The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-02-26

dent of the New YORK MeulcO-Degal So
ciety, that # is common thing for
the physicians of the city to administer
an anaesthetic to incurable sufferers to
produce eternal sleep, but it will be-
come common IL 1t is not so already.
With the decline of superstition and the
growth of the belief that God does not
enjoy the spectacle of human being
i'm the throes of fatal disease, the
victims of useless, purposeless pain Will
more and more appeal to the doctors
to give the only relief there is, a pain
less death. More and more the tor
tured friends will indorse the sufferers
appeals, and more and more the hu-
name doctors will meet the demand.
Then society will recognize the wisdom
Of authorizing what it cannot stop, in
order to surround 1t with all possible
safeguards against abuse.
KILLING INCURABLEs.
"In the best and most enlightened
days of Rome it was the practice TO
end the lives of the inCurables whose
dying pains were hard to bear. man
who should allow one of his family TO
drag out days of pain and nights OF
anguish, with no hope of better days
to come, would have been looked upon
as no better than the savage who en-
lows the sight of a tortured man. Sir
Thomas More was strong advocate
of etithanasia, and in his Utopia he
made il n general custom. The Utopian
who was an incurable sufferer had
only to call the priests and council
to his side to obtain permission to give
up his life. The sufferer was never
killed without his own consent. The
composer Berlioz, after seeing be-
loved sister suffer eXecrable and use
less torture, for six months from an
incurable cancer, condemned as cruel,
stupid and barbarous the laws that
denied to the unhappy victim OF
fatal disease the right to apply the
| only possible cure. When a quarter OF
a century ago, an Englishman in the
| Fortnightly Review urged society TO
| provide for the painless death OF IN
| curables, the project received the IN
! dorsement of many leading men,but the
| church was too strong for them. Even
| i'm this country, perhaps more here than
| anywhere else. n man would be CEN
sured by the public for advocating this
beneticent and humane cause. But the
! cause will make its way
| Another thing science will do, a
/
! save mishappen babies from the mis-
| erable fate to which n ptiless nature
dooms them The little unfortunates,
| dcformed. defective, demented, or
| whatever their incurable i'll, will be
| painlessly sent out OF a world that has
only suffering in store for them. This
for their own sake and for the good of
mankind. Herodotus, f'Iato, Cicero,
and all the great free minds that had
never been warped by superstition were
the friends of a tender and humane
| infanticde. The fault of the Spartans
| in their destruction of weakly children
was in the lack, of gentleness in their
methods.
EUTHANASIA.
"What is the stream Of tendency re-
specting these things we may see not
only in the increasing frequency of sui
eide among people of intelligence whose
lives have been upright, but also in
the frequency of published arguments
defending the right of the incurahle
sufferer or the hCpelessly incapacitated
to take his own life In his, work on
European Morals Lecky shows the
contrast between the extreme indiffer-
ence to suicide which prevailed in the
first century Of the Christian era and
the utter adherence of it introduced
by the Christian church. That modern
liberalism tends toward the earlier ex-
treme of indifference is very plain. All
| that Archbishop Whately had to say
against suicide was that it was merely
an exaggerated form of wasting time
q kind cf idleness. But such an Objec-
tion could not apply to the case of a
man on his deathbed seeking escape
from prolonged pain. 1t is affirmed
that the adherence of suicide by the
Catholic church is due to the fact that
it usually leaves no time for tho de9th-
bed ceremonies that are so important
from TIE Catholic point of view. Ger
tainly everything points to diminished
opposition to enthanasia.
Science will kill chronic, confirmed
or incurable criminals. Here, too, is
the same purpose in view as in the re-
striction of marriage and the sacrifice
of misshapen babies, and also the bet
ter protection of life and property
Death is surely the most deterrent OF
all punishments, To the experienced
prison official it is the only effective
deterrent. That the chronic criminal
is such not so muck from deliberate
choice as from a law Of his nature is
no longer a matter of speculation. His
reform is impossible. Again and agair
he finds that the pleasures of crime
are a delusion and the penalties alone
real, and again and again he deter.
mines to reform, but he is powerless in
the grasp OF destiny made for him by
his ancestors. Death is the punishment
for the confirmed criminal that is least
embarrassing and least expensive tC
society.
AS TO HEREDITY.
"The madness of the present policy
, of cundemning a chronic criminal to g
specie term in prison and then releas
ing him, with the certain knowledge
, that he will instantly prey on the in
nocent community, is already recOg
niZed, and schemes for indeterminatC
sentence that will keep him in prison
for life are strongly urged on the legis
lator. 1t Is maintained that he is al
Z inCurable as and more entitled to favol
, than the confirmed lunatic, and tha
there is no reason why he should no
be secluded on the same terms, whicl
means for life. But in prison he mus
, either be supported in idleness by thu
labors of the innocent, or else his labo
enters into competition with that of th'
= innocent free labor. Another, and per
haps strongest argument in favor o
! the scientific penalty, the death penalt!
fer the incurable criminal is that it il
the most certain 10 prevent the heredi
tary descent of the criminal instincts
; We know enough of the laws Of heTdi