CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XCIV, Issue 10705, 15 July 1895, Page 2

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

TO THE EDITOR. Sie, Tour correspondent "John Bendely,” with his expressions of pity for for those " whose moral vision is obscured and whose feet have wandered from the paths ,o£ righteousness/’ has utterly failed to convince me that he represents the common-sense, practical party. I quite agree with him that the sentences imposed on criminals are in moat cases inadequate, either as deterrent or reformatory agents; but I would respectfully ask how ho proposes to improve matters in this respect. To make prison life more pleasant would be to destroy, to a very groat extent, its value as a deterrent, while to make it more severe by reintroducing the " cat ” and giving more solitary confinement on bread and water (as suggested by one correspondent), would undoubtedly increase its brutalising influence. I would like to see those who are at present striving for tho abolition of capital punishment turn their energies in other directions. There is no lack of employment for those who wish to be of service to their fellow-men. One step toward securing the abolition of capital punishment would be to effect needed reforms in our industrial system, which compels so many to remain out of work,, and forces others to accept wages which compel them to remain single, thus offering a premium to vice. Prevention is better than cure, and mental methods will, I believe, be the methods of the future. Bat men are not yet sufficiently educated to adopt these methods with success. Until they are the State should retain the right to ring down the curtain on any player whose acting merits the disgrace.—l am, &c., ATHENIAN.