New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-10-27
THE CASE OF WILSON,.

One word of common sense rs to this man
Wilson, before his case, ending at the gallows
but little more than O week ago, is utterly
forgotten. One of tho best uses they can make
of o man in ew-Engand, apparently, is to
hang him. After keeping Wilson for months
for the qualification of curious psychologists,
az naturalists impale q beetle on pin,
they carry him in q dying condition to the
gallOws. He was a burglar and liar-granted;
but nobody can read his story impartially
without seeing traces of heroic elements in
tho man-courage, endurance, o morbid sense
of justice. We confess we see but little evil
dence of the last in the treatment he
has received from his captors. The man
was, Justly enough sentenced to sixteen years
imprisonment, and, we are tolds naturally
determined on some desperate deed"
More naturally, it appears to us, he tried
to make his captivity as endurable as
possible, and complained that the pris-
oners were starved, fed on rotten potatoes
and tainted meat. The Warden refused to
allow him to see the Directors; threatened
him with solitary confinement in damp cell,
as strong as iron and stone could make it, for
the remaining fourteen years. Whereupon,
after one or two hopeless attempts, Wilson
killed the keeper.
Common sense would indicate that no man
already in cell would put the moose around
his neck for no cause whatever. But suOh is
| the hypothesis of the Connecticut judge and
jury. They absolutely refused to look into
the management of the prison to find whether
his charges were just or not; nor have they,
as we believe, yet done so. The evidence that
he brought to prove his assertions was ruled
out; oven the fish and meat secreted from his
| breakfast, which he would have shown in
Court, was not admitted. His plea that the
killing of the Warden was manslaughter and
not murder, having been done in self defense,
thus being rejected, Wilson refused any other
defense. Twice he tried to starve him
self in prison, and would have succeeded,
but the authorities, intent on doing him
to death in their own way, forced food by q
pump into his stomach. Two weeks ago the
poor wretch, still pleading that all he had done
was for the sake of his wretched companions
in misery, asked for one more glimpse of the
green fields and sunshine. How he tried
to avoid the ignominy of the gallows, our
readers know; lying in full sight of his jailors,
hammering with slow effort steel rod home
to his heart, REFRESHING even a groan, and how,
with the weapon still buried and doing. its
deadly work, he was dressed, escorted to the
drop with the usual parade, and in view of the
favored ticketed few legally murdered.
The history Of our American hangings, we
believe, will be read fifty years hence with the
same feelings with which we hear Of the fay
ing and quartering in the older barbarisms.
But in tho meanwhile is it not worth while
for society to ask itself which of its heroes
has shown more strength or frInness than
this man whom we have shut1ed out of life as
noisome reptilef Could nothing more be
done with himf 1t needed but the nobility
Of motive which he claimed to elevate
him out of the rank of murderers
to mistaken martyrs. Our Connecticut
friends have not by any means proved
that he had not such motive. They owe to
themselves that full and satisfactory inves-
tigatien be made of the management of the
prison, not only during the rule of the present
but of the late Warden. They should be I'M
willing to rest pasavely under the probable
stigma attached to men Who'll starve and NAL
treat helpless prisoners in their power, and
when they wreak their revenge hang them
| without hearing.