The Sun. — 1862-12-02 (London, England)

VIC2OR HUGO ON CAPITAL PUNISH MENT.  At Paris, in 1818 or 1819, about noon one summer's day, I was passing the Place du Palais de Justice. A crowd had assembled around a post. I approached. Tied to this post, a carcanet round her neck, and a placard on her head, was a human being, a young woman, or a young girl. A chafing-dish filled with live coals was before her at her feet, an iron with a wooden handle was being heated in the embers ; the crowd appeared contented. This woman was guilty of what the law termed a domestic theft. Suddenly, as the clock struck 12, behind the woman, and unseen by her, a man mounted the scaffold ; I had remarked that the woman's woollen dress had an opening behind, drawn together by strings; the man quickly untied the strings, drew aside the dress, bared the back of the woman to the waist, seized the iron from the chafing-dish, and applied the iron, loaning heavily on the bare shoulder. The iron and the hand of the executioner disappeared in a white smoke. After a lapse of forty years I still have in my ears, and shall for ever have in my soul, the frightful cry of that criminal. To my mind the thief had become a martyr. I quitted the spot—l was then sixteen—determined henceforth to struggle against the evil deeds of the law. Of these evil deeds, the punishment of death is the worst. And what has not been seen, i❑ our time even, and without leaving ordinary tribunals and ordinary misde.. meanours I On the 20th of April, 1849, a servant, named Sarah Thomas, a girl of seNenteen, was executed at Bristol, for having, in a moment of anger, killed her mistress who had beaten her, with a blow by a log of wood. The condemned girl did not wish to die. Seven men were required to take her to the gallows. She was hanged by force. At the moment when the cord was being adjusted, the executioner asked her if she had anything to say to her father. She interrupted him by replying—" Yes, yes; tell hint that I love him." At the commencement of the can, tury, in the reign of George 111., in London, three chil, dren of the very poorest class were condemned to death for theft. The eldest (the "Newgate Calendar" states the fact) was only fourteen. The three children were hanged.  What idea have these men of murder ? What I I may not kill in a coat ; in a long robe I may ! Like Richelieu' s cassock, the robe covers everything. Public avenger 1 ah, I beseech you not to avenge me I murder, murder, I tell you. Except in cases of legitimate defence understood in the strictest sense (for your aggressor once wounded by you and fallen, you ought to assist him), is homicide ever allowable ? Is that which-is prohibited to the individual permitted to the mass ? The executioner, what a sinister species of assassin 1 the official assassin, the patented assassin, supported, salaried, sent for on certain days, working in public, killing by daylight, having for his tools "the staff of justice," recognised assassin of the State ! The functionary assassin, the assassin who has his dwelling-place in the law, the assassin in the name of all I he has my proxy and yours, to kill. He strangles or kills, then slaps the shoulder of society and says : I work for you, pay me. He is the assassin cum privilegio legs, the assassin whose act of assassination is decreed by the legislature, deliberated on by the jury, ordered by the judge, consented to by the priest, guarded by the soldier, contemplated by the people.—Frorn a Letter to the .People of Geneva.—Social Science Review.