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Show HANGING, SHOOTING, AND BEHEADING. BE-HEADING. Tne dt-utal by the Supreme court of of the United States ol the murderer Wilkerson'a appeal from sentence of death by shooting will call attention lo the fact that ttio laws of Utah give, acd aro probably tbo only la'.rs now anywhero existing which do give, lo the condemned a choice as to tho death be shall die, tbe choice beiog confined to bunging, shooting, and beheading. The privilege of so limited lim-ited a choice as this wdl acetu but cruel ntnaness io any one rtnecung bow much painful thought goes to the making of a decision on questions arising out of events even a little out of the ordinary ceurso of lite, euch as determining on a speculative investment, invest-ment, for inatauco, but which fade into insignificance when compared with the grim alternatives among which Utah criminals make their choice. A native 'BtateBmau" once gave it aa his matured opinion lbat, whilo mmn Linda nf whinkr were better than others, there was no bad whisky. Conversely, it ra-y be said that there ia no pleasant way to die, ia possible exception being indicated by the jesting Criminal who, when given a more extended choice than would have been allowed him iu Utah xaid that be would die of old age. iH is plain enough why Wilkeraon objected to being shot; moat men would. But it ia not so cloar why he would have preferred to be hanged or beheaded. The guillotine never uuugiua, it- in nue, uui, uutiug iu-i formed bimaelf upon the subject, he could acarceiy have beeu iguorant of that French case in which tbe eyeB ol a victim of tbe deadly machine turned toward ft bystander wbo called tbe name of their former owner. And if, aa is more likely, he bad lost his head by tbe axe or sword, he must have bad awful visions of tbe lipa of poor Mary Stuart, which are aaid to have moved in prayer several minutes after the bungling headsman bad made his last stroke. There is more to be said in fivor of death by hanging. Andre's case proves that tbe time has gone by when a mode ol death can confer con-fer infamy; the disgrace at Laches to trie performance of the ebamelul act, and not at all to the mode of ite expiation. It is true that, allhough here are many hangings in the United States, they are yet so evenly distributed among a large number of sheriffs that scarcely any ot these are more than amateurs. But a man who survived the rudest form of banging by a mob of lynchers haa described sensations aa being almost enviable, io Ui at it is posaible that to be skillfully skill-fully banged is unalloyed pleasure. And it ia ao impossible to Bay what insane in-sane hopes of life a condemned man may have, that Wilkerson may have based a choice in favor of banging on tbe belief, at one time quite general, that electricity will revive a man killed bv ha hp inf. Gparoa Washington, wboso execution waa, etrauyely enough, rtported on the birthday of his namesake, certainly thought so, and left his body lo tbe doctors, in tbe hope of a renewed life. But electricity, inhalations of oxygen, and trauBfuBion of blood all failed. 1 It must ba aaid, however, that a strong shock applied directly to the body of tbe brain did cause contortion? contor-tion? of bis face and a slight movement move-ment of hie extremities; but they only distantly resembled tbe movement of li.'e, not a spark of which exiated or could be rekindled by all the re- j sources of modern medicine. New York Times. |