Morning journal and courier., 1880-06-21
"CAIN, THE MANsLAYER., ;,

An article with the above title, written lately by Rev. Robert Collyer, has attracted considerable attention. In that article MT. Collyer, after forcibly pointing out the in- crease and menace of brutal crimes, consid- CTS the remedy. Statistics prove that very large proportion of our murderers are of foreign birth. If we maintained detective bureaus abroad and sent back at the cost of the company bringing him over every for eign villain, known to be such, human life would be safer here. MT. Collyer thinks the frightful tendency to manslaughter in those of American birth, especially in the North, is one of the sad results of war, which will abate of itself after one generation, if we see to the safeguards and sanctities of the law. ''The storm could not end when Lee sur rendered; the spume and spray dashed over the lines of our civil life, swept across the land, and struck our homesn Although few of the monstrous crimes committed by soldiers, the natural result of their tales of blood-shedding was to lessen the awe and fear of taking life.
 Mr Collyer argues that the bar should be held by all right thinking men to as strict honor as the pulpit The first requirement. we make of ministers is that they should with their whole hearts believe in the cause they advocate. The criminal is entitled to 8 fair trial, but the lawyer who is sure that his client is guilty, and yet advocates his cause for money and fame as if he believed him in nocent, betrays the while the majesty of heaven and should only be taken for what he is worth among men.
 He disbelieves in hanging men, but would have murderers die to the world. "Once found guilty of this crime in it's worst form, the man should cease to be one with the world we live in his name should be plotted out of all the records the State can reach; he should have no name henceforth. but only 8 number. His intercourse with the world should be utterly ended-no letters, no pa pers, no word of what is going on, any more than if he also was in his grave. Wholesome books industrial and other training should be provided for him, but he should be cut of from all social life and all possibility of par don by any power under the sun. While the gradations of this crime should bring grad ed penalty, it should not be possible for the man who has slain a man in hatred or re- venge to be again as if he had not done it. A circle of law should be drawn about them, and they should be less free than before their wrong doing. The most terrible penalty is in the hands of God, and the criminal bears it in his own soul, his inward life, but we owe it to society, to fine civilization, that severe and just judgment should set the manslayer, like Cain, apart from his fellows.
 If Mir. Collyer's ideas concerning the pun ishment of murderers of the first degree of guilt could be carried out probably most of those who now favor capital punishment would agree with him. As it is, however, they seem to be practically confined to choice between taking life and inficting punishment not at all commensurate with the crime Life in our prisons may be and ire quently is quite comfortable and pleasant, and it is not likely to be less so as we grow more humane. With good food, plenty to do, books and papers to read, opportunities to talk, and kind treatment from prison of ficials a life sentence for murder, even if served out, is not the most dreadful thing in the world. Probably if it were made much more dreadful than it is there would soon be an outery against it, just as there is now against capital punishment.