The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1923-02-07

zette is Of the opinion that it is better to
, little upon the side of punishment than
lch. The following opinion from the Brock
ge Gazette Telegram is both illuminating
ought producing.
"A man and woman were hung in
England the other day for the murder of
the woman's husband. The woman was
expected to become mother early in the
new year. English law is grim and re-
lentless in measuring out justice to
wrong-doers. The Englishman is great
stickler for law and for justice, but this
doesn't explain where English courts get
their authority to hang three persons for
a crime committed by two, one of the
three yet unborn.
SIN England a legless man, % years
old, will soon be carried to the gallows
and hanged to pay the penalty for "con-
structive murder" 1t took an English
jury only Is minutes to find him guilty.
He and a girl, believing themselves hope
lessly in love, agreed to throw themselves
in front of railway train. At the time
and place the man changed his mind and
wanted to live and urged the girl to
abandon the suicide pact. But she ran
toward the track and he ran after her.
The girl was killed and the man lost both
legs. That's the story.
Because the train didn't kill this man
the English law will. Ostensibly it pun
ishes him for entering into a death pact
"a constructive murder" Actually it
assists to carry out the pact.
"A man twice reprieved for hanging,
the second time because no hangman
could be found, finally was hanged twice
the same day in New Brunswick, October
last. The first time the body. was cut
down, it was found life was not extinct.
The moose had not been properly adjusted.
An hour later this man was hanged again.
1t will be hard to match that for barbar-
ty either in heathendom or in civilization.
'Iouyoff, Bolshevik hangman, with
record of hanging more than 1000 per-
sons in years, now hangs himself. Which
shows there can be poetic justice in
ropes end. Yet he was only the instru-
ment of the law, not the law, nor those
who interpret it.
eff murder is crime, can legal murder
be righteous Humanity from earliest
times has recognized the sin of taking hu-
man life. Life, mystery, is conferred
upon us, and eventually is taken from us
by the same power that conferred it.
What right has man to interfere, or to
NEEDLE IN this mystery or with this de-
cree? Legal murder is on a level with
that archaic and hideous system of justice
or vengeance which demanded a tooth
for tooth, an eye for an eye. Only it
demands life for life.
"The discovery that an innocent man
has been hanged is not so infrequent as
to be sensational.
michigan abolished capital punishment
in 1847, Wisconsin in 1858, Maine in 1887,
Minnesota in 1911 and South Dakota in
1915. There has been no legal hanging
in Kansas since 1872 and North Dakota
and Rhode Island almost never impose the
penalty.
"Way Back in 1916 Portugal abolished
capital punishment. Holland, which has
had no execution since 1860, abolished
legal murder in 1870. Italy abolished it
in 1888, Norway in 1902, and the old Rus
sian government in 1907. Fifteen can
tons of Switzerland and three states of
Mexico have abolished the life penalty
"No law forbids the hanging of women
and girls, except the law of public opin-
ion and general protest. To hang a wo-
man brings home to the public the bru-
tally of legal murder. Public opinion
might we'll go the rest of the way and
end an ancient custom as barbarous, as
cold blooded and as brutal as were those
times"