CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19048, 27 June 1924, Page 10

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

Lord Darling, who when a judge of the King’s Bench tried many of tliemost memorable murder cases of the past twenty-six years, gave his views on capital punishment for murder in an article to the London Evening News. He said:—There is one incontrovertible difference between death and all other foifns of punishment. It is, so far as the world is concerned, final and irrevocable. It is also cheap, but this we may pass i by, for we live in an age of lavish expenditure. For my own part I caanot agree with those who hold that that they call a “final” sentence of penal servitude for life is as likely as the high probability of hanging to turn a man aside from murder. There is no finality but death—even if that be final. Most of us believe it is not so, and none can be absolutely certain that it is. Chi lo sa? It is incapable of proof. But of imprisonment, be it at Wormwood Scrubs or Portland, the worst is easily ascertained. These abodes may not be those of the blest, but they hold no unknown terrors. But who, meditating murder in a land where it is punishable with death, can fail to have some such thoughts as these: To die —to sleep— To sleep- Perchance to dream; aye, ther’s the rub; For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause. Yes—must give us pause. And who shall say how that hesitation shall end? The knowledge that the law pushes the male'/ctor without delay over and beyond that bourne cannot but have an effect upon the mind different from the fear of a prison whose gate may some day be opened. Further, a prison may well appear very tolerable to those who would not fear a course of such as many willingly support the Royal Institution and elsewhere. It may be said that to deter from wickedness is not all, but that the reformation of offenders is desirable and by all means to be sought. And in this I agree so far as concerns those crimes which men may adopt as a profession—such as burglar and theft. But murderers are not to be classed with these, and the most indulgent reformers of the criminal law agree in admitting that to deter others should properly be an end in. the awarding of penalties, i Guarded as the penalty is, I am con- ! vinced that death is a justifiable and | expedient punishment for the crime of wilful murder.