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The Green Bag,
marked change. A first hasty glance at the figures might lead one to infer a lowering of the value commonly set on human life, since the penalty for taking it has been of late so seldom enforced. Second thought, however, will suggest the inquiry whether the valuation has not risen, rather, since the life even of a person convicted of a heinous crime is considered too precious to be taken by organized justice itself, except in rare instances. These considerations led naturally to the question whether a law which received ap parently so feeble a support from public sentiment was not worse in its effect on so cial morals than no law at all. The fling of a murderer arrested several years ago, that "hanging is played out in New York," is often quoted as proof that there ought to be no more mistrials or acquittals or par dons till the notion cherished by this fellow has been rooted out of the minds of all his class. Some extremists have gone even to the point of urging the extension of the death penalty to a larger list of crimes. But the alternative suggestion is seldom broached — that a moderate law rigidly en forced may carry more terror to the heart of the criminal than a rigid law moderately enforced. Is it not the absolute certainty of punishment of some sort, rather than a mere possibility of extreme punishment, which takes the spirit of bravado out of him? To the discussion of this phase of the problem Mr. Curtis has made an inter esting contribution in his collection of data concerning the abolition of the death pen alty for common crimes in other countries and in several of the United States. From Brazil comes the report that " capi tal punishment has been abolished for all crimes, and no increase has been noted in criminal statistics "; like reports come from Costa Rica, Italy and Russia; while from Portugal comes the statement that " the number of homicides formerly punishable by death has actually diminished since the
abolition of the death penalty in 1867." No reports as to the effect of the change come from Guatemala, Venezuela, or the fifteen cantons of Switzerland, where the death penalty has been abolished. On the other hand, Colombia reports " a marked increase of atrocious crimes "; and a five years' experiment of abolition in Ecuador appears to have resulted in so considerable an increase of crime that the death penalty was restored for four offenses. In only four of our States — Maine, Michigan, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin — has the death penalty been wholly abolished. In the other forty-one States it ranges in application from one offense, as in Pennsyl vania, to ten, as in Georgia. No statistics are given as to the resulting increase or de crease of crime, but a record of the number of legal executions of the death penalty, and the number of lynchings from 1890 to 1895, might be supposed to throw some light upon the general social influence of an ultra-rigid criminal code. For convenience we reduce these statistics to tabular form : — STATB.
Georgia Maryland
Offense я punishable by death.
Legal exe cutions in six years.
Lynchings in same six years.
IO
7C
7 7
72
17
7
л
2Q 2O 4.7
21
4
?o
06 IIÓ
That too broad an inference must not be drawn from this comparison is evident from the fact that Mississippi, though recognizing only one offense as capital, has a record of thirty-two legal executions and ninety-eight lynchings, while Michigan, without power to inflict the death penalty lawfully, inflicted it lawlessly three times during the period under consideration. It is obvious that dif ferences in social organization in the vari ous sections of the country must be taken
