The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-23
A MONSTER.

The monster, Deeming, was executed
this morning in Australia. OF his guilt
there is no doubt, for he confessed it. His
defense is that he was born with an ire
pressible passion for killing. The medical
experts decided that he was mentally
and morally responsible for his crimes,
and while doubtless a creature of un-
arranged intellect and of morbid tempera-
ment from birth, his execution was entirely
proper on the sound ground that society
has right to judicially des troy human
mad dogs.
Such monsters as Deeming have existed
in all ages of the world, but have not al
ways been held to strict responsibility.
Jesse Pomeroy, the boy murderer, who
for many years has been an inmate Of the
Massachusetts state prison, would doubt
less have become Deeming had he been
suffered to go Mt large. The frightful
assassin, Williams, whose midnight
crimes furnished DeQuincey with the
basis of his terrific sketch, "Three
Memorable Murders" was O creature of
the Deeming sort. The dreadful monsters
| among the later Roman emperors that
succeeded Augustus and were fiendishly
cruel for mere cruelty's sake. ike Caiigula,
Nero. Domitian, Caracalla and Commodus,
were doubtless creatures of vitiated blood
and criminal instincts.
Ivan the Terrible, Peter the Great of
Russia, Catherine the Second and her son
Paul were all tainted with this revolving
love of cruelty for cruelty's sake. Henry
| the Third and Charles the Ninth of
France were all monarchs of wantonly
cruel temper and practice. The only great
| man among the black leaders of the San
| Domingo revolution, Toussaipt, was dis
tinguished for his humanity; his sue
cessors, Christophe and Dessalines, were
monsters of cruelty and vice.
| This wanton love of cruelty, not for
| policy, but for cruelty's sake, always
marks man of dissolute life and vitiated
blood. The only really great man of an
| tiquity who was guilty of wanton cruelty
| was Alexander, and his excuses were due
to his periodical intemperarce. Caesar,
| the greatest Roman of them all, was the
| most humane soldier and statesman of
antiquity. The wantonly cruel Romans
were of the type of Sylla and Mark An
| tony, men given to frightful excuses in
| the matter of wine and women. The
| cruel historical type of woman is of the
same dissolute habit.
The Cleopatra type of woman is al
ways cruel for cruelty's sake. The great
| men of the world have sometimes been
cruel for policy's sake, but the passion for
cruelty and wanton blood-letting is never
associated with superior mind; it is the
birthmark of 4 creature of bad parentage
and vitiated blood. Mirabeau, Napoleon
and Danton, men of brain, have small
sympathy with cruelty for cruelty's sake (;
| but the men of vitiated blood, morbid
minds and weak capacity, like Marat,
| Robesperre, either manifest an insane in
| difference to the sanctity of human life
or exhibit positive pleasure in taking it.
Put creature like Deeming, who had
always shown a good degree of cunning,
acuteness and a certain kind of intelli-
gence, in Paris at the opening of the Rev.
olution and he would have quickly gone
| to the front of the minor Terrorists, like
Carrier, who terrorized Nantes. In the
| ranks of the mscreants, who executed the
"massacres of September" in the ranks
of such anarchists rs Ravachol, creatures
like Deeming would quickly rise to dis
tinction they have the poisoned, vitiated
| mental and moral constitution out of
which comes your natural "blood drinker "
Sane, healthy minds naturally revolt from
| wanton murder and massacre-the char
acteristics of an Oriental tyrant imbruted
| by RIGHTEOUSNESS and sloth.
To be cruel for cruelty's sake was the
characteristic of the inferior races of an.
tiquity: the Persian, the Egyptian. the
| Parthian, but neither the Greek nor the
! Roman was wantonly cruel Tor cruelty 5
sake until they became vitia:ed, corrupted,
degenerate in mind and heart by associa-
ton with the eiletc Orientals. The best Tro-
JAMS, Hector and Eneas; the best Greeks.
| Ulysses and Nestor, Of the Uiad, were not
inhuman; the best Romans, Julius and
| Augustus Caesar, were humane, even when
state policy seemed TO demand extreme Sc.
verify. The most humane ruler of his day
WAS the great soldier Cromwell; he was
not q sentimental man, but he was a sane
man, and mental sanity and saluhrity are
not cursed with crazy thirst for blood
CHURCH AND STATE.