The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1912-03-09

ceased to have influence in any cbun-
try the instances of capital punish
ment grew at once in number and kind.
There were $4,000 executions in the
reign Of Henry VIII, and the number
that were executed in the reign Of
Elizabeth and during the period of the
French revolution are beyond histor-
ical reckoning. Witchcraft and wiz
ardry We're made capital offenses by
Elizabeth and James, and on this
ground alone 1000 were executed in
Scotland. New England contributed a
liberal quota, owing to the influence
of Cotton Mather and his sympathizers,
and it was only ten years before the
Declaration of independence that
death for witchcraft was abolished in
America.
The Federal laws of the United
States confined the death penalty to
treason, piracy and murder. All the
States enacted it for treason and muir
der. OF both. some adding rape. arson,
train wrecking and poisoning, but
Wisconsin and Iowa have abolished it
and Maine, Rhode Island and Colorado
have been alternating between aboli-
ton and re-enactment.
During the horrors of the French
Revolution Marques Beccaria pub
lishcd in Italy his famous Crime and
Punishment" which went to the oppo-
site extreme and has exercised con-
siderable influence. His argument was
that legal execution is murder (Which,
though quite true Of the French revo-
lutionary regime, is under normal con-
ditions an improved assumption); that
life Imprisonment is more feared than
death. and that in the perfect State
the death penalty is unnecessary to
safety Jeremy Bentham showed that
capital punishment is the most eff
cacious preventive of grave crimes,
and Sir Samuel Romily pertinently
asked: If Imprisonment for life is
more terrible, and the State can in
flict it, why may it not inflict death,
which is declared less terrible? We
may add that the perfect State has
not yet appeared OH the map of ma
lions.
The net results are that the death
penalty has been abolished in Italy,
Holland, Portugal and Roumania; has
been abolished and re-enacted in Swift
zerland and France. and elsewhere
prevails. The homicides in Italy in
1905 were los per million, as COM
pared with 81 per million in Great
Britain and Ireland. where capital
punishment obtains in practice as well
as theory. The French government,
frightened by it's Apaches, has recently
resumed the enforcement OF the death
penalty, and a congress of German
jurists has been considering the pro-
priety Of extending its scope. Thus in
almost all civilized countries capital
punishment has always prevailed, or,
after a temporary disuse, it has been
found expedient to resume it. Hence
we can rightly appraise the informa-
tion and intelligence Of those who pro-
nounce it barbaric and uncivilzed.
The punitive code which has been en-
acted by the most highly developed
and well ordered States to suppress
the barbarisn of its 1awless elements,
should be. when justly applied and
efficiently administered, tho very op-
posite Of barbarism.
Have we attained the condition of
the perfect State which Beccaria
rightly thought would not need to exc
cute it's criminals? We may not pause
for a reply. Suffice it to say that a
deliberate murderer is a menace to
any community, and in this country
the only way to keep him out of the
community is to execute him. Impris-
onment for life has become legal flc-
ton. BY good conduct" it can be
Whitfield down to a very limited num-
Der Of years, and if the murderer has
friends or enterprising lawyers - and
these are facile Of acquisition-he can
usually narrow it still further. Nor is
his prison home calculated either on
the one hand to reform him or on the
other greatly to repel him. Too often
our jails are easy to stay in, easy to
keep out of and are therefore unable
to furnish the substitute for death de-
manded by Beccaria.
But the abolitionists say, and quite
truly, even II jails are no deterrent,
neither Is the death penalty. How
could it be? 1t has practically ceased
to exist. Pardon boards, impression
able governors and lawyers hungry for
reputation or emolument have virtually
abolished it. thus neutralizing justice
and S4rnin0 cnnf76once ix thu -