precede the murder.
In the earlier and rude stages of society,
there was strong argument for taking human
life for great otfenses, because society was too
weak TO restrain its criminals. Its lack of
prisons, or of the means to make them eff
cient, compelled it either to slaughter its pri-
soners or to enslave them. But we have such
ample provisions for securing and reforming
criminals that 1t is wholly unnecessary TO kill
them. If we compare with our present state
the lack of prisons, jails, and the means OF
taking care of prisoners in the nomadic life OF
the ancient Jews, we must perceive that capi-
tai punishment, while necessary for the de-
tense of society then, is ruthless and useless
sacrifice of life now. The world has 80 out
grown the notion that punishment has ..some
merit or excellence in itself which demands its
infction without regard to its utility, or that
Justice, when violated by the taking of one
life, can in some my sterious way be vindicated
by taking another, that it seems like recogni-
zing the Inquisition as an existing evil to
argue against such phantasies. The wounds
of Justice only bleed afresh when staunched
with the blood of those who infict them.
judicial killing tends directly and only to
increase murder by individuals. Abolish the
gallows, and the most depraved are taught a
new lesson of the sacredness of life. Two
centuries ago, in England, l34 crimes, says
Blackstone, were punished with DEATH now,
we believe, but three. When society at large
held its lives so cheap, could individuals hold
them dearH Shall a part be greater than the
whole When society collectively holds the
taking of life for injuries against it to be a
religious duty, will society individually hold
the taking of life for individual injuries a
bestisl crime? When England held life to be
fifty times as cheap as now, Englishmen COM
mitted fifty times as many murders.
The abolition OF capital punishment IN
Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Mime
sofa has not made violent crimes more fire.
quent there, but less. In Arkansas or Texas,
where Judge Lynch cannot even wait for law
full court and jury, but hangs his supposed
culprit at the first tree, there are still twenty
murders to one hanging. However society
may make haste to shed blood, individual
will outstrip it in the race. Not so much fol
the sake of the criminal as for that of society
20 inOr fha Of 10 II
sacred from violence the mysterious incarna
tion of God in man which every human form
embodies, to educate our children in the faitl
that not even the horns Of the Altar of Refuge
were ever so sacred in the sight of God as tn,
fugitive life that clung to them, let us do ava,
with the death penalty. Let it follow afte
the stake, the rack, the wheel; after th'
cbain-gang, the slave-pen, and the auction
block; after the burnings, orgies, and tor
lures of the American savage; and let ou
children read of it with shudder, as one O
the CHASTITY, ghoulish horrors which went ou
with slavery.