Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-09-20
HANGING AND FL0GGING
As Punishment for Criminals Dis
cussed by Many Londoners
ALAWYER'S DEFENSE OF WHISKY.
He Scores the TeetOtlerS for Trying to Ban
ish the Article.
A BIG MEDICAL ONSLAUGHT ON HIM
IBY CABLE TO THE DIsPATcH.I

lBY CABLE TO THE DISPATCH.l
LONDON, Sept. 19.-LCopyrighted.1- IA
fortnight ago the Times opened its columns
to discussion by means of letters Of the
threadbare subject of the utility of hanging,
as q deterrent of murder. Learned lawyers,
eminent publicists and noble lords have
Joined in the controversy, but the only
letter which has attracted general attention
appeared in yesterdays Times over the
signature GA Country Doctor" The
writer was at one time resident surgeon at
the London Hospital, and he had the privi-
lege of talking on the subjects of fogging
and hanging with notorious and chronic
criminal, " who lay dying of cancer.
The doctor recorded the conversation in
his diary, from which he has now given to
the world some extracts. These show that
this particular criminal had very great
horror of the lash and the gallows, and had
no doubt that the distaste was shared by all
men of his class. 'There's only one mis-
take you make" he added, ''you ought to
fog Just as man is leaving prison If he
could show his friends his raw back it would
be to all sermon"
BOWL AGAINST AMERICA
The lucubrations of this interesting
Scoundrel, which are published simultane-
ously with the appearance of the annual re-
ports of the British Prison Board, showing
remarkable decrease of serious crime in this
favored country, have moved the 81. James
Gazette to indulge in one of its periodical
and characteristic howls about the inef-
fciency of American legal systems.
The Gazette quotes in big type ''the truly
shocking statistics of homicide which can
now be placed side by side with the extrav-
sgances Of American leniency toward
crime, and arrives editorially at the con-
clusion that all the trouble is due to ''the
peculiar tendency of the American nature
to set comparatively light store by human
life; to regard homicide in large and in
deed quite unreasonable proportion of cases
as a mishap rather than crime, and in conse-
quence to view its perpetration, except in
certain special instances, as men upon whom
any new-fangled experiment of the criminal
reforming faddist may just as well be tried
as not"
THE SLAVERY OF DRINE-
In the columns of the two most wideky- |
4
present raging controversy on the subject |
of the drinking of alcoholic liquors. 1t |
began with the Telegraph, which invariably |
inaugurates the silly season with some topic |
for public discussion and which, for the last |
two weeks, has been devoting two or three
columns per day to correspondence under
the heading, ''The Slavery of Drink" pre-
senting the usual drivel and cant of would |
be reformers, total abstainers and Pro-
hibitionists.
This week, however, the Times has begun |
new phase Of the discussion, which has |
been participated in by many eminent |
medical and scientific men. 1t is started by |
DR.. W. Mortimer GlanviIle, the great alien
ist Of Hanover square, who, apropos of Sir |
Wilfred Uawson's quotation from Lord |
Athoris, ''the cause of drunkenness is |
drinking" comes boldly to the front with |
the assertion that drunkenness is in no /
other sense the consequence of drinking /
than the destruction of house by fire is the /
consequence Of having a cooking range on
the premises"
A PLEA FOR DRINK
He goes on to say: ''It is not to engage
IN the puerile play of words with Sir VIII
fred Lawson and the advocates of what |
believe to be one of the weakest and most
mischievous crazes of the nineteenth CEN
tury, mean teetotalism, that ask you to
give me space in your columns; but because
think the time has arrived when it is de-
sirable that some one who has strong views
on the subject of what it is the fashion Of
the day TO denounce as drinking" should
speak out honestly
q have never shared the opinions of the
many in my profession on the drink ques-
ton, and l have not otintentionally veiled my
view of the issue so repeatedly raised and so
hotly discussed, but the moment appears
for plain speaking, and / trust
this may be permitted not only to those who
seek to convince the public mind that al
cohol in all its forms is needless to the
healthy and of only questionable value to
the sick, but to those who hold that it is far
better that the healthy should be moderate
drinkers and abstainers, and 1 will 90
further and say in the prevention of disease,
should be clearly recognized.
Further than this, Dr.. Glanville saws that
he honestly believes that the propagation of
teetotal doctrines is exercising destructive
influence on the moral, mental and physical
health of the people.