Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1895-11-21
A Remedy Suggested.

In the following COMMUNICATION We submit
to our readers and to those who make and ex-
ecute our laws, the suggestion of remedy,
terrible, and in its awful fitness, strong in
promise of prevention, Though delcately
yelled, the writer's meaning will be under
stood.-EDIToR
Forasmuch as recent shocking brutalitits
In Frederick city, together with other past
instances of violation of law and order, indi-
cate powerful undercuIrent of dissatisfac-
ton with the present methods, legally estab
lished, to prevent and punish the crimes Of
rape and assault upon females, we desire to
appeal to the proper officers Of the land to
further the enactment Of a totally different
system in dealing with these crimes. 1t
cannot be denied that the present methods
haye proved wholly insufficient, and that,
instead of checking or preventing the com
mission of these crimes. they have only sue
ceeded in brutalzing the community 80 that
crowds of men attempt and commit the very
same crime, a violation and infractiOn of pure
virgin justice and honest, honorable order
and law to secure what they conceive to be
punishment by death And yet it can be
clearly shown that the death penalty is at
once contradictory as the expression may
scem) unjust and insufficient 1t is unjust
because the crime of rape is simply brutal
ity. When we strip from that crime the high
colorings of our sentiments and sympathies,
our personal feelings and our personal abhor-
encc of its wretched suits; it stands in the
eye of cold, calm justice simply as crime
Of animal lust, and the death penalty TO a
man for merely all animal act, is not just
Blood for blood only, stands at the front of
all law, human and divine, as a true, pure
justice; and at the present day there is large
class of persons who deny that even this
should be our statute limitation, and that the
death penalty has any right within our code
A. any rate, if it were perfectly right and
just it has been proved insufficient. AS a
possible result, it does not prevent an increas.
ing frequency of this crime. Something
worse and more dreaded than the chance of
death penalty is required. Realizing, as
the criminals of this class do, that the best
part of the community shrinks las 1t does)
from inficting the death penaltyfor this crime
when unaccompaned by deadly violence,
they speculate on the chances of escaping
such legal consequence and defy the POSSIBLE.
tiles of a similar and illegal outbreak of the
worse elements OF the community. so when
goaded by their brutal lust they make light
of the whole thing and say in ribald jest,
they have to die once and they will take
their chance of escape Clearly there is
necessity for some punishment that shall
punish; one that shall appeal to that brutal
nature in its terror and its pains. A punish
ment, that because it is not death, no other
man would lift his hand to prevent and there
| fore the criminal will know to be as certain
as he is living man, and much more sure
than death; punishment which, resembling
that of Cain-shall be greater than he can
bear; resting upon him day by day, year after
year-.never escaped, never for moment to
be forgotten. Such punishment would cost
the state nothing but the appointed salary OF
the State Surgeon. There would then be no
possibility of long, costly state trials, where
ambitious or avaricious lawyers use every
bubble and quirk of legal trickeries in fight.
ing against death. Nothing would be re.
qured but the simple and very short testi'
mony of fact, and then the next hour the
verdict fulfilled in its execution and the
blasting sentence go yow can sin no more.
Such punishment would be just: few will
doubt but that 1t would be sufficient.