Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-11-16
THE PLACE OF EXECUTION.

Anschlag, the brutal Los Angeles muir
derer, has cheated the gallows by commit
ting suicide. 1t was clearly the result of
carelessness that he secured poison. Had
Anschlag been confined after final conyic-
tion IN one of the State Prisons, it is i'm
probable that the scafiold would have been
robbed of its victim. The next Legisla-
ture should give attention to this subject
of executions. The policy of our law is
adverse to public executions, and the same
reason that fortifes that policy will sustain
the farther advance of having all execu-
tions take place at one of the State Prisons.
New York and Ohio have adopted this
reform, and could not be induced to relin-
quish it and return to the old system of
making every Sheriff an executioner
On purely economic grounds the law
should be reformed as suggested. The i'm
mense cost to the people of executions in
ffty-two counties will be wholly eliminated
if performed by one executioner at one place.
Morally, the step is one to be taken, be-
cause an execution at county seat is de-
moralizing. 1t excites the entire commu-
nifty; it creates an intense and morbid
appetite for the gallows tragedy it gives
the newspapers opportunity to enlarge
upon the last hours and the death struggles
OF the condemned, and to Just that extent
the sensibilities of people are benumbed
1t robs the gallows of much of its terror to
the murderer, because it gives him oppor-
tunity to pose as a hero and to "die game -
IN the newspapers. Strange as it may
seem, it is absolutely true, as all expert
enced officers can bear witness, that the
dramatic scenes of last hours and of last
moments on the scaffold are causes for
considerable display of vanity by criminals.
They take on an air of consequence at
such times that really infects others of the
vicious class with envy, and has not a
little to do with the perpetra.ion of other
murders, because, as has been said, it
cheats the rope of something of its terror
But there are still other reasons why
the Legislature without any further delay
should enact law requiring the con-
demned to be at once transferred, say to
San Quentin, and there confined until the
hour Of execution, and to be then hanged
as by law provided. These reasons are in
brief: That the whole sentimental brigade
ha al
will not be showered with flowers or wept
over by cranky women whose emotions are
misdirected in their manifestation. He
Will not be written up by the sensational
men of the sensational press, and the mur-
derer exalted into a hero and martyr
by the publicity given to his words and
his acts. The gallows will cease to become
dramatic stage for the posing of the con-
demned. Executions will not be commu-
nifty excitants and irritants, and they will
therefore more truly serve the deterrent
purpose of the law. The victim will be so
confined and shut out from the world and
watched as to render his escape by suicide
or otherwise improbable, if not impossible.
So soon as the murderer is finally con-
demned he ought to be, as he is in France,
esteemed civilly dead and cut off from all
the world utterly; his very name should
disappear thereafter in criminal records
except as a key TO the Interpretation of
the number by which he is known among
the condemned.
With the executions performed at one
place, and by one executioner, we would
be unlikely to have bungling and horrify-
ing "jobs," as now frequently happens,
and the sentence of death would come to
be so dreadful that it would make men
fear to kill where now they are so fire.
quently nonchalant about taking human
life. Whoever gives thought to this
subject will not fail to discover that
there is no sufficient reason to be advanced
against the proposition we make, and that
there is in favor of it every reason Of
economy, morality and effectiveness.