Death by Mosaic Law.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 5, 7 January 1904, Page 4

Death by Mosaic Law.

MORMON METHOD OF DEALINL! | WITH A MURDERER. Salt Lake, I'taih. Nov. 20.—When l'eter Morlenscn, who was legally shot in the yard of the penitentiary j lust week for the inundVr of James H. Hay, stood upright for the last time, the warden of the institution pinned a piece of paper about four inches sxprure over his heart. He was then sea tod in a chair, to which his bauds, arms aivd legs were bound with leather straps. A bund oi leather was then placed over his eyes. Stan/ding only a few feet away, the warden asked. "Are yon ready ?" Mortensen replied by nodding his head. A moment later the warden dropped a baudkei-chief, and before it had reached the ground the leports of live rilles rang out, and Mortensen, with four bullets in his heart, had [»akl the penalty of his crime. Mortensen wias a Mormon. Mis victim was a Mormon. He died by a Mormon method as olid as the Church institution. His live execu-tionei-s wore prison gwuixls. 'They stood in u sited, in the boards of which small holes large enough to permit a rifle banal to outer had been bored. When the guards entered the shanty tire rifles stood in a rack. Four contained bullets. The fifth tad a blank cartridge. The men selected their weapons at random. No one, therefore, knows w'hether he was, in part, responsible for the death of Mortensen. The plan is a sort «f solve to the consciences of tile men assigned to the task of tutaintf the life of a fellow in cold blood. Every member of the firing squad knew Mortensen. Hut when duty called fi'k'nship was forgotten, at«l tihe desire "to score a buTl's-eye" became for the time their paramount ambition. POOR MARKMANSH'IP A DISGRACE. At an execution by shooting in this State it is thought a disgrace tf every bullet fired does not reach the vital spot. The men selected, for the task are always experienced marksmen. If Mortensen had lived forty years ago and been legally condemned to die at that time he could have selected either of three methods. This being a more civiiisctd era, his ekoice was limited to two hanging and shooting. The t-hiixl method formerly provided for was by the axe, and was authorised by the laws of the State of Deseret, which Brigiliam Young fondly believed would eventually be a republic, free from the control of the United States and with himself as its head.

It is not recorded in the history of Utah that a condemned murderer ever rcquesUd that ail axe should be •the instrument selected for his punishment. The legal 'deaths by hanging have also been remarkably lew. Tn recent years every man condemned to die has selected shooting as the method, with on*' exception. The exception was Charles Thiele, a saloon keeper, who murdered his wife. He was hangtjd in the county giaoJ here. The fall from the scaffold did not break his nock, and he slowly strangled to death. He was a large man, and the descriptions given of his death agonies made the method unpopular with succeeding murderers.

Not more than a score of men have been legally killed in Utah. Mortcnsen was perhaps the most interesting of the number, and his crime probably the most atrocious. The man he killed was his playmate in childhood .and his friend in manhood. The murder was in cold blood and for the purpose of reoo/vering money Mortensen had paid Hay on a debt, owed to Hay's employer.

For the first time in years memDers of the Church of Z-ioii were divided ;„ opinion. One faction clamoured for blood atonement,their old, doctrine im a new guise ; the other faction petitioned for clemency. Their appeal was denied by Governor Heber M. Wells, a Mormon, and the Mosaic law, so popular with the people of Utah, was again emphasized when the four bullets pierced the breast of Mortensen in the prison' yaid.