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Show THE DEATH PENALTY. Speaking of the commutation of sentence in the ease of Albert T. Patrick to imprisonment for life, the New York World recounts some features of the case. It says: "Three time Patrick hss been sentenced, though onlv twice convicted. Six years and almost three months be "has been under arrest; four years he has spent in the death house, almost in the shadow of the chair. Such strain and tenseness of uncertainty a d waiting that have been involved in his case, few prisoners csn have known." It seems to us that the best lesson it all teaches is that the death penalty ought to be obliterated fro&, our statute books. It does not do any good to kill a man. Even after the conviction of almost e"ory man there is uncertainty. We believe the enlightened en-lightened sentiment of the world is that in cases whore a man or a woman is charged with murder, there should be a quiet trial, with closed doors, no notoriety given the case and if the prisoner is convicted, con-victed, then he should be put in a 6ix-by-eight cell, hie food passed to him through the grating and he be forgotten by the world. The ends of justice would be just as well served. The prisoner would pass out of the knowledge of the world almost as completely as though he was killed and there would not be the possibility of the mistake of executing an innocent, man - r . - " |