The Portland daily press., 1877-04-21
Murder in Maine.

Iho advocates OF the abolition OF the death
penalty always maintain that if we only stop
hanging, the murderers will stop numbering,
but recent statistics in the state of Maine do
not seem to show that this assertion is well
founded. That state, in which for long time
there had hardly been a murder committed,
abolished the gallows about year ago, and
this was no sooner done than the murderers be-
gan to ''develop strength" on all sides. In
about year no less than nine murders took
to as "family murders" This brings up all
sorts of agreeable anticipations. In most fami-
lies there are occasionally quarrels, sometimes
bitter ones, and if these statistics mean any
thing, they seem to show that the abolition of
the death penalty will make these disputes
more than ever likely to end in blood, There
are no people who quarrel, when they do quar-
rel, harder than near relatives, and as the ira
ditional means of avoiding domestic jars by
depression of business and the difficulty of find
ing employment there, there is every reason to
suppose that to persons of sensitive and irrit-
able nature, like murderers, life in the family
circle is daily becoming more oppressive and
ally would no doubt be regarded by this class
as godsend.-Ne1 York Nation.
This is very fine illustration of the flip
pancy with which the Nation treats public
questions. When it wants to say a smart
thing, it never let's truth stand in the way.
To say that "the advocates OF the abolition Of
the death penalty always maintain that if we
only stop hanging the murderers will stop
murdering,'' is to say what is conspicuously
false. But then it looks pretty as sentence
and has the flavor of alliterative sound, and
may delude the unwary, which is what the
New York Nation is for.
10 say "that there have been nine
murders ii. e. capital crimes jim about year,
is equally false, and demonstrably Sc.
The penalty of death was abolished by act of
February 21st 1876. Now in Maine the At
torney General is called to the trial of all in
dictments for crime heretofore punished with
death. In other words he is summoned to
euery murder trial. From the time of the
passage of the law to March 1877, a period of
twelve months he was not summoned once,
that is, for twelve months there was
not even an Indictment for murder. Since
March he has attended two trials, one re-
sulting in verdict of murder in the second
degree (not case for death penalty and the
other in manslaughter-so that no case of
conviction of murder in the first degree,
which alone was capital, has occurred to
date. And yet the New York Nation says
"No less than nine marders' and passes on
to make its pleasant jests about family feuds
The easiest way to cut garment is out of
whole cloth. Prior to the repeal of the death
penalty, says the wise Nation, ''for long time
there had hardly been murder committed"
Can it be possible? Was Wagner innocent?
Was there no double murder there? Was
Gordon swung guiltless into eternity? Were
not three persons murdered there2 Does
anybody doubt that DR.. Baker was murdered?
Surely six murders in the Attorne, Generals
report for one gear scarcely justfies this
short summary 'hardly murder.'
Everybody in Maine who knows anything
about the subject, knows that Attorney Gen
eral Plaisted, was the hardest worked officer
in the matter of capital cases that ever held
the position-and he was in office during the
revival of hanging. The advocates of the
death penalty must 60 somewhere other than
Maine for statistics to prove their case.