Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-03-26
FREDERICK o. PIERCE, Secretary.
EXECUTION OF CRIMINALS.

FREDERICK o. PIERCE. Secretary.
 
 EXECUTION OF CRIMINALS.
 What better argument can there be in favor of the present method of inficting the death penalty than the following from one who is to meet his fate on the gallows Daniel Lyons, the murderer of the ath- lete Quinn, now confined in the Tombs, New York
 II couldn't help feeling that something would happen to save me, still every once in while there would come the horrible thought of a rope being put around my neck and of my being choked when it would be drawn tight, and then of dropping down like so much lead, and then lingering half dead and alive. All had ever heard or read of accidents at executions came back to me; the bungling of the sheriff men; the slipping of the noose the tearing of the flesh and cords of the neck, and all those other things, all of them would get into my head, and tell you the feeling was awful. The only relief was to dream that something would happen that could get off free.'
 This is the opinion of 8 condemned criminal of the present manner of taking off murderers and it carries weight withit and combines to make the strongest argu- ment in favor of hanging and against the introduction of electricity that any theorist or student of the subject can produce. Here is what Lyons says about the awful suspense:
 s'The walk to the gallows. Or, mo- say, perhaps the moment when the guard comes to your cell to take you out. That, think would perhaps be the worst minute.''
 Many efforts have been make to get Lyons to talk about the death penalty with out success but The Sun finally got an ex- pressisn of opinion from him. When the question was put to him as to which of the two methods of inficting death, hanging or electricity he would prefer he said he preferred the electric shock. Half the fear he thinks comes from the possible ideas that are connected with hanging and the chances of some slip in the execution. The idea, he says, of walking'up gallows and having to stand on drop, and of W liting for the hangman to fasten the moose and all the other business, is horri- ble and enough to make a fellow shudder.
 Lyons objection to neck stretching is, as we have already said, the strongest kind of an argument in favor of death by hang ing. About the only opposition there seems to be to hanging originates with a lot of sentimentalists and theorists who want to make the death of a murderer as respectable as possible. The infiction of the death penalty for murder is not simply for the purpose of ridding society of the dangerous character, for that can be done by life sentence and abolish capital pun ishment It is to infict suffering, just such agony and fear, as Lyons tells about. It is to make an example of the murderer and to deter others from committing a similar crime To allenate the mental suf- fering of the subject and the long hours of dread and anxiety would be to destroy the moral effect of the death penalty.
 There are many things that might be, with good results, embodied in this law that would remove the possibility of the great parade of sentimentalism that so frequently characterizes executions. The prisoner should bid farewell to his rela- tives and friends and the outside world on the day that sentence is pronounced and all communication with them should then be cut off forever. But the day of his execu- tion should not be kept from him or the account of the execution withheld from the press, as is recommended by the New York commissioners, of which Elbridge T. Gerry is the head. The refusal to deliver the body of the dead criminal to his friends, as provided by the proposed New York state law, precludes the possibility of unseemly obsequies, but inficts an un- merited punishment upon the friends of the deceased. Some restrictions, how ever, might be placed upon the ceremon- ies. They might be simple. They might be conducted under the auspices of the state, a clergyman of the mans belief off ciating with only the immediate relatives ill attendance.
 Death by hanging is not as terrible as it is thought by many to be, if the testimony of high medical authority is to be believed. But if it carries with it any terror, and capital punishment is to continue, then let the gallows and not the electric shock do