The record-union., 1897-12-06

not afford him the same opportunity
to reform afforded to his fellow-crim-
inal? Is this not the very refinement
Of cruelty! The incentive for reforma-
ton is entirely lacking, and the chief
object Of punishment, the criminals
reformation. is defeated by the stupid
ity Of his prison eeper-society-w
also descends to the brutality and folly
of torturing it's now helpless victim.
What comment upon our civiliza-
tion, which we call Christian! APP
paTently we deceive ourselves and
fancy our modern prisons are not res
directions of medieval torture cham
bers. True, we have not the rack, the
pinchers and the iron chair, but we herd
our weak and unfortunate brothers In
prisons, where unnamed crimes are con-
Stantly committed; we isolate others,
and leave still others to lead hopeless
lives shut within walls which our own
relentless spirit of cruelty and revenge
peoples with haunting specters of des-
pair.
If reformation OF the criminal is
chief object Of punishment, then, sure
ly, does capital punishment defeat that
accomplishes all that judicial murder
effects and vastly more. When analysed
by enlightened reason, revenge appears
to be the motive impelling to capital
punishment. Furthermore, when
man is electrocuted, shot or hanged
his boGy alone is destroyed. The evil
laden soul when thus violently torn
out of the physical is free to wander
about in it's ethereal astral body, and
is attracted by the ties of former as
sociations to its old haunts. There it
finds it's Old-timed associates and the
conditions for continuance of the old
evil ways which it now carries on by
proxy. It attaches itself to the evil
minded it influences those in whom
lurk latent seeds of crime, and
obsesses the weak, all resulting in
repetition and extension of it's own evil
course.
The principal object justifying capi-
tai punishment is that it deters others
from commission of crime. But
statistics and the conclusion of So
biologists do not substantiate the argu-
ment. DIR. z. L. Rexford, ex-President
of Buchdel College, recently wrote
THE researches of such men as O'Sul-
livan, Spear, Rantoul and Victor Hugo
fail to discover a single instance where
executions of men have checked the
tendencies to crime. These researches
reveal precisely the reverse of this, and
show as plainly that public executions
have been the occasions of multiplied
crimes" The reason is as above stated.
The post -mortem influence of vicious
| @f n5y
bodies, and who remain for what would
have been the term Of their natural
| lives, earth-bound They still walk the
earth and haunt the living for evil.
No doubt when the nature and pow
ers of man are better understood CAPT.
tai punishment will be abolished, If for
no other reason than as a protection
of the living from the assaults of the
miscalled ghoulish dead.
When a criminal is imprisoned his
sphere of activity is limited to prison
walls. Beside, influences for his ref
oGTnation may be exerted. But when
he is judfcially murdered, hope of ref
ormation is gone, and he is liberated
to prey upon the living.
Harsh, vindictive and revengeful
measures have been tried in the past
with utter failure. Why continue or
accentuate them? Reaction in kind is
inevitable. Then, a change of motive
and method is imperative. Let it be
recognized that a soul resides in each
man, and that the soul is the real man;
that the soul lives many lives on this
earth, and in each progresses. Let the
motive be to help in its development;
the method, kindness instead of vim
dictiveness, justice instead of revenge,
in it's treatment.
This is not maudlin sentimentalism,
but the action of reason and justice.
The criminal is a brother man-our
brother; let us treat him in the same
kindly way that We care for the phys
ically diseased He needs 1.-THE kind
ly feeling, the heart sympathy and the
actual help. He will respond to it as
to nothing else, and the world will be
better for the volume of kindly feelings
sent out along its thought currents