Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1880-02-26
The Death Penalty Before the Leg
lslature.

The question of repeating the law
abolishing capital punishment was
up for discussion before our State
Assembly Monday, and the State
journal reports remarks by Mr..
John Brindley Of this county as fol.
lows
Mr.. BRINDLEY spoke at length in
favor of the death penalty. All civ.
ilized nations, the United States
among them, and all the States In
the Union, Wisconsin, and Michigan
alone excepted, recognize the death
penalty, and regard it as popular
safeguard. Mr.. Brindley read re-
sponses received fcom Justices of
the United States Supreme Court,
and prominent officials and States
mon OF Connecticut, Delaware, ILL
nols, Indiana, lows, Maine, Mime.
sofa, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New
Hampshire, New Jersey, New York,
Pennsylvania, Vermont, Indiana.
and other states all of whom EN-.
phatically asserted that capital pun.
ishment deferred men from homi-
eide, and acted as important checks
upon murders. 1t was prurient
and mawkish sentimentally which
dubbed the death penalty a relic of
barbarism; when communities and
statesmen the most advanced in civ
il'zation, after years of careful trial,
solemnly assert that the death PEN
atty was Serious check, and that It
would be folly for any community
To abolish it, it was childish to &C.
cuse them with being barbarians
and lends. Mr.. Brindley offered
statistics to prove thas 10 Belgium
and other countries where both
systems had been tried the history
OF experience wholly bore up the
death penalty as the safest remedy
against the commission of murder.
The speaker instanced two we'll
Known cases where murderers had
followed their victims over the
border into Wisconsin, and here dis.
patched them ,oonfessing, upon their
apprehension, that they came to
this State to commit the deed be-.
cause we had no capital puuishm ent
bere:-the Mayberry case of some
twenty-five years since, where the
man Mayberry followed his victim.
one Alger, tito Jane sville, and there
butchered him, eonfessing to the
mob that lynched him that he came
to sWisconsin because we didn't
hang human butchers; another case
was the Haggerty murder of ten or
twelve years ago. whore Haggerty,
of lows, drove his victim and her
three small children across the ice
over the Mississippi river. into Graut
county, and there slaughtered the
whole OF them in the open sleigh,
with Ratchet, his reasoa being, like
May berry, that Wisconsin had no
hanging law. Mr.. Brindley said
that such cases as these were GER
tainly entitled TO great weight. The
man who was committing burg
larry. and got cowed, knew that if
be killed his man, it was only few
years difference of imprisonment,
and he stood chance of escape.
There was little of terror in life
OF Imprisonment with statistics to
prove that such imprlsonm ant never
averaged above twenty years; there
was always the hope OF pardon or
escape. aud the moro hypocritical
the villain, the sooner he could re.
ceive a recommendation from the
prison officials tor his release. The
bill under consideration offered no
terrors for the man who, in the heat
OF discussion killed his man. it was
for the cool calculating villain. who
whetted bis knife in secret and Law
in wait for his victim with fiend-
lsh calculation in his designs. The |
speaker said, 10 conclusion, that, |
while expressing sympathy for
the murderer, we should
not forget the desoIated hearts, the |
widowed wives, the tears and cries
of the afflicted; the bill was required
as a public safeguard, and should
receive the unanimous support of
the peoples representatives.