The Taranaki Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.]

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 9396, 24 March 1898, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. [PUBLISHED DAILY.]

THURSDAY, MARCH 24, 1898.

LEGAL HOMICIDE.

We have more than once expressed our strong conviction that capital punishment, like Prohibition, does not prohibit. All it does, so far as the convicted person is concerned, is to put it out of his or her power to commit any further crimes. The object of legal punishment for crime should be to prevent it, and to reclaim those who have entered on a career of wrong-doing. Vengeful sentences, such as death and long terms of imprisonment with frequent periods of solitary confinement, have not acted as deterrents from crime, though the latterform of punishment is more dreaded than the former, which is mostly looked upon by desperate criminals as a short cut out of all their troubles, and a life which has afforded them little, if any, p'easure. The life of a confirmed criminal consists of short gleams of liberty during which vicious pleasures are indulged in, and long periods of incarceration in gloomy prisons, where tho horrible monotony of life is so great that those who have undergone long terms of incarceration, are frequently little better than imbeciles when restored to liberty. The death sentence is in many respects more merciful than long terms of imprisonment, as it is carried out with as little delay as possible, and the final act so short that the curtain h dropped a very few minutes from the time the culprit is placed on the stage from which he is so soon to take a hurried and fatal exit. The legal killing of a human being, however, is a most repulsive affair, and out of keeping with the dignity and sacredness of Justice, which is not a savage God delighting in the immolation of his victims. On the contrary, it is, or should be, a merciful, but stern and impartial arbiter, whose awards carry the conviction that wrong-doing is not only unprofitable, but foolish. The gruesome spectacle of a human execution is, without doubt, a most horrible one, which, we are thankful to say, we have never witnessed, and has never failed to disgust and horrify those whose better feelings have not been blunted. In the old days, when malefactors weiehungin chains from gibbets erected on or near the spot where they committed the crimes for which they wore executed, the sight of the hideous bodies swinging in the wind and poisoning the air mainly had tho effect of brutalising and blunting the feelings of the people whom the spectacle was expected to intimidate into observance of the law. Has not Hogarth, in the plate showing the Idle Apprentice being sent to sea, depicted Tom as extending his fingers from his nose at the sailor, who, pointing to some bodies hanging in chains on the bank of the Thames for their owners crimes at sea, tells the young scapegrace that if he does not mend his ways he, too, will adorn a gibbet and form food for carrion crows ? Hogarth knew human nature, and drew with wonderful power the career of the two lads, one of whom attains wealth and honor, whilst his idle fellow-appren-tice ends hia career at Tyburn, where an immense concourse assembled to witness the hanging of Tom Idle. The scene at the execution is one of ribaldry, viciousness, and an utter absence of proper recognition of the solemnity of the occasion. So much was this the case that public executions wore discontinued, first in Australia and afterwards at Home, as it was found that they were not only no aid to law and order, but a great scandal and an irresistable attraction to all the bad and vicious characters within reach of the place of execution. Private hanging has no doubt been a much decenter and more awe-inspiring spectacle, and no doubt has a very strong mental effect on most of those whose duty or curiosity has led to their presence thereat, but a'l the same it has proved little more deterrent than the brutal public executions of days gone bye, when forgery, coining, sheep-stealing, and felony generally were punishable by death. To our mind the legal killing of a murderer is little bptter than that of the crime for which the latter's own life is taken. The decalogue says " thou shalt do no murder " ; the law says to tho murderer, " you shall be hanged by the neck until you aro dead," sanctimoniously adding, " and may God have mercy on your soul." Hanging is, no doubt, a more economical and less troublesome way of dealing with murderers, but it is in a growing number of opinions, an utterly indefensible exercise of human power. Life and death are not matters that should be left in the hands of men to decide ; they are, or should be, beyond human juris diction. Punishment for crime is necessary, but it should be not only of such a nature as to chasten the receiver, but to lead him or her into leading a better life on being restored to liberty. Hope should never be absent from the prisoner's mind, as without it life in the gloom of a felon's cell would be insupportable and suicide a growing practice among long' Sentenced malefactors. The difficulty seems to be how to assess the terms of imprisonment so as to equitably meet tha circumstances of each case. In some -cases, such as those of Deeming, Butler, and men of that stamp, it would be useless, nay dangerous, to pass any sentence of imprisonment short of one for life, which, however, might be commuted when the prisoner had served as many years $s woujfd leave him too old and weak to re.-coramence a life of crime and violence ; the commutation to be dependent on continuous good behaviour during the culprit's detention in 'prison. We firmly believe that such treatment would prove far more deterrent in the first place, and a better way of treating a human being in the second, as it would make murder a crime to be aro ded, and if committed convince the perpetrator that the punishment of life-long incarcer^tjem is far more to be dreaded than hanging. There have been three terrjble ' murders — one of them a double murder — near Wellington within the last few years, the perpetrators of the last two having been convicted on purely circumstantial evidence, and executed, after making full confessions of their guilt, whilst the slayer of Mr Hawkins, of Kaiwarra, still walks abroad unpunished. The death penalty tyad not sufficient terror for

tlio perpetrators of those throe awful crimes to keep them from slaying four inoffensive and unprepared persons, nor will the hanging of Bosher and Philpott prevent others from committing similar dreadful murders. It is, therefore, clear that the death penalty fails to do anything more than rid the State of the trouble and cost of maintaining and guarding dangerous criminals. Is that the whole duty of the State? We think not.