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G'AGiiiCH-APl.AINS ON
. liANG-ING.
A ,REMARKABLE. CONFERENCE.
It was a unique little conference on
Tuesday night (November 22) in a room
a\ St. Paul's Catuedrai, when the subject
of capital punishment was discussed by
prison chaplains and other members 01
the Guild of S8..< Paul and Silas, a semi
private society for intercessory prayer fox
prisons and prisoners, which was foundea
in 1SS1 by the Rev. J- W. Horsley (writes
a correspondent of the "Westminster
Gazette")- Its members are scattered,
and only once a year they meet for tne
discussion of a pirner 01* subject, followed
by a service and sermon m the North
west Chapel''of St. Paul's Cathedral.. The
founder, as warden, opened the discussion
by saying that while the subject of capital
punishment-is a trite one in debatingt so
cieties, it is-not without use that it should
be discussed by those who are bound-by
their very duties to have opportunities of
observation and reasonable deduction <rs
to whether the extreme penalty of the law
has a deterrent effect. After quoting
Beeearia's' famous treatise' and',-'John
Stuart Milly Mr. Horsley expressed the
view that'there was a difference between
the guilt -of a'wholesale poisoner who_ com
mits his eririies.coolly and for gaiii and that
of one; who deals an unlucky; blow' alter
aggravation -'tor in drink, which, had . it
fallen1 an inch to the right Or left,' might
have been'legally onlv ah'assaiilt or wound;
ing, to be'punished by biit a few months
imprisonment.. Some '• .murderers _ are
deadly reptiles' to be crushed-by the State;
some only ill-trained and - ill-tempered chil
dren, '-whc,;- must be taught,- mdeec, the
consequences''of their want "of self-control,
but may change their habits as effectually1
as did' -.'liei • who in .-his: •: youth struck
down the Egyptian and in' his old
age 'became , the meekest of- men. < Our
hand iis disease'd;vihd •mortified. We have
the right, for the body's health, to sever it
from tlie tlife"of the body; 'but not every
diseased hand need, be amputated. Disen-.
franchisement by the State, excommunica
tion )by the chiireh, are o ther forms of capi
tal puriishnieht' whereby tlje. offender- -is
judic-iallv cut off from the corporate lire
of the community, but not .every corrupt
■act or grievous sin is pu'riished to this ex-.
ri'iie warden was .'followed by; the prison
'chaplain, who, above all others, has ex
perience with condemned , criminals, and
his impressive 'and moving words| were in
spired by the memory of an execution'he
had attended very recently. The ordeal,
he said, was more trying to the chaplain
earn time -it had to be faced, the dread pi
it increased with repetition.. There was
■the excitement of gruesome novelty about
his'first execution, but all subsequent ones
were so painful that personally he should
rejoice in the abolition of capital punish
ment. In the previous work with the cri
minal. .passing, perhaps,- from the state pf
irreligious 'callousness to 'that * pcnitep't
con'fessioiq he-' came so'-'to identify- hirnseli
with the prisoner -that their beings .seemed
mingled; he hardly felt himself to be hiiii
self for some days before the execution,
and on the fatal morning it seemed a par
tial execution of himself. .. . .
At such a time, after feeling some of the
anxietv, the anguish, and tne fear pf the
condemned, the punishment seemed a
thousand times greater <fchan the fault.
STet he saw 110 remedy, nor anything thai
eou-ld take, the place of capital punishment
ad a 'deterrent. Abolish it, and he believed
murders would marvellously increase.
Sixty murders a week in America were
causing many states that had abandoned
it to "be Considering its' bein'troductton.
From SKvitzerland came .the same evidence,
while in Ttaly penal servitude,, though of a
mr -more' d'eterrent kind than ;m England,
had so little effect that Italy;was the most
murderous of all European, eountnes, I he
strongest deterrent, whs needed; ggamst the
veno-eful or merely brutal- character, ltd:
prisPhment was no. terrormt.all to fhanjq
and feh'ey much preferred the gaol, to the
ivorkhduse. ' A life sen tehee sounded hope
less but: the convicts build; then.- hopes on
release du .20 or. 30. vedrs, <m on receiving
a pardon 'on the grounds of. ilhheaith. At
each hanging' the: law; seemed vindictive,
and lie wished, it changed; the law seemed
then to/premeditate for three weeks a mur
der iin retribution'for one that might have
been /the /result of a momentary /passion.
Yet a'ft.eihyards he came back to: the con
elusion tha t .at present there was no other
WTlie 'warden i,pointed' oiit how' the pain
fulness Of the position."'Was increased'by
the fact of the -man, whom/one co,uld_ ap
most hang witli one's own hands when
he entered prison red-handed and harA
hearted,' becoming a radically different pei
son before his death. . Hespoke strongly
against the precious tune of .three weeks
allowed by the mercy of tne law to elapse
between' condemnation and; execution, .be
jnvr sometimes reduced tor all practical
spiritual purposes to a lew days while ef
forts 'for reprieve were being made, and
the decision was delayed: -If agitation
for reprieve were common tne three
weeks of grace should date 'from the de
cision of the Home Sectary. He was
thankful that the general ^expenence of
chaplains was that, while • buiiietemes they
had reason; to doubt the innocence- of ac
quitted persons, they did not recall in
stances of their "being tortured with a be
lief in the innocence of any one who had
executed; That was the experience, at
any rate,' of those now present. - Both he
and the previous speaker had had a mui
der'confessed to them after the person in
question 'had been ; acquitted at the Old
^Another speaker, who had had no per
sonal experience of executions, believedand
stated the usual objections, to capital
phnishment: He thought for-murders
penal servitude should 'be made much .
harder and more hopeless.; . |
Another prison chaplain or ■ 20 years
standing, had had only 'Me execution. and
hoped never to have another. . Hs believed,
hefelt it far-more than the man,but yet he
would be' sorry to see the abolition 01 th
death penalty; the country was not ripe
for it, and he saw 110 efficient substitute
No one who had been with those who had
received a'(life. -sentence when they had
feared the 'black cap could doubt of the
deterrent effects of the gallows. ■ ■
Another. chaplain from a coun<.ry gaol
thought . the. "longest imprisonment 110
equivalent,'."--" ,. , ' „n
-And so 'tlie conversation went on, all
evidently 'feeling to the depths . of - their
bein<>- the awfnlness of the extreme penalty
of the law,'and their responsibility in pre
paring men for it.
Tlience the members adjourned to tne
North-West ' Chapel, while the dimness ot
the unlit body of the eat'hsdral added a
strange solemnity to the scene. Service
was «aid -by the warden, late and last
chaplain of Clerkenwell: a; sermon on the
causes of crime was preached by tne chap
lain of Warwick Prison, arid the,chaplain
of Newgate presided at the hanrionium.
Thence emerging into the streets, the first
writing" that caught our eyes was a con
tents bill :;pb an evening paper— Murder
in Hyde Park."
On Friday Harrold Solse, a lad, reported
to the Henley Beach police that he had;
found a skeleton'on the i'sandhills, at the
rear of the Grange Hotel. - Trooper Lievrc
proceeded to the spot, and found that'the
skeleton was that of. an adult aboriginal,
which had been uncovered -by the drifting
sand. '
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