THE RIGHT TO DIE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 93, 11 April 1914, Page 3

THE RIGHT TO DIE.

“IS IT A SIM TO KILL?” “The right to die,” a question which has agitated newspaper correspondence in the I'nited States for many months, lias been superseded in general interest here (writes the York corrspondent of the Daily Telegraph) by the question, “Is it a sin To kill?” if such killing is done at the request of the victim, and with the desire to end an incurable disease and a Ife of torture and misery. This question, which is being taken up by every important newspaper, and discussed at every fireside, was first raised when Judge 'Walling, in the Philadelphia Criminal Court, senetnced William Eberwein, an aged soldier and veteran of the American Civil War, to seven years’ solitary prison confinement tor killing his wife, who for years past has suffered untold agonies from vertigo and cancer on the foot. Eberwein is 80 years old, and his wife was 15 years younger. They had lived harmoniously together for :>0 years without a quarrel of any hind. Last October, however, Mrs Eberwein was found dead with a fractured skull, and her husband was arrested. Since then he has refused lo make a statement, and it was not till he was called upon to plead in court that anyone knew that the old man was the murderer. As Eberwein rose in the witnessbox ho clutched the railing with his feeble old hands for support, and in :i low, shaking voice said; — “T did it because she hogged me

to.” Ho then told of his wife’s long years of sickness and suffering, how her body was covered with bruises from falling about the house in her di///,y spells, and how on the fatal October day ho found her in a huddled heap at the bottom of the stairs, where she had fallen from the first landing. “I’m suffering awfully, William,” 11 10 prisoner told the Court his wife said, and he added that the poor'woman’s moaning was pitiful. Eberwein continued :—I said—“!’ll got an ambulance and take you f<> the hospital.” “No,” she says, “f ain’t got much faith in hospitals. What Nature’s power can’t cure no hospital doctor can cine. I’m hurt too much, and I want to die. You do it, William. “Do what?” I says.' “End it all for me.” says she. “No. I cannot do that,” says I. “It’s no sin,” says she, “when I’m, suffering so.” I had a board in my hand that I had brought in out of the yard. I looked at her lying there, hurt so; and guessed, too, it wouldn’t be a sin. “Go on, William,’ 7 says she, “go mi.” Then 1 tapped her on the head with the hoard, and I tapped her again. She didn’t moan much, and once when I stopped she kind o’ whispered, “Go on; it won’t be long.” So 1 kept on tapping her, ad she got quiet, ad it seemed to me contented; and I knew it was all over. Then I was arrested and taken to prison. ?i ’ i get out of this I want to go to an old soldiers’ .home, whei'e HU he taken care of.” In sentencing the prisoner for murder, in the second degree, Judge Walling imposed the minimum number of years, but it was generally agreed that, owing to the old soldier’s age, he had virtually received a sentence for life.