From: wetraprock@hotmail.com   
      
   If one seeks for a better excuse than mere entertainment, if the   
   book buyer asks for a solid and serious reason for the Notable   
   Trials in this country, I think it can be found with ease.  Here   
   is a history of criminal procedure in the country which has made   
   the most progress in the field.  It is offered to the citizens of   
   this country, where criminal justice is a scandal.  It is not a   
   record of cruelty and ruthlessness, but of a swift and fairly sure   
   disposition in each case, tempered by mercy when that was indicated.   
      
   Thus, an innocent man, Abraham Thornton, even a century ago, was   
   protected by the law against public clamour.  A lunatic, Ronald   
   True, was sent where he belonged.  A doubtful sentence, on Mrs.   
   Maybrick, was, at any rate, commuted to a lesser penalty; while the   
   deliberate murderers, Neill Cream and G. J. Smith, were promptly   
   obliterated by the hangman instead of being saved alive for release   
   by some foolish executive.   
      
   As this last remark will be considered savage by those who hearts   
   are grieved at the thought that anything whatever should be done   
   to a murderer, no matter how dangerous, it may be useful to say   
   that the modern, enlightened and humane school of criminologists   
   had been permitted to experiment with Neill Cream.  He had been   
   once before convicted of a cruel murder, and was given merely a   
   life sentence.  This was in Illinois.   
      
   While in prison he came into a fortune, by the death of his father,   
   and there was started an agitation for his release so that he might   
   enjoy his money.  Nobody opposed his pardon, as far as I know; it   
   is never anybody's business to oppose turning criminals loose again.   
   If anybody does oppose it, he is disposed of by the modern, enlightened   
   and humane school of criminologists: they call him a sadist, and   
   that is good enough argument for them.  Everybody who does not   
   believe that murderers should roam the earth at their own sweet   
   will is a "sadist," delighting in torture.   
      
   So Neill Cream was released from prison, and he justified the   
   theories of the tender-hearted by going to London and murdering   
   four wretched women -- murdering them in a manner which caused them   
   to suffer racking torments before they died.   
      
   The Governor of Illinois who pardoned him is still alive, I believe.   
   I have often wondered how he feels about it.   
      
   Those who believe in the retention of capital punishment cannot   
   denounce all its opponents as sentimentalists, since there is a   
   strong case against it.  But neither can the opponents of the death   
   penalty say that it does not deter murderers, until we, in this   
   country, put it into practice.  As long as we execute only four   
   murderers out of 262 (as in New York in 1923) we cannot say that   
   it does not deter, for we do not know.   
      
   And as long as England and Canada execute their murderers, and keep   
   the murder rate so low, it is folly to say that murderers do not   
   fear the death penalty.  The argument about capital punishment is   
   of minor importance compared with the need of an attitude of mind   
   which seeks to protect the future victims of crime, rather than   
   weep so much over the fate of convicted murderers.   
      
   If the death penalty is abolished, the same folk who are so sorry   
   for murderers, whose great hearts throb so violently when a man   
   like the bandit and murderer Gerald Chapman is put to death, will   
   be found agitating just as tearfully against the life sentence.   
   The same sentimental lawyers will make the same silly appeals to   
   juries, and the same signers of petitions will be trying to get   
   lifers out of jail in a few years.  They procured the release of   
   Neill Cream with the result I have described.  They have never   
   ceased to try to get out of prison the child torturer and muderer,   
   Jesse Pomeroy -- the familiar appeal was made recently, on the   
   ground that he had "learned Arabic in prison" and would be a "valuable   
   member of the community."   
      
   -- from Queer Books, by Edmond Pearson, pages 249-251   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)