(See Chapter lxxxii)
To EDITOR of 'Tribune'.
SIR,--I believe in capital punishment. I believe that when a murder has
been done it should be answered for with blood. I have all my life been
taught to feel this way, and the fetters of education are strong. The
fact that the death--law is rendered almost inoperative by its very
severity does not alter my belief in its righteousness. The fact that in
England the proportion of executions to condemnations is one to sixteen,
and in this country only one to twenty-two, and in France only one to
thirty-eight, does not shake my steadfast confidence in the propriety
of retaining the death-penalty. It is better to hang one murderer in
sixteen, twenty-two, thirty-eight than not to hang any at all.
Feeling as I do, I am not sorry that Ruloff is to be hanged, but I am
sincerely sorry that he himself has made it necessary that his vast
capabilities for usefulness should be lost to the world. In this, mine
and the public's is a common regret. For it is plain that in the person
of Ruloff one of the most marvelous of intellects that any age has
produced is about to be sacrificed, and that, too, while half the
mystery of its strange powers is yet a secret. Here is a man who has
never entered the doors of a college or a university, and yet by the
sheer might of his innate gifts has made himself such a colossus in
abstruse learning that the ablest of our scholars are but pigmies in
his presence. By the evidence of Professor Mather, Mr. Surbridge, Mr.
Richmond, and other men qualified to testify, this man is as familiar
with the broad domain of philology as common men are with the passing
events of the day. His memory has such a limitless grasp that he is able
to quote sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, chapter
after chapter, from a gnarled and knotty ancient literature that
ordinary scholars are capable of achieving little more than a bowing
acquaintance with. But his memory is the least of his great endowments.
By the testimony of the gentlemen above referred to he is able to
critically analyze the works of the old masters of literature, and
while pointing out the beauties of the originals with a pure and
discriminating taste is as quick to detect the defects of the accepted
translations; and in the latter case, if exceptions be taken to his
judgment, he straightway opens up the quarries of his exhaustless
knowledge, and builds a very Chinese wall of evidence around his
position. Every learned man who enters Ruloff's presence leaves it
amazed and confounded by his prodigious capabilities and attainments.
One scholar said he did not believe that in matters of subtle analysis,
vast knowledge in his peculiar field of research, comprehensive grasp of
subject, and serene kingship over its limitless and bewildering
details, any land or any era of modern times had given birth to Ruloff's
intellectual equal. What miracles this murderer might have wrought, and
what luster he might have shed upon his country, if he had not put
a forfeit upon his life so foolishly! But what if the law could be
satisfied, and the gifted criminal still be saved. If a life be offered
up on the gallows to atone for the murder Ruloff did, will that suffice?
If so, give me the proofs, for in all earnestness and truth I aver
that in such a case I will instantly bring forward a man who, in
the interests of learning and science, will take Ruloff's crime upon
himself, and submit to be hanged in Ruloff's place. I can, and will
do this thing; and I propose this matter, and make this offer in good
faith. You know me, and know my address.
SAMUEL LANGHORNE.
April 29, 1871.