THE DEATH SENTENCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 114, 6 July 1911, Page 8

THE DEATH SENTENCE.

METHODS OF EXECUTION. WHAT OTHER COUNTRIES DO. Xu view of the discussion which is iu progress us to the retention ot th 3 'death sentence as a penalty lor mui dor, it is of in terest to coin pare the procedure followed _ iu various civilised countries in this icspect A summarised statement of the position is given in the >‘2 edition of the ‘•Encyclopedia Britannica.” : - Austria-Hungary: Sentence of death is passed for tho graver hums of high treason and ic.bbcry w tli violence, causing death incendiarism, or damage to steamers or i osultiiv n; i* iiv'l i'.wcution is by hanging in public, supplemented, if necessary, by the hands of the executioner, but. it is very rarely carried out. The Hungarian penal code of 1885 did not a Polish capital punishment. Belgium: The death sentence may not be pronounced upon a person under 18 years of ago._ Execution is public, and by guillotine. No execution seems to have taken place since 1863. Denmark imposes the death sentence, and the guillotine is used. Finland: There have been no execution’s since 1821; and capital punishment is said to have been a. dished in 1826. France: Execution is pHilic, and by guillotine. Many crimes were, up till recently, punished by death, but juries freely exercised their 1 :io« or to acquit in capital cases, or to defeat the capital sentence by finding extenuating circumstances, compelling the Court to reduce Ihe penalty below death. Germany: Executions are private, and by axe or guillotine. Holland abolished the death penalty in 1870, and it was not To-intro laced in the .Renal Code of 1886.

Italy, in the Ren il Cod* of IbSS, abrogated the death penalty for all crimes. Cases of homicide m Italy are very numerous in comparison with England but there arc no statistics to show any connection between this fact and the abolition of tbe death penalty. Japan: For murder in the first degree, sentence of death may be passed. Execution is by hanging within a prison. Norway: The death sentence is imposed in cases of murder in pi (-meditation, and the accepted form of execution is by decapitation. Thai e seems to have been no execution since 1776. Portugal: No execution if- reported since 1846, and the death penalty is said to have been aboiis'ied in IHfi". Iloumania: This '■aimtry abolished the death sentence' in 1861. Russia: The death s-mlc-rce was abolished in 1750, but was afterwards restored, and is inflicted for nigh treason and breaking the quarantine laws in regard to plague, it also seems to be used in grave cases of hemicido. Death is causer, l y shooting, beheading, or hanging. Spain; Death is inflicted upon persons who induce a foreign rower to declare war against. Spain, for rillingthe sovereign, for parricide, and for assassination. The garotte is used. Sweden: Attempts on the hie of the sovereign, premeditated homicide, and certain offences by persons undergoing imprisonment for life are punishable by death, and the sentence is carried out by decapitation. In 1901 a Bill for the abolition of the death sentence was rejected by both Houses of the Swedish Parliament. Switzerland: In 1874 the ledeial Legislature abolished the death penalty, but in 1879, in consequence of a plebiscite, each canton was empowered to restore it for offences within

its territory. The Federal Govvinment was - unwilling to take this course, but was impelled to it by the fact that between 1874 and 1879 cases of premeditated murder had considerably increased. Seven of the 22 cantons had, up till 1902, exercised the power thus obtained, but no executions seem to have taken place. United States: Michigan abolished the death sentence in 1816. except for treason. Wisconsin wholly abolished it in 1853. In Maine it was abolished, but afterwards re-enacted, and again abolished in 1887. Rhode Island abolished it in 1852, but restored it in 1882, in cases of murder by persons undergoing life sentences. In all other States the death sentence is permitted for variously specified capital crimes. Execution is by hanging, except in Ohio and New York, where electrocution is used. Public opinion is reported to bo certainly not against capital punishment in the United States.

The writer of the article states that the subject of capital punishment was considered by a Royal Commission set up in England in 1864. It reported in 1866. The commissioners differed as to the expediency of abolishing the death sentence, and did not report thereon. They made several recommendations, the chief being that the death sentence should be restricted throughout the United Kingdom to high treason and murder in the first degree, and that public executions should be abolished. Of the recommendations made, only the second one mentioned was carried out, and from this the commissioners, who were averse to capital punishment, dissented.