Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-10-29

r TOCtIttQfttty AcCtetCs
1t has been the fashion of late to eXalt
certain foreign methods at the expense of
our own. chiefly because the latter has
sometimes broken down. Two of these
foreign systems in particular have been
glorified, and no doubt both have certain
undOubted merits of their own. The
guillOtine is most effective as a means
of destroying life. 1t is an unerring,
nearly automatic machine, and probably
annihilates without unnecessarily pro-
tracted pain. Its inventor went so far as
TO claim for it that the sufferer felt merely
a pleasant freshness about the neck and
nothing more. To the sensitive mind,
however, there is something terribly dis
gusting in decapitatiOn; it is horrible to
see, or rather to hear, the head fall into
the basket amid torrents of blood. The
Spanish garotte, again, which is obviously
Oriental in origin, and an adaptation of
the bOwstring, is also instantaneous in its
action. The old mechanism, which was
simply rope and a piece of stick used
tOurniquet fashion, has been improved
into brass collar encircling the neck,
and containing a sharp point which is
forced into the spinal marrow. But nei-
ther of these forms are really so far supe-
riOr to ours as TO be entitled to supersede
it. After all, one method is az good as
another, provided it fulfills certain indis-
pensable conditions. Capital punish
ment is intended to remove the
criminal, to eXtinguish a life for
feited to the laws, and if this can
be accomplished promptly, without in
tlicting torture, encouraging bravado, or
demOralizing the eXecutiOner, the desired
end is achieved. These are not unattain-
able results, and so long as they can be
cOmpassed by hanging there can be no
sufficient reason for trying to dOmesticate
exotic methods of execution. 1t has also
been mOOted recently whether some more
scientific process might not yet be adopt
ed with advantage. The chemist and the
electrician have tremendous agencies at
their disposal, one or other of which
might be utilized for the destruction of
the criminal. But poor humanity is al
ready too sOrely beset by murderous
enemies, and legislators may well
pause before they permit the de-
Yelopment of the means of
taking life, Great practical diff
culties, too, would probably superyene in
giving effect to any new process, whether
by poison or electricity. The Intervention
of some skilled agent would be indispensa-
BILE; the fatal poison must be administered
scientifically; the dread forces of elec-
tricity must he set in motion by some
expert, and it might not be easy TO per-
suade doctors or sayants to act as eXecu-
tiOnerS. But still stronger objection
exists to this or any kind of change in the
manner of carrying out the penalty of
death. 1t is not likely that any such change
would easily secure legislative sane
tiOn, not from any positive dislike
to accept this or that new
method, but because the opening of
the question at all would end in the abo-
lition OF capital punishment altogether.
Whether society can quite afford to part
with one of its greatest safeguards is be-
yond the scope of this paper to discuss.
But all who feel that the law which ex-
acts life for life is our best and perhaps
homicide win prefer to leave our system
Of execution unchanged. An imperfect
process is better than none at all, and ii
will be better TO adopt reasonable i'm
provements than bring about abolition by
vain search after an impossible ideal.