DEATH PENALTY

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25735, 22 February 1949, Page 8

DEATH PENALTY

Sir, —In reply to M. M. Jennings, here are a few facts. A church school performs ‘’Murder with Loving Care” at an end-of-year party; Queen Mary attends a murder play at the Strand; a spanner crashing on a skull, accompanied by the victim’s groans, is heal’d from 3YA. A few examples, these, of present-day use of murder as good fun and entertainment for all—making a joke of it, to be exact. If we take all this in our stride so gaily—and quite leaving wars out of consideration — who of us can be the judge of a brother? Not I, for one, and therefore I say again, No capital punishment at any rate.—Yours, etc., M. JENNINGS. February 18, 1949. Sir, —John Burbridge’s letter is so richly radical that I will be disappointed if it is discovered that there is not deliberate sardonic humour intended as well. One point I would like to suggest to him is that, if a home science diploma be required for marriage, then obviously the child allowance need not be utilised for balanced meals in schools. I should like to understand more of what was meant by children’s being “rehearsed in provocation,” though I perfectly agree about the dire need for compassion in every walk of life. As a mother, I fully agree that mothers must assume responsibility for creating better people and providing better training. I would go a step farther. and hope that with all the help science and psychology can give us, not forgetting artificial insemination, it will be possible (some day) to select for the purpose of breeding only; and of course it will naturally follow that the chosen father can then be dispensed with.—Yours, etc.. MARGARET ROPER. February 18, 1949.

Sir, —Very shallow thinkers imagine themselves more merciful than God, and think that to prolong a murderer’s life is far more important than repentance and God’s given way of confession and forgiveness through readiness to make expiation for sin. There is absolutely no other way of salvation open to the murderer. Through New Zealander’s farcical life sentence, after several years, a murderer is set free. Then his only way of winning salvation will be to go to the murdered man's family and offer life-long service as reparation. Relations of a worker killed by accident claim thousands of pounds damages, where no moral guilt is involved. Is a murderer to be set free and given the opportunity for another crime without the slightest sign of repentance and reparation? History shows that repentant murderers have desired execution as their only means of obtaining God’s forgiveness, a far more important matter than man’s.—Yours, etc.. P. H. PRITCHETT. February 19, 1949.