The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-05-15
Private Executions.

jeff David. convicted at our last court
of the murder Of George and Drusilla
Franklin, will be hanged in the precincts
of our county gaol on Friday, 18th, inst
According to the law recently enacted.
the execution will be conducted i'll pri.
vate, those only being present "'lom tho
law directs the Sheriff to admit-Olicials
and mot more than ten discreet per-
sons" Screened from the gaze of I'M
wholesome curiosity, the gibbet
has been er ected in the gaol-yard and
there on Friday will the culprit meet his
dreadful doom attended by that silence,
solemnity and privacy which beft the
death of a murderer.
In the recent past, the spectacle afford
ed by a public execution was a deplora-
BILE commera on depraved humanity.
The vast throngs of both races, but chief
lv of negroes, that crowded around the
scaffold on such occasions were proof
sufficient OF the morbid and unhealthy
appetite which finds unnatural pleasure
in sights that should be Stunned. Public
executions were instituted in the natural
hope that by their hideous ghastliness the
dangling bodies Of strangled murder ers
might teach the awe-struck spectators a
terrible lesson, but wholesome and never
to be forgotten. 1t was thought that if
anything could deter others from follow
ing the murderer's example it was to
place in horrible reality before their eyes
the murdcrer's awful fate. The expert
cnce ofccnturies has shown how unfound-
cd was the hope and how impressive the
lesson. The sad truth has established itself
that public executions, by dulling and
deadening the sensibilitics OF that pecu-
liar class Of society which furnishes the
spectators and by tamiliarizing them with
death in its most dreadful form, have de-
feated the purpose they were meant to
serve, and aggravated the disease they
were thought fitted to cure. The thou
sands that crowd around a scaffold on a
hanging day do not go there to be instruct
ed. They do not go there to be deferred
from committing murder. They 80 there
to satisfy the cravings Of all appetite
which belongs to the lowest part of hu-
man nature and which should not be pam
dered to and provided for by law.
Private executions will have q good and
desirable effect on the doomed men them
selves. Disgraceful to humanity though
it is, still it is undeniablo that many de-
based convicts have found a strange plea
sure in the horrible importance which
their position on the scaf1old gives them
in the eyes of the gazing multitude. Just
before being hurried into eternity. when
of all men the murderer should be pre-
pairing toappcar before his Maker and his
Judge, it too often happens that on be-
holding the sea of up-turned faces, with
all eyes fixed on him, he finds only food
for his vanity, and far from thinking Of
meeting his God, he is thinking only of
dying game. The literature of the gal
lows tells Of hardened villains who sang
obscene songs while the rope was being
put round their nccks, and danced a
CHASTITY ~hornpipe as they dangled in the
air. Private executions are now estab-
lished in Britain, and this improvement
was greatly fastened by the sickening
vanity, f DR.. Prichard othe Glasgow poi
soner who appeared on the scatfold before
the immense multitude that filled Glas-
Cow Green, exquisitely dressed in fash
ionable evening suit, with white ncck-tie,
white kid gloves, and patent leather
shoes.
Some have objected to private execu-
tons on the ground that they will have
no effect at all on the public mind. AS
for publicity, the pr%onouncing sentence