were not carried into effect; but we lament that some clearer
distinction should not be made between homicides of different degrees
of aggravation; so that, instead of charging cases as murder in which
neither the jury would convict nor the Government execute the accused,
that awful charge and high solemnity might be reserved for those black
deeds in which the charge, and the conviction, and the execution,
are almost certain to follow each other. If we ultimately retain
capital punishment in our code, the limitation of the charge of murder
which we have suggested will cause the notion of deliberate murder
and the scaffold to be associated together in men’s minds. They are
not so associated at present; for, besides the chances of escaping
conviction, it is notorious that condemned convicts rarely abandon
hope even to the very last. Let us strive to get rid of the mockery
of pronouncing solemn sentences of death in cases which are unfit for
execution. The impression made by such scenes is the very reverse of
what it is intended to produce. When soldiers fire over the heads of
a turbulent mob, or the schoolmaster scatters threats which his rod
fails to fulfil, or the law awards punishments which public opinion
forbids it to execute, derision and contempt are the consequences.
We incline to the belief that the most important and effective step
which can be taken at this time by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, for
the improvement of her penitentiary system, is to adapt the penalty
of the law more nearly to the nature of the crime--reduce the terms
of imprisonment to the lowest measure that can consist with the ends
of its infliction, and then increase, in the highest degree, the
facilities for the prompt detection of offenders, and the certainty
of their suffering the unmitigated penalty of their crimes. It is our
settled conviction, that a course of legislation which should virtually
secure these results, would at once reduce the number and boldness of
criminals at least fifty per cent--probably much more.
We urge this reform in the provisions and administration of our penal
laws as eminently _humane_, for to whatever degree we reduce the amount
of crime by increasing the certainty of conviction and punishment, to
the same degree we promote the safety and happiness of the community.
For reasons somewhat analogous, we would also urge the propriety of
bringing the utterance and the execution of the sentence of the law
into the closest proximity in point of time, which can consist with
propriety and humanity. We do not mean by this that the convict should
be hurried from the dock to the gibbet or the cell, as if public
justice were greedy to assert its sanctions; but simply, that no such
length of time should intervene between conviction and punishment _as
shall allow their natural relation to each other to be lost sight of,
or but dimly seen_. In the divine government, which knows no limit of
time or space, sentence against an evil work is not rendered uncertain
by delay, and yet we have the highest warrant for saying that “because
it is not executed speedily, the hearts of the sons of men are fully
set in them to do evil.”
A foul and terrific murder has been committed--public feeling is
excited to a high degree--every agency in the power of the government
is put in requisition to detect the perpetrator and bring him to
justice--no pains, stratagem or expense are spared to accomplish this
end--perchance two or three false arrests are made--the ardor of
pursuit is abated--and some new outrage or calamity catches the eye,
and diverts the attention of the public. By and by a new direction is
given to the original inquiry by some incidental circumstances, or
it may be the result of a circuitous process of the police officers.
The monster is discovered and arrested. But the horror with which the
crime filled the public mind when it was first brought to light, has
past away, and can by no means be re-excited. The victim of malice or
wanton cruelty is six feet under ground. Sympathies with a surviving
family have had their time and place, and are dismissed; and now the
perpetrator of the bloody deed is arraigned.
Is there not a strong feeling of reluctance to have the tragical scene
all re-enacted upon the theatre of a court room? Do not the sympathies,
which a little while since followed the murdered man to the grave and
his family and friends to their various homes, now strangely find
their way into the prisoner’s dock, and plead for a suspension of the
sword of justice? We would not favor the least relaxation of those
rules of proceeding in criminal prosecutions, by which the life,
liberty and reputation of the accused are protected. Let nothing be
presumed against him. Let every thing be presumed in his favor till
all such presumption is forbidden by conclusive evidence of guilt. The
tables should then be turned. There are now new claims to be met. The
community has patiently awaited the tardy movements of the constituted
authorities. While it was uncertain who had forfeited the privileges of
a citizen and, by a violation of the law, incurred its just penalty,
the sword of justice was held in suspense. But now, the guilt being
fixed and the perpetrator of the wrong being singled out, there should
be heard among honest and law-abiding men but one voice--LET IT FALL!
Attempts to avert the blow are not in aid, but in delay of justice.
Exceptions to the opinion of the court--motions in arrest of judgment,
or for a new trial, are in most instances, regarded by the popular
mind as so many ingenious attempts of the sworn ministers of the
law, to open loop-holes of escape for the guilty. When a man stands
before the country convicted, in due course of law, of a wilful and
deliberate murder, and when public sentiment is so strong against him,
that nothing but the fear or love of the powers that be, protects the
culprit from a summary execution by mob-violence; it _seems_ like
trifling (and to the mass of men it is trifling) to make the omission
of the dot over an i, or the interlineation of a word in the record,
or the omission to ask the convict “if he had any thing to say why
sentence should not be pronounced against him,” or any similar clerical
error or neglect, a reason for still further delay, or the basis of an
argument for annulling the whole proceeding.
We shall not be misunderstood. We are not ignorant of the necessity
of forms, nor of the wide door which is opened for abuses by the
neglect of them. We would be the last to deprive a culprit of a single
right or privilege which the law allows him. But he is not the only
party in interest. Honest men and law-abiding citizens have rights
and privileges which are also to be respected. When professional
ingenuity is tasked to discover some shift or subterfuge by which the
results of a conviction can be avoided, and the ends of public justice
defeated; the impression made on the public mind is, that the criminal
is defending himself against the vindictive aim of the government.
Instead of appearing like a thief who is convicted, and is dodging
every way to elude his pursuers; he is looked upon as a stag hunted by
hounds, and panting in the last effort to escape their devouring gripe.
Our doctrine is, that the laws should be so framed and so executed,
that their ministers should always be a terror to evil doers, and a
praise to them that do well. As it is now, the tendency of many of the
most solemn public proceedings under them, is to bring them and their
administrators into contempt and derision.
ART. VI.--RECENT OCCURRENCES IN PHILADELPHIA.
The chief purpose we have in view in transferring to our pages
(without, however, making ourselves at all responsible for the accuracy
of the details,) the following article from a recent New York paper, is
to use it as a theme for a few observations on recent occurrences in
our own city.
CRIME IN NEW YORK CITY.--Fitzgerald will be hung at the Tombs to-day
for shooting his wife. Neary, sentenced to the same fate, for a
similar offence, is respited one week, in order that the Sheriff’s
Jury may determine whether he has lost his reason. If the latter
execution takes place, it will make seven in this city within the last
year! In all England and Wales the whole number of executions during
the year 1852, as appears by a Parliamentary report, was only nine!
The population of this city is six hundred thousand; the population
of England and Wales is eighteen millions. In other words, New York,
with a population of only one-thirtieth as large as England and Wales,
hangs seven-ninths as many in the same space of time!
The little we fail in point of number, however, is more than made
up in the atrocity of the offences. Of the nine hung in England one
murdered his wife, one her husband, one her mother-in-law, one his
employer, who had dismissed him, one his uncle, one a stranger on
the highway, one his own illegitimate child, one the illegitimate
child of his wife, one the illegitimate child of his paramour; but
of our seven, three murdered their wives--namely, Grunzig by poison,
Fitzgerald by shooting, Neary by beating the brains out with a mallet
and chisel; Stookey murdered a negro, Clark murdered a police man,
and Saul and Howlett a watchman. Three of the English murders were of
infants, but all of the New York murders were of full grown persons,
three of whom sustained the most sacred of all relations to those
who deprived them of life. But, in truth, New York of right has the
precedence of all England and Wales on this score even in regard to
number. Doyle, who murdered the woman with whom he boarded in Pearl
street, was sentenced to be hung, and ought to have been hung, and
would have been hung in England, but was sent to the State prison for
life. Sullivan, who killed the man in Cliff street who endeavored to
prevent his beating his wife, was found guilty of murder, and ought
to have been hung, and would have been hung in England, but was sent
to the State prison for life. Johnson, one of the condemned with Saul
and Howlett, was sent to the State prison for life. There are now at
the Tombs ten men awaiting trial for murder, one of whom, Carnell, the
fiendish Dey street murderer, has already been convicted once, and
is now awaiting a second trial. The whole number of arrests in this
city for homicide within the last year, has been, as near as we can
ascertain, about thirty-five!
The whole number of arrests in this city during the year 1852, was
about 35,000; the whole number of commitments in England and Wales was
27,510. The whole number of arrests for offences committed upon the
person in New York in 1852, was 5,468; in England and Wales the whole
number of commitments for the same class of offences during the same
period there has been about two thousand. In England last year there
were 13 convictions for burglary: in New York 146 arrests for the same
offence. During the last seven years there were 66 convictions for
this offence: in New York during the same period over 1000 arrests.
But this does not furnish the worst aspect of the case. The disparity
between England and this city, is yearly becoming greater. While crime
is increasing there slightly, it is here increasing with fearful
rapidity. The whole number of convictions for murder in England in
1846, was 13; the whole number of arrests in New York for murder
for the nine months preceding May 1, 1846, was 10. In England the
convictions of 1847 were 19; in New York, during the year ending May
1, 1847, the arrests were 18. In 1849 the convictions in England were
19; in New York the arrests for the year ending November 1, were 13.
In 1850 the convictions in England were 11; in New York during the
fifteen months ending with the last of December, 1850, they were 16.
In 1851 the English convictions were 16; the New York arrests 36. In
1852 the English convictions were 16; the New York arrests were 30.
The total number of commitments for all kinds of offences in England
and Wales during the last seven years, was 194,424; the total number
of arrests in New York during the same period was over 200,000! We
are not able to make an exact comparison between the absolute number
of crimes perpetrated in England and in New York city, since the
Parliamentary tables before us relate only to commitments in the
case of offences generally, and to convictions in cases of murder,
whereas our police tables only give the number of arrests. Of course
many are arrested who are not committed or bound over for trial, but
their number is by no means so great as to destroy the remarkable
significance of the figures we have put in connection.
Now, what are the causes of the remarkable difference between this
city and England in extent of crime? England has its immense cities,
abounding with ignorant and vicious classes of population--it has
its London, its Liverpool, its Birmingham, its Manchester and its
Leeds, and yet this single city of New York, if we may trust official
tables, exceeds not only each of them in crime, but all put together!
It cannot be ascribed to any peculiar character of our people,
distinct from theirs--for it is notorious that the greater part of our
criminality springs from the foreign element of our population. Of
the seven murderers above specified, for instance, six of them were
foreigners--one being a German, three Irish, one English, and one a
Nova Scotian; and the seventh, though born in this city, was of Irish
parentage. The same people that chiefly commit the crime here, are
found in vast numbers in every English city. Why, then, the difference
in the extent of that crime? This question does not admit of either
a ready or a brief answer. The causes which produce this result are
various and complex, some of which we may consider hereafter. The most
important of them are, doubtless, the comparative inefficiency of our
police in preventing crime, the comparative uncertainty of our courts
in punishing crime, the neglect of our young vagrant population, and
the vast number of disorderly groggeries, licensed and unlicensed,
that have all the while, without restraint, been stimulating the
passions and bad propensities of all the lower classes of our
population. It is time that these matters should be seriously and
earnestly looked at and cared for. Our streams of crime are increasing
into torrents, and they threaten to overwhelm us. The facts we have
given, startling as they are, cannot be denied. Official documents
prove them. Read and ponder!
It will be observed that four distinct causes are here assigned for the
difference in the extent of crime in New York and in English cities. Of
them all, we have had something to say at various times. The first we
discussed at some length in a former number,[2] and pointed out a few
of the disadvantages to which the best police system must be subject
under institutions like ours. Upon the second of these alleged causes
we had prepared the article in our present number before seeing the
observations of the New York paper. Scarcely a number of our Journal
has been without some call to more concern for our vagrant juvenile
population. So that our readers will not find any thing startling in
the revolting statement we have copied, unless it be the striking
proximity of cause and effect.
[2] See Journal for January, 1853, Art. III.
So far from feeling surprise at the frequency and boldness of crime,
we rather wonder that the few checks which are imposed on it, maintain
their power. No one can carefully note the manner in which crime and
its perpetrators are treated, without perceiving how much is done to
provoke and countenance it, in comparison with what is done to punish
and suppress it. We have neither space nor inclination to enlarge on
such a subject, but it is due to the cause of humanity and the welfare
of society, that the plague-spots in the body politic should be plainly
pointed out.
Not long since two men were together in a drinking house. A. is
influenced with liquor sold to him in violation of law. He attempts
to provoke a quarrel with B. B. leaves the house, and A. follows him
with taunts and threats. B. is peaceable, says he does not want to
quarrel, and retreats to a distance from the house. A. pursues him and
deliberately, without the slightest provocation, and in spite of B.’s
attempts to avoid a quarrel, stabs him to the heart! The dead man is
buried--the murderer arrested and tried, and the jury find him guilty
of murder in the second degree, and, moreover, recommend him to mercy!
Why did he try to provoke a quarrel before he executed his murderous
purpose? Why, because he had ascertained, by watching the proceedings
of the courts, that the quarrel, however picked, would mitigate the
offence. “Stabbing a man in a fight, gets only five years in the
penitentiary.” This was his own statement.
A laborer is returning home from his daily toil on Saturday
night--peaceable, if not sober--and within a few steps of his dwelling,
is assaulted and murdered. After one or two false pursuits, two young
men are arrested--tried and convicted of murder in the first degree.
The most revolting details of the steps which immediately preceded the
perpetration of the first deed are spread out before the public in the
daily papers, and show a recklessness and indefinite malice which makes
one’s blood run cold. Not a shadow of doubt rests on the minds of the
jury. The verdict is followed by the sentence, and the time is fixed
for their execution. But no--hundreds and thousands of citizens unite
to arrest the arm of justice, and to screen these desperate felons from
the just reward of their deeds. Can any one fail to see the influence
of such a proceeding, in relaxing the authority of the government, and
bringing the highest sanctions of law into popular contempt?
But another case, and a still more flagrant one, may be cited. It
presents various points of interest involved in our present inquiry.
It is said that Arthur Spring, when a young man, was guilty of robbing
some orphan children, by forcibly opening a trunk, in which they had
a little treasure, and stealing it. He was arrested, but escaped
condemnation through the influence of a relation, who held a commission
of the peace, and sat upon the trial! This probably emboldened him in
his career. It is needless, and would be offensive, to spread on our
pages a history of his infamous deeds. Suffice it to say, that he was
convicted of a penitentiary offence in this city some years since, and
pardoned within 48 hours after being committed! Again, he was convicted
in New York, and again pardoned!
Then follow two, if not three, successive wilful, unprovoked,
deliberate murders committed with a degree of boldness and ferocity
almost unprecedented. He is tried, convicted and sentenced to suffer
death.
And now the scene changes. The offence of the culprit is too rank
to admit of any interposition for his rescue--no call for executive
clemency would be tolerated in a case of such enormous atrocity. The
death-warrant is issued, and the day for the execution is fixed. Most
wisely and humanely, and in obedience to a reformed public sentiment,
the law forbids this extreme penalty to be inflicted, as it once was,
in presence of a gazing throng. What are its provisions?
10 April, 1834.--An Act to abolish public executions.
§ 1. Whenever hereafter any person shall be condemned to suffer death
by hanging for any crime of which he or she shall have been convicted,
the said punishment shall be inflicted on him or her within the wall
or yard of the gaol of the county in which he or she shall have been
convicted; and it shall be the duty of the Sheriff or Coroner of said
county to attend, and be present at such execution, to which he shall
invite the presence of a physician, the attorney general, or deputy
attorney general of the county, and twelve reputable citizens, who
shall be selected by the Sheriff: and the said Sheriff shall, at the
request of the criminal, permit such ministers of the gospel, not
exceeding two, as he or she may name, and any of his or her immediate
relatives, to attend and be present at such execution, together with
such officers of the prison, and such of the Sheriff’s deputies as
the said Sheriff or Coroner in his discretion may think it expedient
to have present; and it shall be only permitted to the persons above
designated to witness the said execution: Provided, that no person
under age shall be permitted, on any account, to witness the same.
§ 2. After the execution, the said Sheriff or Coroner shall make oath
or affirmation, in writing, that he proceeded to execute the said
criminal within the walls or yard aforesaid, at the time designated by
the death-warrant of the Governor, and the same shall be filed in the
office of the Clerk of the Court of Oyer and Terminer of the aforesaid
county, and a copy thereof published in two or more newspapers, one of
which at least shall be printed in the county where the execution took
place.
Language could not make the design of the Legislature more
intelligible. The walls of the prison yard effectually protect the
enclosed area from being overlooked or entered without license; and
it is within these walls that the extreme penalty of the law is to be
inflicted. The Sheriff or Coroner to whom the warrant is addressed,
is alone _required_ to be present. He is to _invite_ the presence of
one of the principal prosecuting officers of the government, and only
one of them. He is also to _invite_ one physician and twelve reputable
citizens of the county selected by himself, for the purpose. He is
_authorized_ to admit such ministers of the gospel as the culprit
may desire and name, _but never more than two_, and also any of his
immediate relatives, (if it were possible they could desire to witness
such a scene). Besides these, no persons can be present (but in direct
violation of law) except such officers of the prison, and such of
his own deputies as he, the Sheriff, in his discretion may think it
expedient to have present. And lest this permissive authority should be
unduly stretched, it is restricted by a positive prohibition, that no
other person shall witness the execution, and still farther to guard
against any injurious effects from the scene, it is provided that no
physician or minister, or relative, or officer of the prison, or other
party, shall be admitted, if not twenty-one years of age or upwards.
The second section evidently contemplates such a record of the
proceeding as shall be authentic and permanent in the absence of all
personal or oral testimony--as for instance, if the Sheriff executed
the warrant alone, none of the persons invited being in attendance,
nor any minister or relative, nor any of the prison officers, or the
Sheriff’s deputies, which, under the provision of the first section,
was a supposable event. Now we maintain, that any violation of the
letter or spirit of this law on the occasion of the execution of
_Arthur Spring_, was, in the first place, in derogation of the dignity
of the government--and in the second place, well fitted to bring all
law into popular contempt, and to give encouragement to the perverse
and disobedient to persist in their evil courses.
We avail ourselves of the columns of a highly respectable religious
Journal published in Philadelphia, for a statement of the facts
in respect to this particular case, rather than rely on our own
information:
The recent execution of an atrocious murderer was witnessed, as all
the reporters tell us, by a thousand persons. By what authority such
a concourse could have been assembled, we know not: but of this there
can be no doubt, it could have been only by a culpable evasion of the
law. In the olden time, when any body under the impulse of curiosity
or any better or worse motive, could at will form one of the crowd at
an execution, the spectators were perhaps some four or five thousand
in number: and now, even under the restrictions of the new law, the
amateurs of the gallows--men who get the privilege of the ghastly
sight by help of some official weakness or abuse--are reckoned a
thousand. And such is the morbid curiosity which the law was meant to
chasten and thwart, that a Grand Jury the other day is reported to
have actually presented themselves in Court to inquire whether they
were not officially privileged to attend the execution. We should have
been glad if the dry negative which the Judge is reported to have
given them had risen to the tone of rebuke. That a body of citizens
charged with such high and dignified responsibilities as those of
the Grand Jury should have so far forgotten their official, if not
personal character, as to make this indecent application, has, we
believe, excited but one sentiment--that of disgust--in this community.