A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
THE execution of Mrs. Major arouses an instinctive if quite illogical feeling of repugnance. There is no reason that will bear challenge why a murderess should not meet with the same fate as a murderer, and in this particular case extenuating circumstances were non- existent. It is not women, moreover, who support the idea of special treatment for their sex on the ground of sex. Quite the contrary. But I believe four men out of five hate the idea of hanging women, and somehow or other it is a good thing that they should, though in intellectual argument they have not a leg to stand on. The regularity with which women are reprieved on the advice of successive Home Secretaries reflects the general feeling. The facts that leaked out about the scene at the execution of Mrs. Thompson in 1923 inspired the belief for a time that the execution of women in this country would soon be ended once for all. But there was another execution three years later, and now one more after a further eight-years' interval. As it is, capital punishment for women will no doubt last as long as capital punishment for men. But its abolition for both, I predict, will come within a decade.
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