At one of the recent executions of an incendiary, it
is reported in the newspapers, that "great numbers of people attended the execution ; and because the execution was delayed a few minutes over nine o'clock, they began whistling and clapping, something in the style of the galleries at the theatre when there is any delay." Stich is the beneficial effect of the punishment of death upon the feelings of the people. It is notorious that pickpockets are never so active as at an execution. On a similar occasion in the North, some time ago, when the peasantry had come from far and near to see a filen hanged, and he was respited a short time before the hour fixed for his death, discontent of the loudest kind was manifested. The people exclaimed, in true Yorkshire, " What a sheam, to bring us all this way for nought f" They are mistaken who value highly the effect of public executions on the morals: executions are considered in the light of very serious melodramas, where sympathy may sometimes be excited for the sufferer, but no horror for the crime, and by which, in fact. the fear of capital punishment is weakened.
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