The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1873-01-13

NEW i vi
Murder and Hanging-Exampies Want
cd-stra ngIe All Our Murdercrs To-
g~ther.
The philosophy of dispensing punishment to
criminals as an example and a warning to
others does not ft altogether beside the law of
the Bible which, in its iron maxim, demanded
an eye for an eye, q tooth for a tooth, life
for life. It u.s. in that sublime book Of wis
dom, the delegation Of portion Of the revenge
which God reserves otherwise to Himself
Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" is tho
revenge for all wrong which the Almighty in
sombre majesty takes unto Himself; LIE LOT
o life is what he delegates TO man-to society.
Whether States be founded in their organ
ization upon Paganism or Christianity,
the deep damnation" of homicide is reoog-
nized as being most fitly compensated by the
death of the murderer. Wherever this has
been departed from society has met with an
increase of the crime. The finer distinctions
of advancing civilization have resulted in a
graduation of the offence which ends suddenly
a fellow beings existence. In America We
have refined on these distinctions overmuch.
and increase of homicides has been the con-
sequence. We look back over year in this
city and are Mortified OF the increase. What
| is to be doneP We shall say further on.
| Before touching the remedy so far as New
| York is concerned, let us look outside New
York.
In July last, after patient trial and over
whelming evidence, woman on trial at New
| Haven, Conn, for poisoning her husband
was found guilty of murder in the second de-
gree. 1t may be futile now to ask, when the
evidence was so clear, when the mans blood
was, as it were, red upon the womans hands,
howa jury could be found to bate her doom
one jot. 1t was, perhaps, mistaken spirit of
feeble humanity which led them to do it |;
but we venture to say that when these jury
men read in the HERALD of to-day the litany
of horrors that Lydia sherman coolly con-
fesses to they will shudder to their
fnger-tips that the iron Of the He
braic law was not in their souls
, when they agreed upon verdict. We have
used the word woman in her regard; but it
would degrade the name of the vilest beast or
reptile, whose noisesomeness has made it an
enemy to be killed at sight, by comparing her
to it. The one figure that Milton, in his broad
imagination, built into master devil is too
; massive and almost too kindly for the COM
parison The picture which he gives of Sin at
the gate of He'll as being woman to the waist
and fair, but ended foul in many snaky
fold," with all her foul progeny bark
ing round her loins, is scarcely enough
to picture the intolerable wickedness
that went to make that murderess The YER
dict assured her that her neck could not be
broken on the gallows, as it should be, had
she thousand spinal columns within it.
Hence she makes her confession. Meek-faced,
pious to the last, she excuses this confession
on the ground that Christ called her to sorrow
for her sins. She flung herself on her knees
at night, and in the morning she says, 81 felt
the burden was gone and I was forgiven"
Words Of cynicism more bitter were
never hurled in the teeth Of deluded
mercy than these. The mask under
which she murdered was the mask under
which she would confess. If she had cast it
aside and told bafied Justice that she her.
aided her crimes since she could safely glory
in them, and in order that she might take the
highest place in the niche of infamy, she would
have told the truth. We can now look for q
moment at the triumphant murderess. She
was not woman who bore the devil on her
face that lurked within her heart She was
Methodist, church member, good woman,
whom doctors and good people delighted to
send to tend the sick as O nurse. What O
nurse will be seen in brief resume of the
crimes which she confesses to. Her first hus-
band was policeman, and after eighteen
years of welded life she poisoned him with
arsenic, because he was deranged. Next came
her youngest child but one, girl aged six,
whom she poisoned because 'she could not sup
port her." A boy aged four, followed to the
grave of the murdered for the same cold FLOODED
reason. "He was beautiful boy" she says with
satanic competency. Her boy of fourteen is
taken sick with painters collie, and she poisons
him lest she should have to support him in sick
ness. A younger girl is the next-''the happiest
child I ever saw''-and the crime has the
same pitiless excuse. II was discouraged. >,
Two other of her children die, but she prefers
to say they died natural deaths She goes to
Connecticut and marries again. Her second
husband dies Of poison too She marries o
third time and confesses to poisoning her
stepson and stepdaughter, and, finally,
the man she married. It sums up total
Of eight successive cold-blooded, pitiless
murders, which she admits. Two more of
the deaths of those near her were
in all human probability her work.
She was nurse for the sick, and
how high her crimes in their cold