New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-12-18
an unanswerable reason why Col. SCOTS pro-
posals should not he considered for moment.
HUNG.

HCNO.
Was there ever anything moro brutal, moro
senseless, more entirely absorbed in the sense
| of the absolutely rcvengeful, than this dread
full exhibition yesterday at the Tombsf Guilty
these men undoubtedly were; guilty OF muir
der, cold FLOODED and atrOciOus; OF murder
that had no rcdeeming, no qualifying quality
in it ; it was calmly brutal. These men who
did it were something more than the ordinary
murderers who commit crime under some
motive that has in it large impulse; some
thing more and something meaner; they had
in them something that gave them more than
an average title to be considered murderers
pure and simple. For it was no sudden and
hot -blooded killing that they did; no great
outbreak of murderous sclf-preservlng impulse
that sent them forward to their crime. They
did their murder in the lowest, the meanest,
the most degraded way. They took themselves
ont of the whole consideration OF mankind
simply by the way they did it. 1t was not
digniied by noble passion; 1t had no roots IN
what the worlds large sense holds to be either
manly or self-respectful. IL was just the mean,
low, brutal instinct of hunger that urged them.
They wanted he had. They killed and seized.
That was all. 1t was q thing that the honest
sense of all people revolted at; the average
man saw only that here was murder for
money; he recognized q reasonable sense OF
Justice In the conviction and the enforcement
of the penalty, and thcn-ah, well, he simply
SAYS, as he reads the revolving story OF the
execution, 1T WIS badly done, but after all 1t
"was right"
Aud after all, was it right Let us dismiss
it. This question of capital punishment is so
serious and heavy when men hang stiff and
straight in front of you. with the hie gone
out of them, that you think it better not to
discuss the question whether these men after
all were not as well entitled as any OF us to
the gift of living and of being. 1t is possible
we shall never settle it. Whether 1t Is
for us to make punishment punitive, reforma-
tive, or preventive. is one OF the deep ana
dark things we are in no way OF finding out
Just now. We do know that these men have
paid their penalties, and that one OF them,
twisting the fatal knot from his ear to his
chin, had the happiness of making
his death revolving to the curious people
who hoped for much comfort in seeing
his taking of. Doubtless we shall hear
and read much about it, and about the bru-
tality- of the business. Brutality! Who knows
of it! Who but the brutes who stood by and
looked at it. There need be no spectators at
an execution but those whom the law requires
to supcrintcnd it, and you may be sure they
will make no complaint. Clearly this was
badly bungled affair. 1t was unpleasant
TO spectators. But for whom are hang
ings7 Let us settle that question before we
complain, and perhaps by and by, when we
have thought this whole question over with
more seriousness, we shall be able to discrim-
mate between the natural feeling of disgust
at a badly managed execution and the real
effect of taking Of human life by commu-
nifty which does it from sense of-ah! what
is the modvef Why kill for killingf And
why, az in this case, kill three for one