Show THE EXECUTION OF if those who have all along upheld electrocution as a means of inflicting the death penalty because of the claim that it is more in accord with civilized and enlightened methods will read and carefully consider the details of Moll vames taking off at sing sing on monday last we doubt not their conclusions to that end will undergo revision we all understand that for the protection of society by means of removing the dangerous classes and by the example thus afforded sifford ed lives and liberty must at times be taken but the authorization to do so which is found primarily in holy writ and immediately in the local law does not either in express terms or by implication command or justify inhuman or unusual practices to effect such ends we can prop properly efly go no further than out cut oft off a forfeit life and in doing so assume maum e the full 1111 f limit of authority reposed in us to go further and add torture to the victim as well as repulsiveness to the spectacle is in at once to place ourselves outside the law for want of authority and justification such an act does foreit turns backward the wheel of progress and makis mak s us onci once more appear as an if we partook of the spirit of barbarism which actuated man in his dealings with an enemy or in an outlaw butla in the dark agee that Is 10 we seem to add to punishment revenge and gratification of a morbidly vicious appetite this to is not an evidence of civilization as claimed but the te re verse the fact to is the age to is given to son sen sa to the encouragement of r ovelty and the fostering of expert sm this to is well enough perhaps when confined to legitimate channels but as bad as am can be when a applied to so profound and dangerous a subject as the taking of human life by the methods of law such occasions should call for alt all the conservatism in our nature for the complete absence of even the semblance of passion pa eslon and above all freedom from juggling and tinkering no matter how well educated and profound the jug alera and tinkers may be the subject of death especially when it la Is to be practically v applied to others should be approached not as the means of exercising tentative skill but with a reasonable degree of awe and solemn consideration it has been 1 made the king of terrors in order that by our natural instinct we may keep as far from it il as we can and assist others in doing 0 so o the slightest perversion of quality to is so much of a concession to that influence among man which is ever leading him into forbidden paths and unchecked it promotes notes carelessness indifference and callousness and at last those who are so led look without sorrow morrow upon suffering and unmoved upon death itself no matter how inflicted it is recorded of than whom no more stolid or remorseless tyrant ever wielded power that when he became one of the bloody triumvirate whose deeds of darkness even yet thrill the world with horror he was so much affected by the sight eight of blood that the spectacle even of a bleeding nose none caused him to faint aud and to talk ot of an execution was as near as he oared cared to come to one but the monster of hideous mien onue behold beheld was first endured then pitted pitied then embraced and could soon behold with as much equanimity as the most hardened of his hea headsmen demen the decapitation of a fellow being more he even enjoyed it and looked forward with undisguised zest best to those frequent and revolting spectacles if the Moll vaine execution wa afi not a revolting spectacle it was not as hard to look at as the details are to read and this would seem main an utterly absurd proposition the civilizing result results 11 promised and claimed must exist in minds differently constructed from ours |