PENALTY FOR MURDER.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18610, 4 July 1930, Page 9

PENALTY FOR MURDER.

Evidence Before Commission. SHOULD CAPITAL PUNISHMENT CONTINUE. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright I LONDON, July 3. A prison chaplain, the Rev. S. R. Granville Murray, dramatically revealed before the Capital Punishment Commission, a narrow escape from being strangled by a murderer. Producing a rope in the form of a noose he said: “As I entered the condemned man’s cell on the night before the execution, a rope flicked past my face. The man said he meant to strangle the first entrant, adding that If they want murder they will have it.” Mr Granville did not regard murder as the worst crime. Dr M. Hamblin Smith, of the Birmingham prison, strongly opposed hanging. He had witnessed thirty executions, and has seen condemned men daily and had long interviews with them and had learned to know them well. There should be degrees of murder, the first only carrying execution. He would abolish the black cap, the invocation of the Deity and Amen. A sheriff’s chaplain said there should be no prison gate bulletin, no bell, and furthermore the Judge should attend executions.