Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1884-04-23
EXECUTIONS.

| We think it to be demonstrable that so
| long as the sentense of death is retained
| that is, so long as the nation retains its
present creed, aud feels for society more
| than for the ividual-three conditions as
to the method of inaicting it should be res
tion adopted should be sudden it should
| visibly shatter the corpse as little as posi-
BILE, and it should be one held by opinion to
be in itself disgraceful, and no method ex-
cept hanging ful6lls all those conditions
| Sudden death could of course, be inflicted
in hundred ways, many of them more
rapid even than the moose. Shooting, if the
heart is pierced, or the brain, is probably
as rapid as any; the guilloline is swifter
than the hangman, despite some doubts as
to the instantaneous loss of the victims
consciousness and it would be easily posi-
Bile to employ agencies more rapid than
either. Thereare poisons too rapid in their
action for pain, and one of them could be
administered, we believe, during sleep.
Electricians can prove, we are told, that
the electric fluid moves more radidly than
sensation does, and hold it, therefore, prob
able that an electric shock sufficient TO kill
instantly would never be felt by the criminal
at all, death preceding sensation, view
borne out, so far as such views can be, by
the usual testimony of those who have re-
ceved and survived q stroke of lightning.
ANY one of these methods, therefore, would
be as satisfactory, so tar as suddenness and
the absence of any approach to torture
is concerned, as hanging; but the first
two diminish that respect for the body
L. -. xl of ,f,1 lie
shows it so necessary to maintain, and
which is, we think, the true objection to
that CHASTITY but painless mode of execu
ton, blowing from cannon; and the third
is liable to au objection of its own, that it is
not wise to make death for crime much
more painless than natural death usually is.
We should otmake it painful but we should
not artiiicialiy reduce its terrors. The awe
with which the punishment is regarded
would be gravely diminished by the use of
painless poison, such as the AIhenaus USED,
while new doubt would be hegotlen among
the ignorant as to the reality of its infiic-
ton. They would begin talking Of strong
sleeping draughts, and ofdrugs which could
produce apparent death-that is catalepsy--
without actually killing 1t is most import
ant that no color should be given to such
stories, and important, too, not to degrade
science pE ludkln3 IL al a"CphPiioo III Vhe
executoner's task, as it would be if the
electric battery were employed. Men ought
not to lose the sense that there is something
rough aud brutal about capital punishment
that it is essentially a last appeal to force
in its most direct and savage form, when
every other means appear from experience
to have failed. Wegreatly doubt, moreover,
whether the multitude would believe in the
painlessness of death by electricity, aud
whether the lightning stroke would not
evoke that shudder of sympathy with the
condemned which so utterly "demoralizes
the guilotine, 'and which the idea oftorture
in this age at MI events, never fails TO elicit
in England. There would be too much the
air of a scientific experiment in every exc
cution and single instance oftailure would,
till the rapid increase of murder recalled the
people to themselves, be fatal to the punish
ment Of flcath.-Spectator.