from Queer Books: British Support for humane law

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