The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1877-04-04

the execution Of a man in Vermont, than
he had for a similar punishment in France.
The laws assumed to confer no such an
thority on him, and If they had it is more
than questionable whether such laws could
not have been unconstitutional and void.
Edward E. Phelps, NJ. D., LII. d., of
Windsor, then physician of tho prison,
commenting, at the time, on the death Of
Clifford, says that he had been in confne-
ment nearly four years, excluded for the
whole of that period from society, exer-
else, and nearly from light. Thus situ-
ated both body and mind sunk together
he came to prison stout, athletic man,
in the prime of life, all his activities in
full exercise from strong passions and
impulses, and that from the day that the
door of his civil grave closed upon him,
his progress was directly downwards to
that physical one, the lot of all. His
case furnishes an exception to man in
general, of whom it is said, it is given to
him once to die but the unfortunate
Clifford met with double death, an in
tellectual and a physical DEATH After
detailing the progress of his mental death,
he concludes as follows at cannot be
doubted that those who advocate the
abolition of capital punishment, do 80
I" from motives of humanity, but do they
"not err in exchanging the sentence Of
It death upon the gallows for solitary con-
d" finement for lifep Could they have seen
"Clifford through his confinement, and
his death bed scene, l cannot but think
" the conviction would come home to their
"minds, that whatever control the law
"might give them over the physical life
I" of the murderer, they had no right to
destroy his intellect and send him at
length into eternity an idiot or maniac,
or in other words, to inflict upon him an
i" intellectual DEATH" We dismiss this, one
of the most interesting cases in our GRIM
inal annals, to the consideration of the ad-
vocates and opponents of capital punish
ment, with the simple remark that the
prison officials, forty years ago, had diff
ferent-perhaps more correct-idea of the
meaning of the words SOLITARY confne-
"ment" than have those of the present
day.
Five times has the death penalty been
| awarded in this county. James Anthony,
in 1914, to whom we have already referred /;
Henry Damon, in September, 1889, for the
murder of his wife Sophia Damon, at Rut-
land, October 4, 1888, sentenced to be hung
February 81, 1910, sentence committed to
imprisonment for life, and died in state
prison, August 81, 1876; Matthew Halloran
convicted September, 1854, for the murder
of Michael Ryan at Hydeville the winter
previous, sentence commuted by the legis-
lature, and, subsequently, pardoned by the
governor through forced and unnatural
construction of the constitution; Horace
R. Plumley, April 1860, for the murder of
John Gilman at Shrewsbury, August 10,
1868, sentence commuted to life imprison-
ment in the state prison, where he is now
confined and John p. Phair, October,
1874, for the murder of Mrs. Anna Freeze
at Rutland, June 0, 1874, and whose exc
cution will be carried into effect on Friday.
Another trial for murder occupies the at
tention of the court to-day-will it result
in adding to this number?