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Show K THE MORTENSEN EXECUTION. B Peter Mortensen went to his doom yesterday K for the murder of John R. Hay. While that is a BM measure heroic which in many cases has been ill EB applied, the general belief of Mie people of the K city was that the law went not askew when its S severest chastisernent was administered to Mor- BK tensen. Bj Some Gentiles have Intimited that it was k thiough Mormon influence and prejudice that Mor- BBJ tensen was convicted, and in tl Is connection refer S to the revelation dissertation of Elder John Sharp. BB That is scarcely just. There were Gentiles on H the jury, and the revelation evidence, if Jt had BM any weight upon the jury, was more favorable to m the defense than the prosecuth n, as the Gentiles BBf on the jury were then more determined than ever BBJ that no injustice should be done the defendant H through religious animosity. BBJ. The circumstance which caused the most wide- K spread conviction of Mortensen's guilt was his own rather eloquent plea in his own behalf. It had throughout the sound of base metal, of a clever sycophant pleading a wrbng canse, and in all his utterances there was no bold pronouncement of his innocence, and had none of that compelling eloquence which scintillates from the tongue of the guiltless wrong accused. Mortensen's death recalls the fact that' he is one of two men in the history of the state to pay the law's extreme penalty within the walls of the state penitentiary. The other was Fred Hopt, whose crime equalled in ghastliness the one for which Peter Mortensen was shot. A circumstance immediately preceding the execution of Hopt which has never been known to the public, was that he contemplated committing suicide and was prepared to do so unless Turner, the father of the man he murdered, were excluded from the penitentiary gates when he met the last summons. After being assured to his satisfaction that Marshal Mar-shal Dyer would revoke the pasa issued to Turner, Hopt, in the presence of four ofllcials of the penitentiary, peni-tentiary, drew forth from the lining of his trousers, a large morphine pill and handed it to one of the officers. It was enough to have killed three men. "If that's the case, gentlemen," he remarked, "I will take my medicine." Hopt had been so closely watched that his possession of the morphine -ijreatly surprised the penitentiary .officials. "When assured of Turner's absence, Hopt went to his death with stoical indifference. |