Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1907-12-31
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ASerieSOf( hildMur-
derS ReViVeStheDiS-
CuSSiOn Of Capital
PuniS hment.

canoe TO the Infatuated crowd that
filed the Place de la Republique
the other day and demanded venge-
ance upon Soleillants who murdered
twelve-year-old girl. Paris crowds
are apt to do something quite differ
ent from their original intent, be-
cause the government is always con-
sidered as the fons ct origo of all
calamities, from a foreign war clear
down the scale to a crop failure. For
that reason the police look with sus-
picion upon the two or three gath
cred together" and persuade them to
move on before they get to the voci-
ferrous stage, which is an early one
But this particular crowd was NOV
ed by Q worthy sentiment A little
girl had been horribly murdered and
the death sentence upon the murderer
had been committed. The atrocity
which so excited the good people of
the Faubourgs was not an isolated
one There had been series of these
horrors comparable only with those
that have disgraced New York. I'm
til the arrest of Soleillant the police
had been helpless. Children had been
kept from the streets after nightfall
from fear of a fiend who might well
have been the incarnated lust and
cruelty of the age. Paris was suf-
fering from one of those epidemics
of abnormal and purposeless crime
which form the night side of civiliza-
ton.
No one knows for how many of
these tragedies Soleillant was respon-
sible, but every one knows that he
certainly killed little Martha Erberd-
ing. There is no manner of doubt
about that. and there is no need to
enlarge upon the accompanying atroc-
tiles, of which even man eating
tiger would be ashamed. If he had
been promptly decapitated, as would
have been done year or two ago, the
agonized motherhood of Paris would
have been appeased, for after all you
can do no more to man than kill
him. But Soleillant was reprieved
by President Fallieres and his sent
ence committed to one of penal servi-
tude for life Then Paris protested,
without, we may suppose, any due
realization that penal servitude in
France is a fate which only the ex-
IRENE of human depravity could pos
sibly deserve.
The demonstrations began in
small way and at several different
points But the sections soon con-
verged and vast crowd moved to-
ward the Place de la Republique.
There were cries of Death to Soleil-
lant" and then some ingenious per-
son shouted down with Fallieres,"
and of course the police began TO
get busy. Far smaller crowds have
put up barbados and for less rea-
son. The concourse was led by
woman who had little girl upon her
shoulders and such leadership APP
pealed to the crowd as being in the
eternal fitness of things. Appearances
began to be ugly, and although the
rapidly arriving police reserves broke
up the crowd again and again, it was
continually reforming until its energy
was finally exhausted. Then every
one went home.
Capital punishment is, of course,
at an end in france, and no number
of demonstrations can re-establish it,
Evolution does not move backward
and it is the general opinion that
the guillotine will never again be
seen on the Place de la Roquette
or anywhere else. 1t will be no loss.
It's spectre threw a shadow over the
city, while so far from being warn
ing to the evil-disposed. the ill-omened
Place became gathering ground for
the human offal that floats to and fro
in the social sewers of the French
capital and that esteems every man
in proportion to his criminality and
his bravado. If executions had been
in private, it may be that Paris
would not have sickened of them so
soon. Here in France every one who
has eyes to see knows exactly what
capital punishment means, and now
that the satanic thing has been done
away with there is little likelihood of
its revival.
The whole question of criminality
must come to the front in Paris very
soon-perhaps elsewhere also. The
police can no longer stamp it out
of sight or pen it up in the dark
corners into which the average citi.
zen never looks. Crime is now ram
pant, no longer in the least abashed,
In the quarters of bourgeois respecta-
bflity, and rejoicing in the facilities
of the well-lighted boulevard. The
Apache is the master of the situation
Since his victims no longer come to
him in his own purlieus, he goes to
them, and he asks for no more than
an undisturbeS minute to accomplish
his ends The illumination of the
great boulevards encourages him rath.
er than the reverse. He helps himself
70 the facilities of civilization in or
der that he may defy it, The thug of
other countries resorts to violence
when all else fails. With the Partisan
Apache violence comes first as a con-
venient preliminary to robbery. anu
a few francs of loose change are sur
fcient recompense for the trouble of
knife thrust. As a result, the pru-
dent Partisan goes armed. 1t is
against the law and permits are not
easy TO get, but unless occasion arises
to use the revolver no one will ever
know that it is there, and if occasion
does arise its presence viii be justi-
fed.
The police also go armed, indeed,
doubly armed, as becomes those whose
quarrel is just. They carry the ser
vice revolver, which must be shown
every day. and all empty shells or
chambers vigorously accounted for.
But there are occasions when the
Paris policeman likes TO fire a shot