The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-07
THE DEATH PENALTY.

death" but DIR. Mcdonald in his official
report to Gov. Hill positively denied
that Kemmler suffered any pain; the sec
ond application of the current was too
prolonged, causing the burning of the
sponge and slight dessication. DR.. Nc
Donald said:
Execution by electricity is infinitely prefer
able. BY the latter method the fatal stroke
renders it's victim unconscious in an infnitesi-
NAL fraction OF a second, while at the same time
Il disintegrates the nerve tissue and blood to an
extent which insures an sbsoluteness OF death
in a shorter space of time than is possible by
any other known method.
In our Judgment it is matter of small
consequence whether a murderer suffers
or not in his legal taking off. Society has
no business knowingly and willfully
to devise a cruel death for cut
throat; neither is it bound to furnish
him with painless death. Indeed dis
tinguished E nglish judge opposed the sug-
gestion of the substitution of electrical
killing for hanging upon the ground that
if the people once became satisfied that
man who had cruelty killed fellow crea-
ture was likely to be painlessly done to
death the chances of his being lynched
at once on discovery would be
greatly increased. Capital punishment by
hanging, except when clumsily performed,
is not a painful death, for the neck is us
ually broken, but probably electrocution is
less open to the objection ofunpleasant ac-
cidents through the clumsiness of the
operator, and it is not as revolving to the
eyes of the official spectators as the gull
lotine.
The outworn argument against capital
punishment is that it is powerless TO pre-
vent crime, and even serves to protect
criminals by inducing juries to acquit
rather than to cause it to be inflicted. This
argument has no basis of fact to rest upon.
In England where murderers are promptly
tried and capital punishment at once in
ficted, fewer murders are committed and
convictions tar more easily obtained than
in America, where the laws delay and
sentimental juries interfere to defeat JUS
tice. Switzerland has been compelled to
restore capital punishment, and so have
several states of our Union that once
abolished the death penalty. The only
country in Europe where the death PEN
atty is not exacted for murder is Italy, and
as this change was only made last year.
time enough has not elapsed to pass judg-
ment upon its wisdom.
The argument against capital punish
men is worthless against the fact that So
ciety does not kill cutthroat simply for
the example, but chiefly because dead
murderer is one human tiger less in this
world. A dead murderer is a murderer in
prison that be cannot break; in a cell
that the pardon of no sympathetic execu-
tive can unlock; he is one less mad dog or
raging Bengal tiger in the world. The law
is already exceedingly tender with homi-
cides. Up to at least 1918 in England it
was punishable with death to steal a horse
or sheep; to steal live shillings from a
shop, to pick a mans pocket of more than
IL pence, or to steal linen from clothes
line, and as late as 1884 there were over 200
offenses punishable with DEATH OF course
the result of keeping such laws
upon the statute book was that
in the bulk of cases prosecutors
and witnesses failed to appear, and the
jury very often preferred to commit per-
jury to having on their consciences the
blood of poor wretches tried for triiing
ofienses. The frightful case of young
woman with a nursing infant who was
! hanged for stealing bolt of cotton cloth
! was quoted effectively by Sir William
| Mountford, Elizabeth Fry and Sir Samuel
/ Romilly against these barbarous statutes,
| and since 1910 We believe no person has
suffered the death penalty in England save
| for murder.
In America the law is so lenient that no
: man who kills another in heat of passion
| or under exasperating circumstances OF
| any sort is in danger of the scaffold; the
/ various degrees of murder and man.
slaughter are so elastic that they are sue.
| cessfully stretched TO protect from capital
punishment all homicides save those who
| XIII their victim with deliberate malice OF
for the purpose of robbery, and sentimental
| juries are not seldom successfully invoke ed
to spare the lives of even these miscreants
man found guilty of murder, therefore,
in America is sure to be a human tiger, s
| cruel, ferocious creature that for the safety
Of the state ought to be legally slain a:
soon as possible on conviction. There i:
no wisdom or justice in taxing the state e
support such wild beasts in prison, even il
il were morally certain that they would
never regain their liberty, but il is seldom
that such a convict when planted in the
/ peniientiary ever serves out his sentence
for executives are constantly breaking jail
| for convicts with pardon issued on some
| plausible pretext for elemency 10 miscre-
ants who have money enough left to hire a
lawyer 10 draft. present and plead the pc
tition, Therefore the only sure way to pre-
! vent murderer from lodging the
/ fall weight of the ayenging axe OF
| the law, or turning its edge after
! conviction by successful cry fol
elemency. is to send him, not q
prison, but 20 the scafiold. When he i.
| hung and buried he will be worth more e
his country as material for phosphate.
than he ever will be in life Imprisonment.
Taxing the state 10 support s fellow
convicted OF having cut his neighbor',
! neck 10 steal his wallet or spoil his goods