The Morning herald., 1877-08-10
THE DEATH PENALTY.

Ihe idea o. punishment lmplles tnat d
man is made to undergo something which
he is not undergoing at this moment. But
if penal servitude is the worst thing that
a criminal can be made to undergo, what
is to be done with q man who commits
murder when he is undergoing penal ser
vitude already? Sentences of imprison-
ment for any less term than life can be
made cumulative; the punishment for a
crime committed by prisoner, need not
begin to take effect until the penalty orig
inally inflicted on him has been worked
out. But life sentences cannot be cumula-
tive. The criminal has already been SEN
fenced to all the punishment that he can
endure, and there is nothing more that he
can be made to suffer. Consequently, if
it were made unlawful to put men to death
for murder, the temptation to prisoner
already under sentence Of imprisonment
for life, to murder jailer he disliked,
would be almost irresistible. The aboli-
ton of capital punishment would have
filled our prisons with men who had al
ready been guilty of every form of violent
and brutal crime. Men of this stamp
have an extraordinary faculty for conceiv-
ing intense and lasting hatreds to their
keepers. Even the most kindly jailer is
compelled to inhict good deal of suffer-
ing on the prisoners he has in charge.
They are often exceedingly idle, and as,
in one form or another, work has to be ex-
acted from them, they will naturally not
love the man who metes out their
work to them. If he is just, the worst
conditioned prisoners will dislike him; if
he is unjust, the least favored prisoners
will dislike him. The strictest watchful-
ness cannot prevent prisoner from find
ing opportunities of revenging himself for
real or fancied injuries. The warders may
be we'll armed, and well trained to use
their arms; but they cannot be forever on
their guard against men in whom inge-
nuity has been sharpened by long ex-
perience of crime and an entire absence of
any rival matter, for reflection. Sooner
or later their vigilance relaxes, and the
pent-up passion which has been accumu-
lating for months or years finds an outlet.
Under these circumstances, what is to pre-
| vent prisoner from numbering his jailer?
He will not be restrained by any sense of
the value Of life, or any fear Of the pun
ishment which may await him after
death.
These are refnements with which he
has long ceased to trouble himself. His
| condition cannot be made materially worse
than it is already, for he is in prison for
murder and is to remain in prison all his
days. As murderer he is already con-
| demned to the severest and most painful
labor which the code of prison discipline
allows, so that, unless undue leniency has
been shown to him in the first instance,
there is nothing more to be done. At all
events, there is nothing of kind which
public opinion would allow to be done.
In theory, Of course, the State might show
its merciful disposition by substituting
torture for death. But Parliament would
not listen for a moment to a proposal OF
this sort. Though it would be difficult to
asskn the limits within which the torture
Of criminals is allowable, public opinion
has very distinct, if not a very logical
idea that certain forms of punishment are
lawful, and that certain forms are un'aw-
full. Mutilation, for example, might
prove very deterrent penalty; but bill
directing that a prisoner sentenced to
/ penal servitude for life, and in that condi-
| ton committing murder, should be
blinded or have his tongue cut out would
| stand but very small chance Of becoming
law. With the number of prisoners in
creased by the addition of those who are
now hanged, and with the recklessness
and desperation of the whole body in
creased in the same proportion, the only
| fear which now keeps prisoner who
knows that he will never be set free, from
numbering or trying to murder his jailer
whenever wayward fancy or ungovern-
able fit of rage happens to seize him,
| would be altogether withdrawn. The
probable result would be to make the
jailers trust entirely to their weapons and
| to their dexterity in using them. Capt.