Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1873-07-24
Murder in New York.

Hampers OF flowers ana the SYM
pathy Of visiting ladies marked young
Walworth's departure for Sing Sing.
Though chained to a wife-murderer
he maintained a jaunty air, chatting
and smiling with friends and relatives,
and joking about the bracelets, as he
termed his handouts. There was a
strong reluctants expressed by his
family and counsel to his being i'm
INJURED with common felons. While
in the Tombs, after his sentence,
Thurlow Weed presented the person
al req lest that he should be removed
from Murderers' Row, but the Sheriff
had no other special accommodations.
1t is entirely owing to the new law
respecting murder that this young
man, whose hand is red with the blood
of his own fathers heart, escapes the
gallows, law passed by the last Re
publican Legislature of New York,
by the terms of which killing, in order
to constitute murder, must be pre-
petrated "with a deliberate and pre-
meditated design And although
Judge Davis in his charge did not
hesitate to declare that the verdict
ought righteously to be murder in the
first degree, in his sentence he was
equally free to hint ola ''possible"
Executive clemency. The present
law prevents conviction of murder in
the first degree, the difficulty Of PROV
ing deliberate and premeditated in
tent being obvious. 1t is even sug-
gested that capital punishment might
as well be abolished, since it is already
practically abolished by juries. Stokes,
Nixon, King aud the rest are naturally
joyous, Hanging is over for the pre-
sent. This law is one of the results
of the Republicanism that went into
last years canvass with a shout of
Reform in New York and came out
with muddlc Of legislation, having
nearly abolished its own Senate, and
passing mass Of laws which Gov.
Dix is spending the summer in veto
inc at the rate Of fifty or sixty at Il
time.
Concerning Walworth, the argu-
ment of Mr.. O'Conor is termed adroit;
but the criticism passed upon it is
evidence Of its lack of law or common
sense. His appeal to the jury not to
convict because there had been no
such crime as parricide in this coun-
try, and consequently could not be
such a one, or if there could, to make
such Il wonderful city as New York
the scene of its commission, was as
pertinent to the plain question Of muir
der as if he had argued against any
other irrelevant issue. The soldier
blood Of Haldin was invoked to awe
the jury into a respectful tenderness
for the prisoner. to which he was
wholly unentitled. 1t was but trifling
with the sravest question that con-
Germs the safety Of society. That so
untlinching ,jurist as Charles O'Con-
or should employ such rhetorical arti-
fees as appear throughout his defence
is even stranger than that Il Rebubli-
can Legislature, elected OIL flaming
professions of Reform, should succeed
only inss confounding justice and con-
fusing all the limitations Of law and
public property. The whole case
taken in connection with the new
statute concerning murder, the sugges-
ton OF future mercy contained in the
sentence Of the Judge, and the argu-
ment Of the prisoners counsel, reflects
little credit on the system of criminal
law as imposed by a Republican Leg
islature. The fact that the crime of
murder is hereafter rendered almost
impossible ofproof and punishment
in such a leading State as New York,
while it raises the spirits of criminals,
inspires a feeling Of profound appre-
hension i'll a community that desires
and certainly needs better protection.
-BOSton Post
Some colored Migrants recently