DOES THE GALLOWS REFORM

Hokitika Guardian, 3 May 1929, Page 7

DOES THE GALLOWS REFORM

(By the Bishop of Norwich.) (Plainly such .a question oiiould be considered in a dispassionate way noc with tiie eagerness of partisan.but with the reserve of those wlu wek.'Oiiie any fresh light. For new knowledge of various kinds may establish new views on the whole subject. 'The arguments brought against the death penalty are wen known, and if they are not conclusive at least they are telling. It is said to be a brutal idie from the past. Up till comparatively recent times a death penult., was inflicted upon what we should now consider to be minor offences of steal ing and so on. It is urged that the liiiltcion of the death penalty in case of this kind would be utterly abhor rent to the present sense of justice and propriety. Things which did not disturb tin qon.science of {our forefathers would shock us now. If, then, the progres of humanitarian ism has already gonso far, it is asked whether in dm course it will not condemn capita, punishment for murder. Again, wo hear that if capital pun ishmont is retained with the idea that it will act as a deterrent upon scoundrels who are to be kept from committing murder by t!he prospect of being hanged if tliey do so, the expectation is false. Only, recently th< murder of a policeman was just ai. incident in the achievement of a plan for stealing a motor-car. And many lives, of course, are taken in fits of passion, and at such a time no man carefully weighs the pros and cons. Nevertheless there is a certain general equipment of character on conscience or convention, or whatevei we may please to call it, gained from the atmosphere in which we live, and this tells upon us all, even in unconscious moments. There are cruelties practised among savages and Orientals that it would not occur to any-, one living among English ways to' perpetrate. , “'Tliev are not done,” if the expression may be pardoned on so serious a-subject. The general system prevents such atrocities Coming into the head of an angry man. It is, then, at least conceivable that the mysterious death penalty creates in the public mind, as no other penalty would, an attitude towards taking the life of a fellow creature which even in the height of pjassion {may {indirectly influence a would-be-murderer. And we must not lose si gilt of the many calculated murders, notably those caused by 0 slow process of poisoning.. 1 where there is time for ample reflection and deliberate purpose. - It is urged that the- aim of punishment is reformation and pot vengeance upon the guilty party. He is not to be crushed and tortured, hut to he, brought out of his evil propensities. There is very much truth in this. The amelioration of our whole penal system bears witness to the right and wide acceptance of such a view. But even if we give, so far as may be, the first place to the reformatory’’ /element in punishment, it cannot he supposed that the chastisement of the- offender is to he alogether excluded. ' This is not vengeance. Society at largo must bo protected; and ii, is more than doubtful whether this end would be effectively secured it punishment, as punishment, were dis counted. It is easy for regard for the offender to degenerate into a weak tolerance that blurs the dividing line between right and wrong. Another aspect of punishment is its expiatory character. This as a moral factor may lead the criminal to a position in which, in his own eyes and the eves of others, he has, as fai as can he, made good the past and from which ho can start for a tetter future.

The namebity pf human life which the murderer violates places his offence by itself; and it is not unieusp ii able till a,t murder ’should therefore be dealt with differently from other

crimes. the execution of the , murderer ought to be a very solemn matter. Capital punishment is robbed of some of its power for good by sensational accounts of the behaviour and of the last hours of the condemned pnan; the solemnity is forgotten, and is replaced by a revolting curiosity. This is to be sincerely deprecated.

We must also deplore such unwholesome interest in the murderer as loads people to forget his victims and his own brutality and to make a hero of him at flic time when the majesty off -the (law, arraigning the outrage which he has inflicted upon ; t, ought to stand supreme. Tt is said that his execution cuts a man off from the opportunity of a change for the better. This is not true in all cases. Tt is possible that the very moment of death may come with a flash of if him mating light: but this could nof bo established. Twice, however, U has fallen my lot to visit in the condemned cell men who were to be banged in a few days. I have conbrine,d two such men. Naturally ii was niv desire to test their sincerity so far as I could judge of it, and no> L n take part in anything merely sensational or emotional.

One such man. T remember, told me that the lessons of the old Sunday School came hack to him in this time of waiting: and as we spoke together. T reached the conclusion that I wa? fully justified in confirming him. I io not think it would nave been fail to ask myself whether, if the man returned to his old surroundings, thi= chastened spirit would be maintained. Fpom the other man J'received a letter written to me a few hours before his end. T have it still. It is too touching to quote. Both those men I believe to have been “reformed” between their sentence and their end. Both I believe to have followed, to good and eternal effect, the advice which I once beard given in a little Court on the Western Circuit. The last of the Barons of the Exchequer was about to pronounce sentence of death. He had assumed the black cap (this is often supposed to have some connection with the death sentence, though it is in reality a part of a judge’s full dress which is appropriately worn on formal or grave occasions). To the set form of sombre words he added an appeal to the unfortunate man in the dock that in the brief interval before liis death he should turn to God and seek through Christ that pardon which has never been denied to the repentant sinner. No doubt some such word has again an again been spoken by judges “who felt the victim’s dreadand it must have frequently gone to the heart of a man to whom the things of this world were already beginning to become dim and fleeting on the threshold of the world to come.