DEATH PENALTY

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 123, 27 May 1930, Page 9

DEATH PENALTY

IX OPPOSITION VOICE

SOCIAL REFINEMENT

(From "The Post's" Representative.) :: '.:/' LONDON, 4th April..

..Giving., evidenc!}' before the . SelectCommittee/which •' is considering the Capital' Punishment Bill, Lord Buekmaster declared that tho arguments used to-day in favour of capital punishment as a deterrent were used, and for a long time were successful, in the early part of the * nineteenth century, when capital punishment was a common, penalty for civil offences. There was no difference , whatever between ■the people who supported capital punishment then and those who supported it now. ' "There, are a few calculated, coldblooded murders, but the bulk of- murders are nothing of the kind, but are crimes committed when a man- loses control'of himself. "■ Lord Buckmaster discussed tho. effect of capital punishment on social: refine-1 ment. "Does anybody really imagine,": he-asked,/'that the, office.; of public I executioner is a refined aud elevated occupation?. The very idea-makes one shiver, and the very name is a thing of reproach. When you add to . that that this ghastly thing attracts . the j attention of everybody I do not; think anyone can doubt tho demoralising influences of executions. , "It is my belief that tho real do-j terrent against,crime is social opinion. It is not the police nor tho laws. It is the healthy public opinion which affects and surrounds a man from his youth—l am satisfied myself that it is to that more than anything else we dwe the lessening in our. criminal characters." CASE OF OSCAR SLATER. Discussing tho question of whether an innocent man was ever hanged, Lord Buckmaster referred "to the case of Oscar Slater. '' Slater was very nearly hanged,'' said Lord Buckmaster. Lord Buckmaster recalled also the case of the man who was sentenced to death for th© murder to which Charles Peace later confessed. , "Is cannot accept this theory that no innocent man has ever been put to death," he said. v . •. Mr. Lovat JFraser, a member of the Committee, argued that Oscar Slater, was reprieved not because he was considered to be innocent, but because it was thought the Judge made a mistake. •'■ Lord Buckmaster: "I think you will find it extraordinarily difficult to ■ satisfy yourself that Oscar Slater committed that murder."' . • Mr. Lovat Fraser: "I do not think it should go forth that there- is a universal opinion ' Oscar Slater was innocent." " NEWSPAPER'S COMMENT. "There- is always a risk, of forgetting the victim- in sympathy for the convicted murderer," comments tho "Daily Mail." "It is not humanity but sentiinentalism to lament the lot of the criminal and ignore th 6 fate of those whom he has done to death. After all, as Alphonse Karr said nearly a century ago, criminals have it in their own power to abolish tho death penalty. They have only to begin by murdering no longer and their own lives will be safe. • ' "We are afraid that human experience does not justify Lord Buckmaster's hope that social opinion may be strong enough to. prevent murder. This is certainly not what has happened in the United States. In that country, socially advanced as it is, tho death penalty has for all practical purposes been abolished, and can always be eluded if tho criminal has cash and 'powerful friends. But social opinion has not put down murder. On the contrary, the United States stands first in its iratio of murders to population."