The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1888-06-01
ELECTRIC EXECUTION.
The Relative Merits OF the Rope
and the Electric Button.

instantaneous beyond all natural pre-
cedent, and there is an extreme prob.
ability, supported by a mass Of evil
dence from persons who have been
rendered unconscious, but not killed,
by lightning, that the action OF cleo.
tricity when the shock is strong out
runs the speed OF the transmission Of
sensation. Unconsciousness arrives
before pain can be perceived, and the
stricken man reports, il he survives,
that he felt nothing. 1t is an offense
against the instructive sense of justice
to reserve such a privilege for the Ok.
ceptionally wicked, to give to a muir
derer like Palmer a fate which an EN-
peror Frederick III. might desire in
vain; and such offenses always bear
civil fruit, though not always Of
the anticipated kind. In this
case, for instance, the result
which one would at first
sight expect may not rise, but anoth.
er, nearly as bad, and much more
likely to escape attention. Intending
murderers, it is usually said, may feel
that a menance has been withdrawn,
and that they are nor free to slay;
and in countries where murderers are
usually disbelievers and where suicide
is more often contemplated than with
us, that, we conceive, would be the
inevitable result. With a certain class
OF criminal, the educated poisoner and
the cultivated murderertor gain, that
will be the result, among ourselves,
also, the deterrent effect Of hanging
consisting party in the disgrace at
tached for ages TO that method of OK.
ecution. We confess, however, to q
doubt whether among the ordinary
criminals of a population like that Of
New York, death by electricity will be
less deterrent than death by the rope.
The unerring certainty of the method
and it's appalling ~suddenness, the alb
sence OF that lingering hope that the
rope may break, and so there M.y
come reprieve, and the horror--if we
may affront some readers by the
suegestion-of suffering the very pen
atty which. in the Imagination OF the
ignorant through all ages, has come
most directly from God, may breed O
fear as deep as the fear OF the rope or
even deeper than it. Nothing appalls
like lightning, and death by lightning
may appall a brute insensible to the
horror OF an ordinary execution. If
committed by callous brutes, the new
mode OF execution may prove more
deterrent than the old, and we must
look elsewhere tor the consequences
which, nevertheless, we hall instructive.
ly expect.
May not the consequence OF inflict-
ing painless death for crime, a conse-
Iquence slow to arrive and at first un.
perceived, be a deadening of the natu-
raj and most beneficial horror OF
inhicting death too readiIyg The new
philanthropists will smile at us and
say the dislike to the penalty ofdeath
is increasing everywhere; but if they
were accessible to argument we could
show them reasons for doubling that
conclusion. The tendency to wardoes
not decrease, though the habit of
preaching against it increases, and il
it lasts the dislike OF capital punish.
meRt for adequate reason cannot long
survive. The dislike exists for this
one moment out ofail the ages Christian
ages as wells as Pagan;but though man.
kind is not wise, it rs too absurdly IL
logical, considered by Itself, to
keep it's place long in the thoughts
of men. It involves, under
the theory now, for example,
rampant in Italy, this ~preposterous
assertion. that while there Is no
sacredness in human life as such,
while it is noble to shoot an ignorant
%conscript who under the compulsion
Of discipline invades your country,
and justiiable to shoot the soldier
who will not invade another country
when he is ordered, there is a sacro-
sanctity in life il only il is criminal
and noxious. The mutinee must be
spared, it is q duty TO slaughter out
an invading regiment which may slay
and burn, but wicked to slaughter the
miscreant who has burned or slain.
There can be no future for an idea so
essentially silly as that; and when it
passes away there may come with the
reaction from it an undue hardening
OF the general heart. The impulse Of
the day is to be oyersoft; but the ten
dency OF thought, which will outlast
the impulse OF the day, is toward ad.
| amantine hardness, toward. that is,
the scientific view of things-the view
which suggests that death is not only
the most deterrent OF all punishments
for crime, but the one least embars
rassing to the innocent community,
and most certain to prevent the
hereditary descent Of criminal i'm
stincts. II there is no knowledge save
scientific knowledge, Plato was right
when he sentenced ale mis-
shapen babies, and it would be hard
to answer Mr.. Cottor Morison's ter
rible suggestions as to the prevention
OF any accumulation of criminal pro-
eiivities. The world will harden as it
grows scientific, harden toward all I'M.
pediments To the material happiness
which it seeks for mankind, harden,
toward criminals. for example, as
Irish tenants have hardenend toward
land grabbers'-think OF their