THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1895.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 266, 7 November 1895, Page 4

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1895.

Our budget of cable news from Aus tralia this week is of a decidedly gruesome character, no less than four persons having been executed for murder within three days. It is an additional melancholy reflection that one of these criminals was a woman, and that the circumstances under which she committed the crime for which she has suffered the death penally were of a peculiarly atrocious character, This woman, Emma Williams, was leading an abandoned life. It appears that she found her child an obstacle in the way of her iliicit pieasures. In such cases it usually happens that, however degraded a woman may have become, the maternal instinct is strong enough to cause her to cherish her offspring; but the woman Williams was apparently indifferent to any but the most selfish considerations. She endeavoured at first to get rid of her child by fair means, but in making the attempt she was evidently actuated more by fear of the consequences to herself if she resorted to violent measures than by regaid for her offspring. At any rate, not meeting with success, she deliberately made up her mind that rather than give up the company of her paramour she would destroy her child. The cold-blooded manner in which the wretched woman effected her purpose, aggravates, if possible, the frightful inhumanity of the crime. With the utmost calmness, Mrs Williams walked down with her child to the pier, and having tied a stone in its frock, flung the unhappy little one into the water and left it lo its late, with as much indifference as a schoolboy would display in drowning a troublesome dog.

Though from the evidence at the trial there was not a redeeming feature in the case, there was the usual gush of maudlin sympathy, and great efforts were made m Melbourne to get the death sentence passed on the wretched woman commuted to imprisonment for life. As usual, a petition was got up to the Chief Secretary, and the advocates of the abolition of capital punishment, a demonstrative if not a very numerous body in the Victorian capital, brought forward their stock arguments for the benefit of the Executive. It must be confessed that those who based their plea for mercy on sentimental grounds, had a very weak case. There are instances, doubtless, where murder is commuted under circumstances tlißt appeal very strongly to public sympathy on behalf of the offender. If a mother worn down by poverty and hunger, in a frenzy of despair destroys the child that she cannot feed, our horror of the crime is modified by the painful circumstances under which it was committed. If the sympathies of a community were reserved for cases where extenuating circumstances can be reasonably urged, the clamour that is raised for the remission of the death penalty might be regarded as a sign of healthy public sentiment. Bat when we have seen a disposition to make a hero of a man like the infamous Deeming, we can only regard the affectionate solicitude displayed by a number of emotional people to avert a criminal's fate as an indication of a morbid and unhealthy frame of mind. In the case of Mrs Williams, the usual plea for mitigation of punishment on account of her sex was urged on the Executive, but the law very justly recognises no such distinction, and in the eyes of most reasonable persons the crime of childmurder is, if anything, aggravated when the perpetrator is a woman.

The members of the Criminology Society, of course, approached the question from an entirely different standpoint. In their opinion the death penalty should not be inflicted under any circumstances. This opinion they support by many reasons, the chief being that capita! punishment has proved a failure in deterring from crime. In proof of this contention they quote statistics, but it must be admitted that when they come lo figures they fail to make out a strong case.; The experience of Europe appears to prove that in countries where executions have ceased, murders have increased. For example, an eminent authority on criminology says, "In Belgium, where the death penalty has been abolished, from 1865 to 1880 murders increased from 34 to 120. In Prussia, where for many years there had been no executions, murders increased from 242 in 1554 to 518 in 1880. In Switzerland, wnere capital punishment was abolished in 1874, murders increased in five years in the proportion of 75 per jcenr." ■ The number of murders committed in a country do not, of course, depend altogether upon the state of the criminal law ; but are influenced largely by other conditions of society. In the early days of a colony, when, for instance, the discovery of gold may cause a great influx of adventurers from different parts of the world, crimes are likely to be more frequent than when the population has assumed a more settled aspect. But while conscious that in forming a judgment upon the question many forces that affect society must be taken into consideration, the fear of death, in'our opinion, acts as a deterrent to

many a desperado who would indulge his murderous instincts if any lighter penalty were substituted by legal enactment. There are cases, no doubt, when it is desirable to substitute imprisonment for life, but ila cold-blooded murder, ' committed under circumstances that outrage every feeling of humanity demands that the death penalty be inflicted, it cannot be denied' that Emma Williams richly merited her fate.