The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-05-17
Abolish Capital Punishment.

What sickening spectacle; what a
trayesty upon civilization; what refuta-
ton of the boosted progress OF the nine
teenth century! A man judiciaily muir
dered; struck by lightning by order Of
the court. a court which is supposed to
sit in an impartial judicial attitude and
temper its decisions with mercy. The
death OF CARLYLE w. Harris was murder
just as much as it would have been muir
der to have struck him down with an ak.
What q horrible thing it was for a number
of men to seize one man. bind him
in a chair and send nearly 1000 volts OF
electricity through his quivering BODY,
while the judicially appointed officials
stood by, stop-watch in hand, and calmly
watched the doomed man die. There is lit
tie to choose between burning negroes in
Texas and electrocuting condemned MUIR
derers at Sing Sing.
Advocates of capital punishment tell us
that the bible is the authority for capital
punishment. Way back in the dim
berbsrous past, when the Mo-
sale law was promulgated, amid
lightning flashes and crashing thunders
and rocking mountains, as the chronicler
puts it, there NAV have been a neces-
sity for IAN eye for an eve and tooth for
a tooth" But if one carefully examines
the customs of the nations of antiquity
he will find that many of them had a city
OF refuge to which the murderer could
flee, and once safe inside no judicial
or other authority could touch him.
Furthermore, advocates Of biblical punish
ment cannot consistently be guided by the
Mosaic dispensation il they profess TO be
followers of the Nazarene. He taught an
entirely different doctrine and forever set
aside the reciprocal death clauses in the
Mosaic law Christianity. IS taught by
Christ and His followers, does not teach
judicial murder.
Ii is asserted that murders vastly in
crease where the death penalty has been
abrogated, and the example OF Maine is
often pointed to in il ustrston of this. IL
would be well to tell the whole truth re-
speeding the actual condition in Maine
which caused such an increase in the
number of murders. 1t was about the
time that numbering was extensively be-
gun there, and the woods fairly swarmed
with the lumbermen, who are largely
composed of half-breed Canadian French
and Indians of the very lowest class. The
death penalty was re-enacted, but there
has been little decrease in murder during
the numbering seasons. New Hampshire
is another state which offers striking
example of the influence of judicial muir
der in the prevention of killing human
beings. The state has suffered some of
the most atrocious murders of modern
times. Think of ALMY, who gives up his
life this month. Look at Vermont, where
the finding of a murdered body means
sure death to some one, and has for the
past century. Look at Massachusetts.
where LIZZIE BORDEN has just been
arTsigned in the superior court for a
crime that there is no evidence she
committed. excepting that she can't te /
exactly what she was doing every minute
of certain day. But that is very slender.
Few of Us could.
The New England states have been
noted, first because they claim their civil
ization is superior to that of the West,
and second because capital punishment
has been reduced to an exact science
there.
The world has got away from that anti
quated system. The modern idea is to
reform and not 10 kill The sickening
spectacle of q judicial murder like that of
CARLYLE HARRIS, the columns of rot
telegraphed all over the country and read
by thousands whose taste has become
vitlsied by years of association with such
scenes, ought to be abolished forever. A
reformatory institution in which murder
ers could be incarcerated for life would
be much more in accord with the broader
spirit which is supposed to characterize
the actions of humanity in this age OF the
world.