New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1872-11-20
rs HAHGING FOR MURDER "PLAYED
nuTRU

This ia no time TO discuss the guilt OF the
shocking tragedy which startled Pine-st on
Monday afternoon. The legal inquiry into
the manner Of the killing has yet to be held,
and the wretched prisoner, in the silence OF
his cell, is entitled to whatever chance Of life
or liberty decent reticence on the part OF
the press may help to secure for him. Without
assuming that the homicide was deliberate
and unpalliated we must content ourselves
with studying the lesson of the admitted facts.
If the story of the prisoner is true, the homi-
eide was only the familiar sequel of the hor-
rible old tale Of womans weakness and mans
unbrdled passion. 1t began at any rate in
an action for divorce, and though the state
ments on both sides are of course to be ac-
cepted only for what they may prove to be
worth, we Find here the same sad lesson which
the records Of our courts have taught US 80
often from year TO year. "a strange woman"
said the Wise Man, lis a narrow pit" The
ruin of domestic happiness, the destruction Of
the better traits of character, the Obliteration
of all noble and elovating impulses, the
abasement of ambition, the inflammation Of
every bad passion, are the inevitable conse-
quences of departure from that strict and
beautiful law upon which the sanctity of the
family has been established The bloody
catastrophe which has so often completed the
wretched story is tho standing menace which
Providence keeps before the face of the
offender. Fair and Crittenden, Fisk and
Stokes, Bolts and Halstead, King and ONeill
what terrible warnings all these names up
hold To-day it is the truant husband who
falls by the pistol of an assassin. Tomorrow
it is the lccherOus gallant whom the devil IN
one fatal moment converts into an assassin
Who shall say which is punished the more
severely-Fisk in his coffin, or King in the
Tombs9
That the lesson has been so little taken to
heart Is the fault in great measure of the re-
spectacle members of the community A
maudlin public sentiment has made sort OF
hero of every man who gets into trouble
through dealing with strange women, and
heroine of every woman who suffers through
the surrender of her virtue. Laura Fair, who
shot her lover in the presence of his wife,
goes scot free. Injured husbands, who STAY
the Ostensible destroyers of domestic peace
which the husbands themselves perhaps have
wantonly imperiled are acquitted by sympa-
thizing juries. Let the quarrel have been
only about a woman, and whichever party
survive there need be no fear of the gallows !;
if it be the victim, he only avenged his
wrongs; if it DO the scducer, he was crazed
by love. What is the consequence Your
adulterer goes armed; your prostitute carries
pistols your wrOnged husband becomes an
extcuhoncr whenever he finds provocation.
Is this to be the normal condition of American
society," as it was Of Italian life in the stormy
period of the petty dukedOms and republicsf
King is said to have discussed in good season
the chances of being hanged, and is it any
wonder that he decided to take the risk
Twenty three men are now held in the Tomb5
on charge Of murder. Nineteen have never
been tried; two have obtained stay of
proceedings; two are to have new trials. The
popular repugnance to capital punishment is
so strong that juries will not convict, or the
administration of justice is so lax that DIS
trict-attomeys will not prosecute; or the
courts are 80 managed that convictions will
not hold good before higher tribunal. What
wonder if man who has trouble with his
wife should think it quite safe to kill some
body on the score of his domestic miseries,
trusting to the weakness of juries and the in
diligence Of the bench to secure in his case the
same result which has followed in SO many
previous instancesf
If We are to have q government worth
paying for city in which life will be safer than
it is among the rudest mining settlements and
half -barbarous communities Of the Latin race,
we must contrive some means of Furnishing
homicidcs. THE TRIBUNE has opposed CAPT
tai punishment in the belief that the severity
of the penalty would prevent juries from
enforcing it. Whether the state of affairs in
this city to-day does or does not support that
view, we do not care now to argue. What we
do insist upon is that, while laws remain on
our statute book. they should be enforced and
that, while hanging is the penalty for murder,
murderers should BIO hung. When blood is
not avenged at all, we are very near social
DISCRIMINATION.