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Show SHOULD WE KILL ' HOPELESS 10? Question of State Executing Violent Lunatics Comes Before Public By YHI I II niJCY. FIARTTORD, Conn., Feb. 16. 'Should we kill hopelessly mad and I dangerously violent lunatics as a hu-, , manitarl.tn measure? "No," say many. 'Yes." say others- The question is being agitated throughout Connecticut and New York. ' In the Norwich State hospital Is a I Violent, incurable maniac. He Is fifty and a giant. So eager is he to kill; : himself or hla guards that he has been manacled for five years. Oncol a month five Btrng guardt unchain 'him and bathe him. He Is racked with disease, suffers mental and physical 'anguish, can never be cured. Death I only will release him. .Members of th-.- Connecticut legislature, legis-lature, led by Senator Hall of New I Britain, visited him. Then with Dr. Franklin .s Wlloox, superintendent of, the Norwich Insane asylum, they said 1 "In humanity! name he should be1 killed." They now seek a law which j will permit ending this type of misery Arc they light or wrong? Dr. Charle. Bllot .Norton, man of; letters and friend of Longfellow and Lowell, was strongly In favor of klll- ing all wr..- k.s of humanity. Ho said "The prolongation of life In Huch a ' case Is more criminal cruelty " Here Is what others say about If. Dr. Wilcox, superintendent of the Norwich asylum: "1 say a hopelessly I insane person who has become so vlo-j lent that the lives of others arc Im-1 periled should be mercifully put to death. The violently Insar.o sufferer should be confined 15 years, which would enable experts to know positively posi-tively whether he could be helped or cured, or he should bo forever re-ll.-ed of Ills sufferings," Dr. R- F. C Kleb, superintendent Of Matteawan State hospital for the i insane at Beacon, N. Y ; "I do not igree with Dr. Wilcox. Life and di ' i belong to the creative genius Of the world not to man " Benator Frederick N. Drew of An-sonlo, An-sonlo, N. Y-. "The state should take steps to put the chronic Insane out of their misery." William': Paxter field secretary of the Connecticut Prison association; "I favor the execution of hopelessly insane." in-sane." Dr. Whltefleid N Thompson, eminent emin-ent nouroloklst. says: "There are few who are suffering great mental tortures After a year or less lti un institution insane persons do not suffer mentally." Dr. Joseph A. Blake, celebrated surgeon, sur-geon, says: "The euthanasia proponed propon-ed would have a utilitarian value, but' would present so many Justifiable dlf-j Qcultlee that it would be lmpractlca-. ble" Marguerite L- Smith, New York ae-1 semblyman- "I'm against It. How shall we decide who Is curable, who, Incurable.'' Dr. Haven Emerson, former New York commissioner of health: "I do, hot believe anj law can be so plain' : - to provide doctors with tho proper! basis for taking life. The medical science Is not so deve loped today ai i to make us sure of such eases. Our 1 Information concerning the mind and: its diseases Is not sufficiently advanc-i ed yet." Dr. Elizabeth Hamilton Muncle, al-j Icnlst and lecturer. "If It is morally, right to kill the po-called sane crlm- i lhal, th.-n It hhould be morally right' to kill the oquully dangerous Insane." i ry at. ite has its hopelessly Insane. In-sane. W hat do you think about this question ques-tion ? |