Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-04-10
JUSTICE REDEEMED,

JUSTICE REDEEMED.
 Justice is redeemed and Swift must hang. That is the verdict of re- awakened and conscience-stricken house. It is well.
 It is quite probable that many of the legislators, like Mr Durand of Milford, voted for the communication resolution as a favor to those members who, for various reasons, had interested them selves particularly in saving the brutal slayer of his wife. Many others, it may be presumed, were touched by the tender devotion and sacrificing spirit of a loving sister whose tears and pleadings they were unable to resist, and so leaned to the side of mercy through sentiment rather than spirit of justice. Still others were found on the side of the murderer through a conscientious an tagonism to capital punishment, and those men might naturally be expected to array themselves under any circum- stances on the side of communication. It is quite probable, in the light of yester- days vote in the house sustaining Governor Bulkeiey's veto and sealing Swifts doom, that some of the two former classes of members were brought to realizing sense of their duty by contact and converse with their con- stituents. It is very likely, too, that public sentiment as voiced almost unanimously by the press of the state brought the susceptible and tender hearted legislators to their senses, and gave them a new light on the case.
 But whatever may have been the nov ing causes to reverse the previous vote in the house, the action taken yesterday is creditable to the members and the state which they represent. AS Govern or Bulkeley said in his veto, there has been no new evidence brought forward to discredit the facts or law in the case since the former were decided in the superior and the latter in the supreme court of the state. In so far as the facts go, the twelve jurymen who heard the actual evidence presented, amplified and in detail while yet the facts of the case were fresh in the minds of the actual witnes ses, might be reasonably regarded as better able to heard them from the lips of a sister and counsel whom love and lucre swayed in the murderers favor. And so far as the law of the case is concerned, the judgment of the superior court, which reviewed the trial and found no error, might be regarded at least as equally and by most people it may be regarded as more-weighty than the opinions of the Judiciary committee of the legis- lature. Look at the case as we will, was no justification for computing the sentence of John H. Swift.
 It would have been a disgrace to the good name of our commonwealth had Swift been allowed to escape the just pen atty of his crime. Alta time when human life is held so cheaply in our highly civi- hzed commonwealth, when even the present curious legislature could not see its way to abolishing capital punish ment, when another brutal murderer stands in the shadow of the gallows and several others are waiting to answer for their crimes, it were worse than folly to extend mercy to one so deserving of death as John H. Swift. Justice to the dead, justice to the living, justice to the majesty of outraged law demand that he shall seal with his blood the horrible crime by which he hurried from life the honest and industrious young woman whose misfortune it was to be his wife. To the loving and devoted sister whose unwearying and almost superhuman ef- forts have stopped just. short of saving a worthless life pity, deep, fervent and will go out from every sec tion of the state. The only painful thing about the coming execution will be the misery that will come to her young and loving heart when justice, by the exc ,ution of her brother, shall stand vindi- ,ated and triumphant before the eyes of Sod and man. Pity to her young heart! But let Justice oe done though the heavens fall.