The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1870-03-02
Hanging for Murder.

IL seems to US that in determining the
question of the abolition Of capital punish.
ment for the crime of murder society ought
mostly to DO influenced by this one consider.
atom without the death penalty. viii there
or will there not be an increase in tho mum.
bor Of murders committcd2
This question cannot we'll be answered
satisfactorily. Capital punishment has no
where been abolished for any great length of
time; and even If dimnution of the mum Der
ofmurders has been recorded in those countries
where the punishment of crime by death has
been the longest prohibited by law, we can.
not be sure that the decrease is not owing 10
causes other than the non-existence of CAPT.
tai punishment.
Several recent crimes in this country bear
o. evidence that there is among US q large class
Of ruffans who can be deferred from the
most atrocious and horrible murder only by
the certainty and swiftness of retributive
death.
The case Of REYNOLDS, who was sentenced
In the Oyer and Termlner on Wednesday last
ss In point. Had he not believed, 10 quote his
vulgar expression, that hanging for murder
was played out" in New York, and had he
felt certain ofthe doom which should await his
crime, the hand that drove the knife TO the
heart of the unofIendnQ man who was his
victim would never have been raised to take
that life. For such a man rs REYNOLDS,
and for many Of those who, with faces still
moro vill0nous In their expression than was
that of the murderer himself, attended his
trial, sentence to prison for life has compa-
rativcly no terror. There a possibility of
escape always exist' But they do no. find
it 80 pleasant to think of themselves swing.
ing from the gallows.
An important element in capital punish
ment as preventive of crime is the swift
ness with which II follows upon conviction
and sentence. In Massachusetts,, until 70
Gently, murderer under sentence Of death
wns required by law TO be imprisoned for the
space of one year before execution. Last
year two young men named JAMES, who
were cousins, murdered and robbed gambler
at Worcester, in his rooms near the princi.
pal hotel in that city, where the college stu
S'hto NhAohE cNtlg NJ tlt TIME Ol INC
University boat race between Harvard and
Yale. They both were convicted; and when
sentenced, soon afterward, to be hanged within
short time, they expressed great surprise Mt
learning that the law 10 which we have re.
ferred had lately been repealed. No doubt
was entertained that they hoped to break
prison and escape during tie one years i'm
prisonment which they thought tho law pre-
scribed.
This murder at Worcester was committed
entirely for the sake of the money taken
from the murdered man and II is q remarka.
BILE circumstance that these two murdcrers.
while Mt Providence, r. l., just before going
10 Worcester, followed home a man whom
they knew to have with him a large sum of
money, late one evening, with the intention,
1t is supposed, Of killing and robbing him.
tall, burly Waterman, armed with pistol
and club, who knew them, accoeted them
and walked along with them until the man
who had the money wac safely in his house.
And in Rhode leland, where this occurred.
and where there is every reason to believe
that these fellows intended to commit the
murder if they could find an opportunity to
kill a man who had large amount Of
money upon his person, the death penalty is
abolished.
At all events, 80 long as capital punish
mcnt is known to the laws of the State Of
Nav York, let those who are convicted of
murder be executed within reasonable time
after sentence and not allowed TO remain
unhung so long that other villains may be
induced to take human life, under the i'm.
PRECISION that hanging for murder Is played
out in New York"