The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1875-02-24
A Realistic View Of the Coming Execu-
finn

1t will be hard for most people to get any
comfort out Of the proposed moral exhibition
at Thomaston on Friday next. There was
considerable excitement in those gladiatorial
combats of ancient amphitheatres which are
constantly cited as an evidence of the inhu-
manity of warlike people. There was
useless slaughter, to be sure, but its victims
were in nine cases out of ten as reckless, aban-
doned and worthless members of society as
Wagner and Gordon. They died in the midst
of the excitement of deadly encounter, more
like soldiers on the field of battle than like
slaves and criminals. They had chance for
their lives, and the soldierly Romans were ac-
customed to draw a moral satisfactory to
themselves from the physical endurance and
bravery of the combatants. There was
nothing so cod-blooded and deliberate about
It as in the modern galows spectacle. where
either british Indifference, maudlin religion,
excitement, the paroxysms of terror or
foolish bravado heghten the responsiveness of
the scene. The peculiarly hideous method of
executing criminals which some odd caprice
has made universal in this country results
oftener than otherwise in accessory horrors
which are not theoretically part of the GER
emony. The breaking of ropes and the
Slipping of knots cause the dangling wretch
either TO strangle or to undergo two or three
hangings instead of one. These distressing
accidents are not to be anticipated, however,
among the deft and "handy" people of New
England. Still they sometimes occur, even
when the most extraordinary precautions
have been taken, as if nature made mute
protest against the bal barity of the deed.
eBut why dwell on the agony and terrors
of the gallows? Is there nothing to be said of
the terror and ang uish of the innocent, help
less people who were murdered? Should we
stand weeping by the gibbet of Wagner and
Gordon and not think of the three blameless
women who, in the dead of night were reused
to meet the murderous blows of pitiless
assassin ?-or of thatother quietly slumbeling
family that was waken by iron blows which
spared neither the helplessness Of woman nor
the innocence of childhood but shed the blood
of kindred in a savage frenzy which had no
more adequate motive than lust Of gain or
Jealous grudge?' BY no means are we to
forget or ignore these things! What then?
Can society find no better example to copy
than that of its worst and most brutal muir
ders? Because Gordon and Wagner gave
themselves up to frenzy of wild, unreasonable
revenge or passion, shall society, taking its
cue from them, exhibit itself in like atti-
tude? Because two degraded men take life
in a spirit of wantonness, shall we acting to-
gether through the agency of the state, after
deliberaton of many months, copy the bad
model, without expecting, or hoping thereby
to promote the common good? We might
safely leave the avenging of the bloody trag-
edies of Thorndike and the Isles of Shoals to
Almighty wisdom and justice, limiting ou--
selves tc protecting society from further as
saults from the same persons and to deterring
others from like wickedness by administering
to Gordon and Wagner wholesome and ra-
tional correction.