The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-07-14
Reminders Contempt Of Death.

/ Several statements have appeared re-
/ Gently that Kemmler. the Buffalo muir
( derer, who will be executed by electricity,
said that he courted death and was anxious
TO die. and when he was resentenced a few
days ago to die in August, the dispatches
told us that he was apparently less con
cerned than his guards.
Contempt Of death, the wise old Gascon
philosopher, Montaigne. said, is one of the
& andest benefits that virtue confers on
mankind; it is the means of accommodating
human life with soft and easy tranquility,
and giving US pure and pleasant taste cf
living. without which all other enjoyments
would become extinct. But while some of
the most virtuous Of mankind look upon
the approach Of death with fear and
trembling, others, who have yielded to evil.
like kemmler, support il with greater ease
than life
What manner Of person Is this kemmler.
who will meet death in the form Of the
most powerful agent yet conquered and
utilized by the genius Of civilized man, 1t
would be natural TO supp Sc that he does
not share the scientific or public interest in
this particular instance concerning the use
of electricity as a destroyer of life, yet this
is by no means apparent from his conduct
in prison and in the court. Still, while he
displayed neither nervousness nor fear, he
may have been mentally curious TO know
whether death would come painlessly. or
whether he would realize the force of the
fatal shock, or whether re would meet the
victim Of his savage cruelty on some shore
beyond the grave. Indeed, might not the
same CHASTITY thought have occurred to this
murderer at such a time that once occurred
to that highly imaginative and much neg
lected poet, Alexander Smith:
A thousand years hence, when we both are
damned,
Wen sit like ghosts upon the wailing
shore,
And read our lives by the red light of hell.
Perhaps there was in Reminders breast
at least a faint solicitude as to the sort of
country he is shortly going to. Anyhow,
he displayed fine contempt of death, and
two facts attending the proposed electrical
execution may have helped to brace him
up The first is that he will not know at
what precise moment the fatal shock
will extinguish his lamp and stop the cur
rent of bis warm blood. The sentence is
that it will be within the week beginning
August g." Secondly, his death will be
practically instantaneous and, therefore,
without pain.
Hereafter, then, it may be no unusual
thing to see New York criminals going to
their doom with witty remarks on their
tongue and that natural assurance
which pleased Montague and the ancient.
1t Is recorded of one who was being led to
the gallows in olden times that he requested
not to be carried through certain street,
lest a merchant who lived there should
arrest him on the way for an old debt
Another told the hangman he must not
touch his neck for fear of making him
laugh, he was so ticlllish. But in Kemm-
ler's case, as in the case of all who shall be
executed by electricity, there will be no ap-
preclative audience admitted which would
applaud any witty remarks which he
might feel disposed to make. lie is practi-
cally dead to the world already.