New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-14
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EXTREME PENALTY 0E The LAW
Death Punishment for Murder
THE EXECUTIONS YESTERDAY

punity, owing to the lax administration o
the law, amounting to an absolute encOur
agement for the perpetrators of violen
offenses against human life. We do not fo
one moment subscribe to the sentiment
IIor popuH, ror Del; for while the law O
God most unequivocally asserts the lei
taioniS, that the penalty of murder is death
to the murderer, the ror popuH has, for the
last several years, invested the murderer
with a species of tender, sentimental 70
nance that thoroughly serves, in some por
ton of the way between the deed of blood
and the expiation of the gallows-tree, to
arrest the course of justice, and in many
cases to let the murderer once more loose
upon society, that he may commit more
crime, encouraged by the ease with which
the consequences of the last outrage were
| evaded
For the well-being of society it is hoped,
and with good reason, that all this has
come to an end-that hereafter Justice will
assert her sway, and the offender against
law will undergo the penalty which law
assigns to crime. We cannot resist the
conclusion that such is the reaction of pub
lie sentiment in regard to visiting the crime
OF murder with the extreme penalty of the
law-death; such is the feeling that society
must take thoroughly efficacious means to
protect itself, that hereafter murderers will
find it as difficult to evade the law as they
have for years past found it easy to escape
the consequences of bloodshed.
The execution of BayOnna and Abriel,
which took place yesterday morning be-
tween the hours of ten and twelve o'clock,
is, we confidently hope, the inauguratory
indication that hereafter murder and blood
shed will not stalk abroad with impunity
We suppose that the public of New Or
leans will remember the circumstances of
the crime for which Bayonna and AbrieI
suffered the extreme penalty of the law
yesterday morning. There was nothing of
the romantic about it, nothing to remind
one of " Rinaldo Rlnaldo," the assassin
who attempted to guild foul crime with the
dignity of danger. 1t was a very common
place murder, as much so as the act of
butcher who sticks pig or cuts the throat
of a steer for a consideration. They simply
assailed Milanese sailor named Ambrose,
assailed him in most cowardly manner
two to one-and while one held him (help-
less in his surprisel the other inflicted a
number of murderous stabs. and then they
threw him in the river.
For this murder they were arrested, ar
raigned, tried, convicted and sentenced to
death, and yesterday, in pursuance of the
rather tardy CUBE rnatorlal death-warrant,
they suffered punishment on the gallows for
their crime.
The consideration for which these mis-
creants committed awful murder was less
than fifteen dollars. All the imagination
with which Cooper invested his "Red Ro-
yer" or Byron gilded his respondent cut
Threats could not invest with dignity the
crime, as mean as wicked, for which these
unmitigated assassins were hung by the
neck until they were dead.
AS soon as the death warrant had been
announced, large interest was excited in
the men whose lives were thus to be cut
short by the course of law, and visitors, all
who could obtain admittance. were by no
means few and far between.
We have already reported the incidents of
interviews with the condemned men, what
they said, and how they looked; and we
have also noted the gallows, so often de-
scribed. 1t is not necessary to repeat all
this.
We arrived at the Parish Prison few
minutes after 9 A. NJ. There had been very
numerous applications for admission to see
the sight. The majority of these had been
necessarily rejected, but still there were a
large number of spectators present, enough
to fill the courtyard in which the execution
took place. We suppose that, besides the
officials, there were at least three hundred |
persons present.
During the previous night large portion |
of the time had been occupied in the offices |
of devotion. The Sisters of Mercy had |
men, but who, at the call of religious duty,
subdued the natural feminine shrinking
from the terrible, and performed the sad
office of preparing for the grave those
whose crimes had brought them to violent
death. There had been a solemn mass per-
formed at eight o'clock on Friday evening.
and after that the devotional exercises were
carried on by several pious gentlemen,
members of the Society OF st. Vincent de
Paul, who have devoted a portion of the
line that God had allotted to them on earth
o visiting the prison and succoring the
Ick and %distrpssed T'hesa UentIamau
whose names we withhold in Difference TO
heir wishes, passed the night in the con-
lemned cell. The Rev. Father Eberhardt
md Rev. Father Smulders were also with
he prisoners almost unremittingly, and at
later hour they were joined by Father
;OlOnel. ano ther member of the Order of
The prisoners were also indebted to the
ind offices of Madame Marie Laveaux, an
ged woman who, with her grand children,
rovided the chapel adjoining the con-
emned cell with the appropriate symbols
pertaining to the altar of the Catholic
hurch.
This good Christian woman, who has
cen enormously described by portion of
he press as ''VOudOu priestess,' is i'll
4ality devOut and acceptable member of
he Catholic communion, and has for forty
ears devoted herself to Christian minis
ations for those whom the law has con
emned to die.
There was also a German lady present,
sident in the neighborhood, whose kind
IaaI 10 NIT eli |