The age-herald., 1901-09-14
Burning People at the Stake.
n the Snrinefleld Renuhlican.

From the Springfield Republican.
 When an evil becomes a commonplace it seems to become the less an evil in popu- lar estimation. Familiarity breeds indif ference to wrong, to suffering, to cruelty. On this account the growing American custom of burning people at the stake possesses a broad and deep significance. We are already becoming indifferent to 1t. We prefer to pass the subject by and say nothing. When the first death at the stake in Paris. Tex. occurred six or seven years ago, the Republican presented the news with large headlines and with all the prominence that such an unusual and shocking event required. A negro was burned at the stake in Tennessee the other day, and the relegation of the re- port to an ineonspicuous place in the news page. under small headlines, indi- cated the radical change that has come In the news value" of these atrocities with in the short period of seven years. The people are now so callous that an event which rivals the most hideous savagery of barbaric times has become too banal for real prominence in the pages of the American press.
 Tn this there is a terrible psychological meaning The millions of people who read the newspapers of the United States can- not become accustomed to these recurring naTrdIlVeS or DurnlnBS at the stake With out becoming brutalized themselves Those finer sensbilities which mark a high civilization will necessarily be dulled It is not essential that one be an actual spectator of the torture of the incinerated victim of mob law to be affected for the worse; the mere physiological process of becoming familiar with such events, the subtle hardening of the heart under the steady impact of shocking episodes that happen in the distance are quite suffi- cient to effect results of deplorable na- ture upon whole populations.
 The soldier sees physical suffering and cruelty In his campaigns and grows stolid in the presence of things that before would have made him faint and sicken
 The public chopping off of heads in the older time was a holiday event for the multitude. which stood around, as the rabble does in China today and feasted upon every detail of the executioner's 8 bloody work Can we read and read again of such scenes as this: "IIe was taken from the stump. bound to a tree by chains and his body saturated with of. At 1.40 D. m. a match was applied. and instantly the body was enveloped in flames. Fence rails were piled about the burning body, and soon life was extinct. The body was entirely consumed. At least eO00 people witnessed the burning" Can a whole people grow familiar with incl dents like that. now common occurrences, in their own land and not be perceptbly lowered into the abyss of barbarism?
 One of the most important reasons for abofshing public executions of criminals. and all punishments of cruel or unusual nature, was the brutalizing effect they had upon society. If you wish to make an entire nation barbaric in it's enjoyment of the most beastly forms of cruelty then revive all the tortures known to Tor quemada. The Chinese still have quarter ing alive as a legal punishment for cer- tain crimes, and 1t Is nothing to marvel over that the Chinese are among the most cruel people on earth in the sense that they display little concern for hu- man suffering.
 In most of his work he is at least half a mile from the tower from which he makes his start, and which represents dry land to him, and he stays with his work about eight hours a day without once coming to a landing. BeSides-and this is the most wonderful part of the perform ance-the cable on which he operates is continually swaying in the wind. and his narrow platform Is so fastened that 1t sways from side to side with the motion, in the fashion of a rocking chair fastened to a rope by the extreme upper end of it's back. On these facts 1t looks as though Otto Wilson had the records of the Niagara Falls walkers and the steeplejacks beaten by many notches. The masts of the tallest ships that pass to and from their way to Port Costa mills pass more than one hundred feet below his aerial perch. From the Port Costa shore he appears as little speck against the blue of the sky-no more than an eagle or a hawk.
 When he draws In toward one end of the other of his slack rope he can be seen leaning this way or that from his plat Con-. ,t,tx r4er rla nd laff a better hold on the cables. throwing a leg over the edge of the platform when that is necessary to his work, or sitting for a rest on the edge of low platform that surrounds his car, with half his body hanging over the hundred yards of sheer space below. It is sight that few per sons can view without a shudder, but Wilson seems to mind 1t no more than a painter minds an ordinary scaffold pal try twenty feet from the surface.