The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-02
SPIRIT OF Exzn PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
upon Current Topics Compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.

THE LITERATURE OF THE GALLOWS.
From the NJ Y. Tribune.
There was a time when the last dying
speeches aud confessions ot homicides aud OF
highwaymen we're composed 10 order by the
garreteers of Grub street, aud were hawked
about the alloys Of London for penny The
gentleman who was awaiting the expiatory
hemp had better business on hand than
rhetoric and penitence for, like Mr.. Jonathan
Wild, he might be drinking punch with the
chaplain and he was not unlikely to advance
to his fate with large nosegay in his button
hole and with a free and easy swagger which
won the admiration of all beholders. But
executions, considered merely as exhibitions,
have, in our time, greatly degenerated. Our
system affords to the wretches who suffer
under it but limited chance of dramatic dis
play. It's but i'll playing game to sheriff's
posse in Jail yard; it cannot be very exhila-
rating to hold long palavers with the news
paper reporters; and the spiritual adviser,
good man, is, no doubt, often considered q
portentous bore. But one thing, if supplied
with pen and ink and paper, the moribund
prisoner can do-he can write letters with
reasonable assurance that they will find their
way into the public journals, and achieve for
him surviving notoriety, however short.
We have, in our time, read hundreds of
these valedictory epistles but we admit that
we have never read anything more curious
than his last letter sent to his father, mother,
brothers and sisters, by Nicblas, who was
executed at Little Valley, N Y, on the 18th
of March. This production is, indeed,
most singular mixture of pathos and
profanity; there is not wanting the usual
and conventional expressions of spiritual
comfort and certainty, which good men have
wrestled for years to achieve, and wrestled
in vain; while every now and then breaks out
the savage instinct of a beast howling for a
revenge of which he has been thwarted. "Oh,
dearest mother" writes Nicklas in one
sentence, ''my heart is full of pain and sor-
row these lonely hours of approaching death"
This Is promising but the promise is broken
in the very next lines. "But it is not" the
prisoner hurries to add, sit is not Sheriff
Cooper that is going to take my life; it is
the miserable hound of a murderer, dirty
thief, and scandal of humanity, and pretends
to be Christian man. If he don't go to -
there will not anybody, the murderer and
lying dog" Instantly follows: :-"Oh, dear
mother, don't cry. Don't put no sorrow in
will soon meet the angels in heaven, and
be saved for ever" We pause to ask all
theologians, whether they be dogmatic
or mystic, and whatever may be the
views which they hold of future state of ex-
istence, what they consider to be the precise
value of the faith in his own triumphant sal
walton entertained by this unhappy man? At
best, it seems to be only the coarse, material
faith of the barbarian who promises himself
in the next world succession of endless and
intensified physical enjoyments-a faith quite
compatible with every unholy and unclean
passion which can defile the human heart-a
faith which does not comprehend even the sim
plest clements of the Christian scheme. Here
is a man going out of the world, denouncing
fellow creature as "a miserable hound and
Ga dirty dog" and in the same breath de-
claring that ''he will soon meet the angels in
Heaven, and be saved forever" If it were
not 80 serious, it would be little humorous;
as it is, the comedy is rather grim. We do
not say that it brings the most inspiring and
the dearest of our convictions into disrepute;
but we do say emphatically that it insults
them by low parody of familiar but revored
formulas, and by the presumption that such
convictions are compatible with the most ig.
noble appetites. 81 have saved my SOUL
writes Theodore Nicklas. No doubt, no fear
none of those lingering distrusts which might
disturb the ultimate moments of the best. 81
go, he continues ''to world of everlasting
Happiness But want this put il
the papers, that all the people may know
that = is dirty thief. 1 shal
have to leave this world of sorrow and &C
into everlasting Happiness. Goo
will soon take - out of this world, tn,
dirty dog" But we are sick of these cta
tions. If there be blasphemy in them, it il
not ours. If there be in them a dreadful
debasement of human nature, the fault may
be attributed to the society which failed Il
make this man something better. But i
there be in them, instead of well-grouudeC
religious faith and rational religious ideas
instead of the humility which BELTS
Christian and the forgiveness of injuries
without which Christian cannot be, instea
of all these, only heathenish notions an
vague Impressions, and a faith lower than tn
lowest kepticsm-whose fault is it? Wha
guides led Nicklas into this miry ditch O
moral suffocation?
Whoever they were, we are not writing t
censure them, and much less are we incline
to sneer at them. The law having advised
culprit at bar to make his peace with God
the work of the unfortunate clergyman con
mences. And what work he is expected i
few short weeks to do! He is to make cea
soul begrimed by the vices of lifetime
and full of leprosies acquired and congenita
He is to cause this blind man to see, this de-
man to hear, these lips upon which curs
are native to utter fervent and humble al
effectual prayers. What wonder if, whe
these miracles are demanded of him, the ma
OF God shrinks appalled, from labors whiC
would have appalled, the heather Hercules,
other than physical tasks had been assignC
him. What wonder if 'the spiritual advise
resorts to conventionaities; and when the
is no other hope trusts to Heaven for mere
and, SO far as this world is concerned, tax
refuge in stereotyped forms.
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