horror? "This man is secure," you would exclaim, "why do you kill him?" And your astonishment would not be lessened at the answer of your clerical executioner: "I know he is secure; I feel safe. There is not one chance in a thousand for him to escape. But then escape

is possible. He may break these chains and cords and injure somebody. It is best for us to be positively secure; therefore, I kill him."

We venture to assert that no individual can be found, Christian or infidel, base enough to commit so cowardly. and damning a deed. And any man who should present such a reason for the act, would be regarded as a madman or a consummate villain. And yet this is precisely the principle on which society acts, when it has safely secured the offender within stone walls, with bars and bolts, and then chokes the life out of him, on the ground of selfsecurity. If the Christian minister should commit an act of this character, as described above, the State would take him, convict him of murder, treat his plea of self-protection with derision, and hang him-his own Church assisting in the work---not as individuals, but as members of the body-politic, through the hangman.*

But if the act is morally wrong in an individual, how can it be morally right in the State. If the act, when committed by a Christian minister, is shocking to the moral sense of the Church, why should it not be, when perpetrated by the State, inasmuch as the State is professedly Christian? And further: if the State treats the plea of the individual who kills the bound man for selfprotection, with derision, with what propriety can it make this a reason for its own acts of blood? Look at the strength of the State and its means of self-security.

* See the sixth chapter of this work, under the head of Individual Responsibility.

Look at its strong prisons, its chains, its cells, its dungeons, its strong police force, and its hundreds of thousands of citizens to assist in maintaining the supremacy of the law and prevent an escape. Yet it ridicules the plea of an individual, when he kills in self-defense, while it leads out from its iron and stone cells, its victims, sometimes little boys, and weak emaciated women, and chokes the life out of them, because it is unsafe to let them live.* They may escape from prison, and kill or injure somebody.

The reader must perceive, then, that the argument in favor of the gallows, drawn from necessity, and based on self-protection, possesses but little force, and is hardly entitled to consideration. If we should kill criminals, simply because they are dangerous to society-if this is the only ground on which we defend the gallows, then, to be consistent, we should employ it against the lunatic; for it is as dangerous to society for him to have his freedom, and probably more so, than for the murderer. It is not uncommon for madmen to commit acts of the most dreadful violence. Yet where is the man, especially the Christian, who would dream of killing this unfortunate class of our fellow-creatures from necessity, on the ground of self-protection. Every humane heart would revolt at the thought. Even if at liberty and roaming at large, there are but few who would refuse to risk any injury they might do, rather than to put them to death. For

A little boy, but ten years of age, was hung in Alexandria, La., in Sept. last, (1855.) See page 49 of this work. In 1854, a woman was executed in New York State, weak and feeble, leaving an infant, which had its birth in her cell. And now, as we write, the secular papers before us contain an account of the death of a woman, who was soon to be executed in New Hampshire. She was delivered of a child a few months ago in her cell, and the authorities were waiting for her to gain sufficient strength to be killed, when death by consumption terminated her miserable existence. Was it necessary to strangle these wretched creatures in selfdefense?

all such, the State provides an asylum-a place of confinement where they are not only kept securely, but by humane and judicious treatment, are often entirely restored, and, with sane minds, permitted to return again to their friends and to the blessings of social life. Now, when safely lodged within the walls of an asylum, the lunatic is neither feared nor dreaded by society at large. Confidence is reposed in the strength of the institution and in the caution and vigilance of those in whose charge it is placed. So should it be, and so might it be, with the murderer. He is a moral lunatic; perhaps more really so, in many cases, than the world imagines, or will believe. To turn him loose upon society would be a dangerous act. This should not be; justice does not demand it. Let him be safely lodged in the penitentiary and kept in durance. Let him be treated with kindness and humanity, but effectually confined, and society would no longer experience apprehensions of insecurity from the simple fact that the man was living. For, tho' living, he would be so really separated from the world by stone and iron-so utterly banished from society, and so securely guarded-as that he would be dead to the world, and the world dead to him.

The plea of self-protection, then, is a false one. Not only is it false, but it is mischievous. "It is terrible," says one "in the hands of a'people's tyrant, or of a tyrannous people. Self-protection, says the despot, and the heads of the noble, brave and good, roll before him in ghastly heaps. Self-protection, says the demagogue, and the guillotine moves its iron jaws, and the streets are red with blood. Self-protection, says the injured.man, and anticipates the law, becoming for himself judge and executioner. Self-protection, says the mutineer, dead men tell no tales, and the ocean bubbles red above his com

rades. Believe me, this principle of self-protection that relies on blood, is a dangerous, two-edged principle. Selfprotection may be secured without blood-shed. We may obey God's law without inflicting Capital Punishment. There is a higher dictate than that of revenge. There is a nobler end for punishment than the infliction of pain. There is a more binding code than the law of Moses. It is found in the spirit and precepts of Jesus Christ."

We have said that if the murderer was safely confined within the walls of the penitentiary, society would feel secure. We come now to add, that if the penalty for murder was imprisonment for life, instead of hanging, murderers would be secured; but, as the law now stands upon the statute books of nearly all our States, eight out of ten guilty of murder escape, not from prison, but they escape conviction, and are returned again loose upon society. Thus does the law of death defeat the very object for which the class we are now considering would retain it. They would retain it, in order to take the offender from society and put him beyond the power of again trampling upon its laws. But instead of this, it stands directly in the way of securing this result. It screens the murderer from all punishment, and positively snatches him from the hand of justice, and sends him back into the world, all reeking with the blood of his murdered victim, to prey again upon society, and, it may be, to enact over again the same dreadful deed of which he is guilty. Thus, is the present law the most unsafe, for the simple reason that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO ENFORCE IT ECCEPT IN RARE CASES. But this is an important point in our investigations, and must be made the subject of a chapter by itself.

CHAPTER XI.

SIXTH REASON FOR ABOLISHMENT.

THE DEATH PENALTY DIFFICULT TO ENFORCE.

Scruples of Jurors Loth to convict-The condition of Criminal Jurisprudence in Ohio, as presented by a Cincinnati Editor -The cause of Laxity on the part of Jurors to convict The Gallows stands in the way of Justice It facilitates the escape of the Guilty- Folly of instituting Laws which cannot be enforced Criminal Jurisprudence in Hamilton County, Ohio, for fifteen years -Large number of Murders -But one hung - How it worked in England-France.

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The Death Penalty cannot be enforced only in rare cases. IT FACILITATES THE ESCAPE OF THE GUILTY in many stances, which is another important reason for abolishment. The truth is, the Death Penalty is so far behind public sentiment, and so revolting to the humanity of every morally sensitive heart, that most persons refuse to act as jurymen in capital cases, from "conscientious scruples," while those who consent, will not convict, unless in the most certain cases of guilt. If the least thread of evidence is elicited in behalf of the offender, they will hang upon it, and acquit him through its instrumentality, and thus he escapes all punishment, though guilty. Look at the history of criminal jurisprudence in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, New York, New England, anywhere in any Christian country on the face of the earth, where the gallows still exists, and the fact of which we speak is demonstrated to a certainty.. While I write, a