Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1883-04-05
Heroic Deaths by Hanging.

Inose every daily newspaper in its
a'u'oay issue has long accounts of
ne hanSings which occurred the day
rC S'oIe IN various parts of the country.
heIe Is great deal of sameness in
.nese accounts. They generally com
-. with the demeanor of the culprit
Ie night before Larry was stretched. "
ne smokes cigar and converses with
ms keepers until about midnight, and
. omen he sleeps soundly till five 1. m.
men lie rises, and soon after eats a
Hearty breakfast, whose contents are
Inscribed. Then his spiritual adviser
appears on the scene. By and bv the
procession is formed, and the order in
"nicn they move to the scaffold is given
with as much minuteness as if it were a
parade IN honor of some great dignita-
ry. The shudder of the prisoner as he
nrst catches sight of the rope is care
1uily noted, and whether or not he as
cends the deadly scaffold with a
''springy step.' When once ND, he
looks over the crowd, the moose is ad-
lusted, the black cap is pulled over his
lace, and at precisely" such an hour,
plus or minus so many minutes, the
rope Is cut and he is sslaunched into
eternity" Then follows an account as
10 ms struggles, how many and what
KIND OF contortions he made, the state
OF his pulse, when pronounced dead and
whether the neck was broken or he died
from strangulatlon. Then comes q
"dash," and the crime for which the
man died is carefully gone all over from
the very beginning, making the third
time which it mas been presented to The
public; once when the news first came
OF the crime, twice when the details of
the trial were published, and three times
when the precious facts are all snugly
summarized after the hanging. Some
newspapers are even more enterprising
than this; they manage to ''ring inn a
fourth account, which is made up from
the evidence before the Coroner.
There is not the slightest doubt in the
mind of any intelligent man who has
given the subject any thought, that this
publicity is OF the most damaging char
acter. 1t makes hero of an assassin;
the "toughs" who read-when they
can read-in the journals these long &C
counts of the trial of one of their class,
are envious of the notoriety which he is
enjoying; the influence on them, in
place of being deterrent, has an oppo-
pite effect. 1t is a we'll known fact to
lnOse VINO nave maze Une criminal
classes study those who are criminals
by heredity have, as a rule, no such
quality as fear; hence, in their case,
the publicity given to the doings and
sayings of their fellows who are about
to be hanged produces in them an envy
which leads more or less to a desire to
enjoy all this themselves. 1t is GER
tain that it does not in the smallest de-
gree induce them to take steps to avoid
the same end.
If the death of the criminal should be
surrounded bS a mystery; that is, if
there were no parade about it, no OPP
portunity to admire his 'nerve" as he
ascends the gallows with 'springv
step," the result would be beneficial
If men about to commit murder could
be well assured that they would not be
made heroes of, that all their actions,
their eating, their sleeping, their say
ings, their nerve, their last words, and
all these, would not be recorded in the
newspapers, they would lose many of
their inducements to court the risk of
the halter. When a man is convicted
of murder he should be forgotten by
the public, as if he were miscreant too
wicked to be held in the recollection of
good people. When he is sent to his
cell, under sentence of death, he should
be regarded as dead, and as such should
be enveloped in mental quicklime,
and oblterated from the worlds men,
Dry Chicago NerS.