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Show DEATH OF AN ASSASSIN. Horrible beyond expression were the last moments mo-ments and the death of the unhappy man Alia, who was executed last week for tht unprovoked murder of a priest in Denver. Calling down maledictions male-dictions on all priests, repudiating God. denying the existence of a hereafter and shouting in Italian Ital-ian "Kviva Italia! Hurrah for the Protestant-!"' he died an awful death. When notified of ihe h ur for his execution Giuseppe Alia, murdc'cr and anarchist, expressed no regret for his shameful shame-ful and cowardly deed, uttertd no prayer fo- mercy, mer-cy, but professed to glory in his crimes. On hi' way from his cell to the place of execution the heart went out of the man. His face was the face (A sin and cowardice materialized, and his spoken words were the language of the possessed, foul and shameful.- When ascending the scaffold Alb he-cime he-cime frantic and rent the air with demonia erie.--. yells and curses which were still echoing within the prison walls when the doomed man wen: down to death. As if designed by some fiend to add to the ler-tr ler-tr rs of the gruesome scene and perpetuate it- r.jem-( r.jem-( -ry. the drop that ought to have broken his le-ck v.ui end at once the man's life did not do o. Dangling Dan-gling in the air. the body writhed in convulsions, and for a full quarter of. an hour swayed and circled cir-cled till the wretched victim of the law literally strangled to death. And so this sinful and mur derous man died and the law was avenged. Though twelve intelligent citizens pronounced Alia sane and responsible for his atrocious crime against society, so-ciety, we believe the man was morally and mentally men-tally a degenerate. He was as an infant in his mother's arms, washed in the saerament-il waters of baptism, he was in his early boyhood probably instructed in-structed in his duties to God. to his fellow man and to himself. Being an Italian, he was Iike'y prepared for his first communion, and partook of the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, and mayhap received the Sacrament of Confirmation. Soon after he chose his own life and the way he should live it. He fed on impurity of thought and act. sought the companionship of the depraved, plotted iniquity, and his tongue became foul and his lips blistered with profanity and blasphemy. The last patch of his decaying faith left him. fell away from him as falls from the shoulders of the Neapolitan Nea-politan beggar the remnant of a moth-eaten cloak, and Giuseppe Alia stood in the presence of his Creat or a morally naked, foul and ulcerated thing made so by his own determined will. Then after years of a beast's life, the fine texture of the human hu-man brain began to decay, the will to weaken and the distinction in the intellect between right and wrong, between good and evil, to disapprsr, and the man became insane with what the Holy Ghost terms "The madness of lust." Sane or insane, when these monsters do not destroy themselves by suicide or die from excess of sin before they become be-come criminally deranged, the law must crush them out. stamp them out,, as noxious things, loathsome loath-some to the eye and dangerous to life. It is noteworthy and suggestive that the insanity insan-ity of these sinful men always takes the complexion complex-ion of hatred of religion and contempt for civil authority. Unable, to destroy abstract truths, they accumulate murderous designs which by degrees solidify into attacks against the ministers of religion reli-gion or the sovereigns of the state, be they kings, emperors or presidents. When allowed 4o multiply and form oath-bound conspiracies they become, in large centers of population, pop-ulation, a serious menace to society. Their hatred to established order develops into a fanaticism fierce in its design and murderous- in its expression. expres-sion. It is impossible to convince them they are not right, and when any one of them is convicted of murder and sentenced to be hanged or to imprisonment im-prisonment for life he at once becomes a hero and a martyr. Not many years ago some of our newspapers, when commenting on the assassination of European Euro-pean sovereigns, called these murders a revolt against despotism, but when three of our own presidents, pres-idents, in the freest land on earth, were foully done to death by the same people, the editors began to scratch their heads for a reason. No, it is not a revolt against despotism. It is rebellion against God, against religion,, against civil authority, against law and order. |