The Halifax Comet. — 1893-06-24 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

CRYSTAL DACCER.  THE  (iron Us iiermon.)  CHAPTER ll. continued.  OU must excuse me, my worthy friend," said I, "if I confess freely that the measures last adopted against him have distressed me ex ceedingly. There are circumstances extant which, indeed, natal), our darkest and strongest suspicions, `• there are no proofs to sanction such rigid measures as would have been used had -he been already convicted. Regard for public safety, for the commonweal, demands that he should be carefully watched, and kept in confinement; but we are Christians—at least, we call ourselves such; and it is not just that any fate so like an absolute punishment should be inflicted on an unhappy youth, who may be a malefactor, or as innocent as we are who now sit here. The truth is yet to be proved."—" There spoke the reverend pastor ! " said my Mend; "but you should remember that you are not now in the pulpit."—" Nay, nay," said I; "you should rather say it was the man who spoke, and who cannot help sympathising with a brother in distress. It is needless for me to repeat what you already kw—that I was well acquainted with Herman Bose, and I looked on him always as a well-behaved, pious young man, whose manners, as well as appearance, were much superior to what could have been expected from one of his humble rank. Doubtless he may have been guilty of errors, for which his time of life and inexperience perhaps afford some excuse; but he must have been exposed to great and unexampled temptations, if he has fallen so deeply as to., deserve treatment which multi, in myopinionyl scarcely be allowable in the instance -a die' most abandoned villain. Besides, to say the truth, Mn inward voice always recurs in my' mind, which pronounces him free from this horrible charge of murder. His calm, self. possessed demeanour is by no means that of an assassin; and do not all witnesses that are worthy of being listened to testify in his favour? As to the calumnies uttered againdi him, he shares in this respect only the mast fate of the fallen and unfortunate. But shall leave his character out of the question; altogether, and only beg of you to explain, how you can reconcile to your own feelings of equity and justice the use of tortures which only do not bear this name because, alas! in our enlightened Europe, they are employed almost by every tribunal. According to my firm conviction, such punishment as inflicts not only corporeal but ments4 sufferings can be allowed only after judg,. ment has been pronounced—when its effec4 can last but a abort time, and may, Perhapet in a religious view, prove for the benefit cog the penitent sufferer. Let us reflect, too, that when an imputation (like that of murder) is in its own nature such as to exclude thp accused from the society of his fellowcreatures, every infliction of bodily pain ceases to be mere punishment—it is more like revenge, which, for the law, is both unbecoming and unworthy. And what revenge can' be more cruel than that of a chs...geless. darl4. and solitary prison, where the unhapily mortal beholds no glimmer of light, hears no  tut  of.'  ltio..ar.gr• Op It 14 1 ra<r4. -4461 \ Alr