The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1871-06-17

IMPRISONMENT FOR LIFE.-[From the New
York World. THE late praiseworthy Sc
verify of courts and jurieS throughout the
country in adjudging murderers to the gal
lows has at last walked into renewed activity
the cant against capital punishment. For
a time succeeding the indignant outburst
Of the popular voice demanding rigid en-
fnrcement Of the law the philanthropists,
who think it better the assassin should
knife the citizen than that the State should
rope the slayer, kept quiet; but now their
murmur is heard. Why, they put it, not
substitute Imprisonment for life? There is
something to be said on both sides of this
question; much on the one side in the
way. Of rhetoric, fancy. tears, pathos, and
sentimentality not little on the other
in the nature of figures and facts.
Taking up the prison statistics of Wis
con>ln. it appears that in the ten years from
1856 to 1SGS-our present information not
coming below the latter date there were
Sc convicts received into the penitentiary
under life sentences, and y OF them par
doned out. In the Ohio penitentiary, for
the same period, SO life convicts were re-
ceived, and 81 of them pardoned out. In
the Massachusetts State prison. of which
we have fortunately statistics from 1928 to
1866. there were 1S5 life c0nVicts received,
words, one life convict in every three
was pardoned out in Wisconsin, two in
every five in Ohio, and every other one in
Massachusetts. The average time served
by the Wisconsin life convicts was only six
years, by the Ohio criminals seven, and by
those in Massachusetts, eight. From this
appalling exhibit it will be seen that i'm
prisonment for life is not Imprisonment for
life; that /: is less IN the long run than the
ordinary term Of ten years melted out to q
swildcr or robbcr. The working of the
system is such as tempts the burglar to add
murder to burglary if discovered; for if q
Life sentence can only be obtained on an
indictment for murder, he stands a
fair chance Of receiving 4 pardon in some
six or eight years, while if ten or fifteen
years be given him for the burglary alone
he is quite likely to serve out every day Of
it. In the figures we have given, taking it
for granted that the number Of life conVicts
was even year by year in Massachusetts, We
tiuG that in the space Of ten years in that
and the other two States mentioned 143
convicts under sentence of Imprisonment
for life were received in the several peni-
tentaries. and IS Of them pardOned out
equivalent to two in every five set free
the first ten years, with two more, Of
course, to receive pardOns in the next de-
caue. NO wonder thaC IL mas Deen omcallV
certified to the Legislature of this State
that "convicts for life would seem
to form in some respects a priyi-
legged class. and the chances are that
they will have shorter imprisonment
than men sentenced for twenty or even
fifteen years. The pardoning power much
more frequently chooses these men, IN
proportion to their number, as the objects
of its clemency than it does the general
mass Of prisoners and it would hence
seem to be the interest of the criminal to
have melted out to him the heaviest pun
ishmenJ which the law accords to his Of
fence. The gross average OF
pardons on all convicts confined in Ame-
rican prisons will be from fifteen to
twenty per cent. While that
on c0nvicts sentenced for life reaches
the enormous proportion of forty to fifty
per cent" If Imprisonment for life were
imprisonment for life its propriety might
be u subject for discussion. but as the facts
and the figures are, it means even less de-
tenton for murderer than for mere
THETA short sojourn for the blood stained
wretch in prison, and then a license to him
to handle his weapons anew.