The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-09-07
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT.

Now and again, after some weary and
sensational trial, there are found certain
persons or societies rising in vehement
protest against the laws decree of death
upon the particular assassin in the tolls,
These good but unWise folk present long
petitions clamoring for the adjustment
of what they call ''capital punishment -
Both of these words, in this application.
are misnomers. Capital punishment does
not necessarily mean punishment by
death. 1t means the heaviest sentence
under the code. Punishment" too, is
misused word, for the imposing of the
penalty is not supposed to be punitive,
but deterrent and corrective. The Grim
inal who has forfeited his right to life or
liberty serves mis- last useful purpose to
society in being held up as proof that
the law still holds.
The most grievous wrong that could
be inflicted upon civilized society is the
protection of the criminal-in particular,
the murderer-against the just decree of
the law. They who maintain that the
State has no right to take human life, or,
as they miscall it, revenge" forget
that the felon himself has usually for
feited that claim by his crime. They
forget that there is no law bidding him
kill, but mighty one warning him
against it. They do not see that his i'm
munity is a direct encouragement to his
kind, and dreadful menace to the lives
of many innocent persons among whom
he is permitted to range at large
Always, where governments have been
moved to a short-sighted policy of in
discriminate mercy and have abolished
the death penalty, the result has been an
enormous increase of crimes of violence
throughout the land. The unprotected,
the law-abiding, and the helpless have
been sacrificed to the criminal classes
and to these experiments of misguided
humanitarians. After the recent abolish
ment of the death penalty in France,
murders increased at shocking rate,
and now the wisest statesmen and most
public-spirited journals have once more
brought about the establishment of the
guillotine, whose knife glitters steadily
before the eyes of potential sons of Cain.
In England, where the laws against muir
der are swiftly and vigorously enforced,
the crime is comparatively rare. In our
own land, the cowardice of juries and
judges, the power of money to delay or
Illustrate the law, and false and weak
sentimentality bind up the sword of JUS
tice. For this we pay a daily tribute of
blood, misery, and money that ought to
make us shudder.
brilliant writer upon this subject
has said that mans first murder is his
own, his second is ours. 1t is obvious
that all murders are not necessarily the
result of criminal blood-lust; it is true
that many unfortunate men, the slaves
Of sudden passion or the victims of great
provocation, may be worthy of redemp-
ton. For them the law has provided by
making the crime one that may be class
flied into various degrees. For them,
likewise, the benefit of the doubt, the
easy Interpretation of the law, the leni-
ency OF judges, and the soft-heartedness
and often soft-headedness of juries,
make sufficient allowance.
The fact that the abolition of the death
penalty usually operates directly contrary
to the claims of the advocates Ct aboli-
ton throws sad and revealing light
upon the baser instincts of man and upon
the dangerous ignorance of most reform
ers. Let us hope that humanity, in its
ceaseless upward struggle, may so per-
feet itself that the black fruit of the
gallows-tre will put forth no more be-
cause the red seeds of murder will no
longer sprout. Until that time comes,
1T shall, alas, be necessary for the COM
mon welfare to enforce that stern canon
which gives ample warning, but which
should fall firm and fast upon all who
deliberately violate that first OF laws,
human and divine: ''Thou shalt not kill :"
Herman Scheffauer in September Lip
pincott's