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Show Capital punishment The Swiss cantons are gradually re-establishing capital punishment, after having tried the lenient policy of imprisoning murderers for life. Within the past few weeks several crimes of peculiar atrocity have been committed. Th??? In one of the cantons bordering on Germany a man set fire to a farmhouse and caused the death of five persons; on the canton of Lucerne a child only eight years old was murdered by some tramps; and at Berne a locksmith shot a young man who was guilty of no worse offense than that of fishing on his land without leave. The colonel of a regiment was murdered in the canton of Ticino by a man with whom he had remonstrated in a cafe for using bad language; and though the crime was committed in the presence of several people, the assassin was allowed to escape. All these crimes have created a very strong feeling among the people in favor of capital punishment. |