The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1889-07-11
STAUNTON. VA.
The GallOWs.

the country against death by the gal
lows is evidenced by the action in New
York by which electricity is to be substi-
tuted for the rope. 1t is not that the
mode which has recently been legalized
in that State is any more humane than
that which has come down to us from
the first institution of government in
this country, for it is not, but it is to be
taken as desire to escape from the bar
barous and brutal hangman's knot and
halter The cruel mental torture which
KENNEL, who is to be the first victim OF
electric shock legaliZed by statute, is
undergoing, is even more repulsive than
the coarse and savage trap and scat
fold. This latter is a mode with which
the public has become familiar, and
to be condemned to die in that man
ner, does not carry with it the ex-
cruciating and horrifying fear, which
the proposed subject in New York is
now undergoing, while the scientists
are discussing in his hearing, almost, the
probable effect and the degree and char
acter OF his suffering. The substitute
is confession that the halter itself is a
relict of an undeveloped civilization. 1t
indicates that the refined christian feel
ing that is making its progress in so
ciety is appalled, at the laws cruelty and
rigor, and that there should be some 9th
er way of avenging wrongs and punish
Il tnIx
tally break a mans neck, or strange
him to death through defects in the ma
chinery of execution or in the bungling
manner of operating it.
Public feeling and christian sentiment
have very recently received still more
terrible and paralyzing shock in the
hanging of woman in Pennsylvania,
who, from the evidence, as published, in
the estimation of every intelligent man
who reads it, must have been insane when
she committed the crime for which her
life was taken. She had poisoned two
of her children and her husband, upon
whose lives there were a few hundred
dollars of insurance That woman has
UHNtI Yet Dttll DOI1l, NlIO III ilcI lISnl
mind, would deliberately take the lives
of the children of her womb, and sub
ject them to eXcruciating pain and hor-
rible suffering in their passage to the
death her own mind had devised. That
fact of itself ought to have been convin-
cling proof that the poor creature was a
filter subject for lunatic asylum than
for the gallows. Her own action before
and after the terrible crime, emphasized
the assumption that her mind was de-
ranged, and that she was no more re
sponsible in law or morals for the I'M
natural offence, than if she had been in
generated III a madman's cell and con-
fined in a straight jacket.
In ninety cases out of every hundred,
where the penalty of death has been in
fiicted from the scaffold, the victims were
either insane, in our belief, when the
crimes they eXpatiated were committed,
or were found guilty upon circumstantial
evidence such as would justify the taking
of no human life The people them
selves under the influence of a sudden
shock occasioned by violent or mystic
rious death, are not in their right minds
not capable of soberly Judging of the
event and the motives which lead to it.
Il IS out of such abnormal conditions
that public sentiment, as it relates to
murder, is formed. 1t is grounded in a
degree of insanity, and its conclusions
Il IL,
of the same nature. 1t was thus with
the first victim of circumstantial evil
dence, whose life was sacrificed upon the
Cross to appease the clamor of the de-
luded and misguided multitude. Jesus
was accused OF purpose to usurp the
temporal throne of the Herods. The
rabble caught up the clamor; public
sentiment was formed, and insane with
rage and passion because of the false as
sumption, they demanded the crucifiXion
of falsely accused and innocent victim
From that time to the present there
scarcely ever has been case Of death
sentence upon circumstantial evidence
that was not judicial murder.
w t KNOW LIldj we are pup
ulaf and deeply rooted traditions and
usages in the views we have here ex-
pressed. Death by the gallows is part OF
our criminal urisprudence-interw oven
with our civil institutions. But it is
none the less barbarous. Witch-craft
and Sabbath whistling were once ual-
iy the object of the laws vengeance.
imprisonment for debt, as well as chat
fel-slavery were evironed by statutes and
enforced by the power of the State. 1t
was lawful and eapsed no shock to com
1lfanity to sunder mother and child, hus-
band and wife and brother and sister,
and Danish them to different directions
in the States without a minutes warn
ing, scarcely ever again to see each 9th
er or know each others fate. quick
ened natural conscience developed
christian sentiment a refined humanity,
marshalled their moral forces to contend
with and suppress these barbarous laws
and usages. And where is the enlight-
ened citizen of this day to say nay to
the verdict?
1t will be so with the brutal halter Of
the hangman. Che law which justifies
it and the public sentiment which stands
back of it, will change, is changing, and
will demand that capital punishment be
abolished throughout the limits of this
land dedicated to christian influences
and eiyilizing achievements.
He who balances the worlds in his
bands and holds in their orbits the roll
ing spheres, who watches the falling
sparrow, and tempefs the wind to the
shorn lamb, has power to take life and
to give it. In His own good time He
viii remove from his footstGol those who
C lmbeY it. when in His wisdom they have
accomplished the mission for which they
were placed here He can kill and make
alive. and it is not in man to usurp this
authority by erecting gallows and
to the death from ii those who
may have been adjudged guilty of crimes
under defective laws and by weak human
nature.
In the Hastings Court of Danville on
Wednesday Mrs. Annie Smith, wife of
Ar. p. A. l.. Smith, made application for
a certificate to enable her to appear be-
fore the proper legal commissioner for
aYa ma m i.,, on, m ami io, for 1ioapco