The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, JANUARY 9,1909. “KILLING NO MURDER.”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2295, 9 January 1909, Page 4

The Gisborne Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. SATURDAY, JANUARY 9,1909. “ KILLING NO MURDER.”

The' old question of the justice or otherwise of retaining capital punishment on the list of legal penalities has recently been revived in England by. a discussion in regard to the case of a woman named Daisy Lord, who had been found guilty of having imurdered her infant child. -Originally she was sentenced to death, and then, according to the invariable cu&tom, was reprieved, and the life sentence inflicted. Numerous appeals were made against this punishment by persons who spoke of the whole procedure as a kind of brutal farce and bullying. The Home Secretary, in reply, published a letter in which he pointed out that there is “ia tendency to 'underrate, and even to ignore, the seriousness of the crime of infanticide.”' He then explained the practice of the Homo Office. The death sentence, in oases like Daisy Lord’s, is always commuted and “penal servitude for life” is regarded as an indefinite penalty with which the Home Secretary can deal at his discretion. The prisoner is carefully brought under good influences, including that of a committee of ladies from outside the prison, and the term of imprisonment rarely excocds three years. To this the “Manchester Guardian” replies:

We have very little faith in the reformative influence of the prison in ordinary cases; still less when the prisoner is a young woman who

slips into crime under the push of heavy misfortune. But even -if a short time of imprisonment were likely to be as beneficial as the authorities are persuaded, there

could- be no excuse for tho cruelty with which tho benevolence of justice is disguised. To offer it to a wretched woman first as a nominal sentenco of death and then as nominal imprisonment for life is to inflict torture such as only obtuse stupidity or custom grown petrified can compass. The Home Se-

cretary would like to see the law amended’ which imposes death for infanticide. Public opinion is with him there, and goes further; it would like to see a less harsh name given to the indeterminate sentence in such cases than perpetual

confinement. The time is indeed ripe for a complete classification of

the chaos of offences of all grades which are lumped l together under the name of murder, and the task would not be much longer deferred by -a statesman mindful of the peril law runs of losing ,reverence when it falls notably below -public sentiment.

This is surely very excellent pleading from the point of view of Daisy Lord-, but wliat of, the -unfortunate infant who was tile victim of the crime P This aspect of the case is eloquently and powerfully urged by the “Spectator” which says:—• In all the agitation or< behalf of Daisy Lord' —and wo write of the subject again because we reoognise the wide extent of that agita-

tion —we have not had tho good fortune to see a single word said from the point of view (if we may put it so) of' the helpless infanta who have been murdered, or may

yet be murdered. Apparently in

our modern humanitarianism those who are most helpless' of -all, those whose very liability to violence is a cry for protection, do not count. Tho whole matter is discussed as though -a baby might legitimately be disposed of as carelessly as a kitten in a tub. Infant mortality -is one of the worst evils and greatest scandal of our civilisation, and, ,as though this were not so, we are asked to look on unconcerned while adaptations of the law are proposed which might, for all one can tell, add considerably to tho death-rate. We, at any rate, will never fail to raise our voice in protest against the hideous notion that a little child’s life is not worth very much, consideration, -atn-d that it is a loss crime for a mother -to slay tho helpless creature she has borne than to murder a full-grown itfian or woman.

Tliere ia-re other factors ivhioh necessarily enter into the consideration of this important topic, not the least

of which- is the effect upon tho community of the variety of punishment meted, put in regard to certain offences. Thus it may bo accepted-ae certain that ia people insensibly rely ■upon tho 'legal estimation of an offence, iand ,wei'e murder punishable only by a fine the crime would lose -its enormity in the eyes of the public. As a natural corrollury of a leniency on the -part of the law comes a lessened weakening of its deterrent effect, and in this respect a letter written to the “Daily Chronicle* by a “Prison Visitor”, is illuminating. Tho writer says:

The crime of infanticide is treated with the utmost levity by many or the unfortunate ofass wit'll whom I come in contact. I have on moro than one occasion heard the remark, ‘lf you takes a drop of drink, you- gets a month, hut if you kills your kid 1 you don’t get nothing done to you.’ I cannot help thinking that the light penalties which have frequently been inflicted in such oases are largely responsible for this appalling indifference to a crime which after all is murder. For these reasons the “Spectator” comes to the conclusion that every woman whoi is tempted to think that she may excusably rid herself of shame and inconvenience by murder should be aware that there is just a chance that she may have to pay the extreme penality. Each case is, and ought to he, theoretically, judged, on its merits, and from every standpoint the legalised and permanent remission of the death sentence is undesirable.

The weakness of the very strong case here made out is that its advocate dares not or will not specifically justify the penalty of capital punishment.; does not, in short, suggest that under any circumstances the representatives of justice should in cold blood kill -a woman because she killed her child. Unless our contemporary is prepared to advocate this final step then it is obviously futile to hold the threat of possible hanging over the heads of likely offenders. The problem is a difficult one, i/but whatever piay be said theoretically in favor of the supreme penalty, there as no doubt tbe trend of public feeling at the present time is emphatically against any operation of the law which would have meant the hanging of Daisy lord'. Probably the crime of the woman is condoned' by the feeling that the man who is responsible for her downfall gets off scotfree. Nothing can be said to extenuate the behaviour of the man, who is a brute, and would deserve much imoro punishment than the law provides for him when he is made amenable to it. But it should not be forgotten that tho woman in tiling her baby is erring not only against society but against her instinct. The lowest animals are equipped' with a fierce devotion to their offspring, and nothing will induce us to believe that a complete renunciation of this elementary instinct in a human being is an act lightly to be forgiven. There are, no doubt, cases hard enough to make angels weep, and wo can readily believe that Daisy Lord’s is one of them; but to base laws upon exceptions is to encourage a fatal laxity of opinion which it as the first duty of tbe lawmaker to prevent, especially if his view of the law’s function is “humanitarian.”