Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-02-17

The Marysville appeal objects warmly
to the New jersey bill, which will prob
ably become law, providing what may
be published concerning the execution of
criminals, and prohibiting the sensational
reports of them. The objection of the
Appeal is that such legislation is danger
Gus trespass upon the liberty of the press.
1t adds:
If the descriptions of executions are horrible
and revolving, the fault is with the penalty
imposed, not with the press. The law should
PROVIDE no punishment OF which it is ashamed.
Inc pubhclty of events by the press is the great
est retormstive agent that the world has to-day
IL IS the electric light turned upon dark places
II 1t reveals things that should not exist correct
the evils. But do not attempt to shut off the
nght by which the evils are made plain.
Our contemporary misapprehends the
subject. There is such thing as the too
much sensitiveness on the part of the press
regarding supposed infringments upon its
liberty There is no violation of press
privilege, no trespass upon the sacred
preserves of liberty to provide as part of
the criminal system that its executions
shall not be made the means of melting
new criminality by reading sensational
reports. The law is not ASHAMED of the
punishment it inficts )" on the contrary
the proposed regulation is to intensity the
effect of the punishment and make it more
deterrent than ever, and thus of greater
value to society. The question of the re-
VOltino ebaractar of aYacufione - 80. =;
volved at all, but the exaggerated reports
of the sensational press which very largely
remove from the scaffold the awfulness
that ought to invest the very naming of
that terrible instrument of law, are matters
involved.
One of the purposes of the law
in inhicting punishment is to
warn men against crime to deter from
Its commission. The sensational news
papers, by their methods, elevate the GRIM
inal to the plane of class of martyrs
they excite taste for the horrible; they
cater to a morbid and dangerous appetite,
and in that respect, by their ford and de-
tailed accounts, do as much injury to pub
lie morals as the dime novels police ga
zettes and yellow-covered romances that
have ruined tens of thousands of lives. and
kept full the ranks from which very con-
siderable class of criminals are drawn.
The law before the Legislature of New
jersey has been contended for for several
years by the REcoRD-U UNION, and has been
advocated by the most advanced thinkers
of the age for long fine
There was time when, in common with
the general custom, this journal reported
the details of executions in full, with pre-
fatory and subsequent scenes, and all the
minute of the death of the victim, his APP
Pearance and words, the declining beat of
the pulse, the dying muscular struggles,
the throbs Of the failing heart, the scenes
about the scaflold and the town, and host
of similar excitatory particulars. But the
method was abandoned very many years
ago from profound conviction of its wrong
fulnesS, and that by such reports no added
terror was given to the indicting of the
penalty of the law, nor the deterrent in
fuence augmented but that, on the con-
trary, absolute injury resulted, without the
slightest compensating return to society.
A very large number of the best journals
of the day have taken like action, and now
confine their reports to narrower and COM
paratiyely unobjectionable limits. The
sensational press method actually dignifes
the criminal, makes him for weeks the
chief object in the public thought, aids him
in posing dramatically, and it is positively
known has induced men to murder for the
sake of the brief notoriety thus given to
occupants of the scafold.
The murderer from the hour of his
final condemnation ought to be removed
from the gaze of the world; he should be
as one dead to society; his cell should be
closed against sentimental women, bah
bling cranks, and sensational reporters
alike, and his final taking off should be
Swallowed by the awfulness of privacy,
sequestration from all the world except the
appointed witnesses. Not even his body
should be given over to be made the sub
ject of heroics and dramatic scenes, such
as followed the execution of the Chicago
Anarchists
The New Jersey bill provides for
large jury Of citizens to witness the execu-
ton Of criminals, for official inspection by
several branches of the government, and
for medical and scientific witnesses to the
death, and full and complete record of
the due carrying out of the mandate of
condemnation. No possible good can be
conserved by publishing anything more
than the facts these witnesses will officially
report. Anything beyond that tends to
defeat the very end and i'm of punish
ment.
The law ought to go TO greater length
and require all executions to be carried
out in one place-the State Prison. Let
any one recall his experience in any town
or village on execution day" The whole
community is in a feyerish state; morbid
curiosity becomes so intense that hundreds
and thousands throng about the Jail in
impatient expectancy, though it is i'm
possible for them to see. Children become
strangely excited, and are rendered less
sensible of the awfulness IF the event. If
IT happens that in quick sue
eeSSion several executions take place
at county seat it is the
common experience of observation that
the youth of the town lose all sense Ct the
gravity and solemnity OF the events, and
there are numerous eases on record in
which they have in mimicry repeated the
scene, and in more than one instance with
fatal effects to child victims. The influ-
enoe upon adults is scarcely less pernicious,
and TO this fact experienced officers unan-
imously bear testimony. 1t is wise, there
ore, to remove from country towns these