Capital Punishment.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 6, 7 July 1897, Page 2

Capital Punishment.

' Writing on the refusal of tbe N.S.W. ' authorities to allow tbe notorious Butler's brain to be examined after bis execution the Lyttelton Tines says : — " Now, the persistent refusal of the author- ' ities to surrender the bodies of executed I persons for examination is based upon the old and barbarous conception tbat tbe whole duty of the State is discharged when it punishes crime, and tbat it has no call to aid those who study the constitutional defects that produce criminal tendencies and who labour to eliminate crime by preventive means. The " vile bodies " of paupers are, indeed, often subjected to dissection, but those of criminals are considered sacred. Butler seems to be little better than a homicidal maniac, yet as he has sufficient sense to know tbat to murder is contrary to l the law, be must suffer tbe punish . ment prescribed for bis offence. His ' case is one so peculiar, however, tbat valuable service to the science of crimino logy might be rendered by having bis brain and cranium subjected to scientific examination, and society would ' probably gain far more by such examinI ation than it will by his violent removal t from this sphere. But usage and regulation and prejudice step in to prevent any such enquiry, and so men go on ' blundering for want of light which they . themselves shut out. Butler's desperate ' attempts to commit suicide form, by the ) way, a complete answer to those who affirm that death is a terror to the evildoer, and is therefore rightly made the extreme penalty of the law. Here we have a man who has to be manacled, muffed, and strait-jacketed to prevent bim rushing to the doom which is supposed to be so terrible to the average criminal. We are almost tempted to ask whether there is any reason why such elaborate precautions should be taken to prevent a condemned criminal anticipating tbe sentence of tbe law by a few days. Assuming Butler to be a rational being, and not a mere brute whose murderous instinct, for lack of other exercise is now directed against himself, it seems the very acne of refined torture to keep him alive, so that he may not " cheat tbe hangman."