The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-08-08
oninions of the New York Press.

Especial to THE Observation-Disclosures Dispatch.l
New YORK, Aug. THE Commercial
Advertiser, in connection with the section
enjoins secrecy, says: The incidents this
morning amply illustrate the wrongfulness
of the law. The earliest news received
from Auburn today was simply dispatch
and the information of Kemmler's death.
According to the terms of the law no news
paper had right to publish anything more.
Presently came dispatch that the eXecu-
ton had been frightful bungle; that the
electrical apparatus did not work as had
been expected; that the application of the
current had to be repeated twice before
life was extinct. The obvious comment is
how, If the law were to be obeyed in every
detail, should the public have learned even
suspicion of failure in the electrical ex-
ecution even nows Supposiug the latter
story to have been untrue, but to have been
quietly disseminated by word of mouth,
how was the citizen to know what was
the real truth of the matters The people
have right to know whether the punish
ment they have prescribed was proper
and humane punishment, or a dreadful in
Fiction of protracted agony and torture.
The Mail and Express says the present
law provides all the incentives to crime
that can well be furnished by a legislative
act; and at the same time it takes away all
the deterrent effects of the death penalty.
| Justice, instead of being made surer and
more speedy, is made altogether uncertain.
Jurors have already refused to convict
murderers because they wouldnot condemn
any man to death by electricity, and con-
viction will henceforth be almost impossi-
BILE SO long as the law stands. Even the
ladies of both sexes who wanted hanging
abolished as cruel will have to acknowledge
now that their pet substitute is as much
worse than hanging, from their own point
of view, as could be imagined. Their law
has done what it ought not to have done,
and it has left undone things that it ought
to have done, and is a miserable fail
ure. The first duty of the legislature OF
1891 is to repeal the electical execution act
The Brooklyn Eagle is confident that the
new law will lessen murder as well as
murderers. AS for the abolition of capital
punishment, that primarily rests with
those who STAY, let them stop their bust
ness. Then capital punishment viii
abolish itself.
To days ((Thursday) Sun says: The
first duty of the next legislature will be tc
repeal the electrical execution law and tt
restore the old method of administering tine
death sentence by hanging. Scientific
curiosity has been gratified sufficiently by
this one awful experiment. The present
generation is not likely to hear Of another
such scene OF horrible uncertainty, un
known torture and heart sickening cir
cumstances as was witnessed yesterday
morning by the assistants at judicial ex-
pertinent upon the body CT William KEN
mler. Civilization will lind other lines or
which to manifest It's progress.
The Tribune says it is only because we
are so familiar with hanging that it's utterly
brutal conditions are tolerated. One only
needs to reflect upon the internal tortures
That are involved in suspension by the neck
with frightened rope cutting into the fest
to satisfy himself that no suffering coulG
be profounder or more exquisite than thai
endured by hanged man. No trick o.
knotting or Of sudden and dexterous jerk
iGg has ever been devised which insure.
an instantaneous end. TO witness the long
and desperate struggles of the poor wretcl
who is undergoing the slow process o
strangulation is to witness spectacle O
unspeasabie horror. 1t is probable tina
the spectacle or Kemmler's death wa
equally dreadful, but it is also probabl
that the. sensation FLED at tue first approach
of the electric current. This executio;
cannot be regarded as anything more thai
an experiment, and as an experiment
was not complete success. That there vii
now be loud outcry against the new law
is to be expected, and probably ali sorts o
expedients will be resorted to to proven
another application of it. Such expedient
ought noJ to succeed. While we canno
consider it settled that the law should en-
dure, a further test of its desirahility shoult
be had. This will be in the interest o
mercy and civilization.
From the Times: No doubt the advocate
of this method of executing the death pen
atty for the moment are put upon the de
fenAve, but they have no failure OF methot
to face. Nothing that they have claims