THE DEATH OF JOHN BROWN.

Ii few cases has capital punishment been less questionable than in that of Captain John Brown, at Charlestown. The only doubt that can be urged against it specifically is conveyed in the ques- tion whether the man was not mad ; but he does not seem to have been more mad than most fanatic factionary rebels who hold that they are to alter the ways of the world at their will and pleasure. Long before the result a man of genuine modest conscience might have made it clear to himself that success was impossible, and that the only end of his attempt must be disturbance and bloodshed in vain. To remove such a man, to make an example of him, is but to restore the balance of justice which he has deranged. But we do question both the capital punishment of a prisoner under such circumstances, and more especially the me- thod of his death. The method is brutal beyond redemption, and we have seldom seen an instance in which that brutality came out more signally. But besides the brutality, more injurious to the spectators than to the victim, there is something about the whole scene tending to defeat the very purposes of justice. Read the beginning of the report intended simply as a narrative of the

scene to entertain the readers of the Boston Journal. - " The prisoner was brought out of gaol at eleven o'clock. Before leaving he bade adieu to all his fellow-prisoners, and was very affectionate to all except Cook. He charged Cook with having deceived and misled him in relation to the support he was to receive from the slaves. He was led to believe that they were ripe for insurrection, and had found that his repre- sentations were false. Cook denied the charge, but made little reply.

"The prisoner then told the sheriff he was ready. His arms were pinioned, and, with a black slouch hat on and the same clothes he wore during the trial, he proceeded to the door, apparently calm and cheerful. " As he came out, the six companies of infantry and one troop of horse, with General Taliaferro and his entire staff; were deployed in front of the gaol, while an open waggon, with a pine-box, in which was a fine oak coffin, was waiting for him,.

" He looked round and spoke to several persons he recognized, and, walk- ing down the steps, took a seat on the coffin-box along with the gaoler, „Avis. He looked with interest on the fine military display, but made no remark. The waggon moved off; flanked by two files of riflemen in close order."

It is very like a page in a novel of the exciting order. It must have been read by most people somewhat in that spirit. But what is worse, the bystanders must have looked on while the deadly scene was approaching the final tableau, very much as people at a theatre look upon the finale of a melodrama, only in this case the curiosity, the dramatic interest, was heightened with the unwholesome spice of reality. Such scenes harden the heart. They beget a spirit of trifling with life and death, precisely of the -kind which leads to such crimes as Brown's, not from them. The very guilt which lay at Brown's door was, not the act of killing this man or that, but the want of proper sensibility to the reve- rence" for life, and instead of impressing that sensibility upon

• the crowd the spectacle unquestionably tended to inspire the same mood as that which led Brown in a melancholy joviality into the excesses for which he died.

It is a training of the multitude in pleasures very like those which were enjoyed by the Romans in their worst time. In an address which burlesques enthusiasm and dignity, 'Victor Hugo has likened Brown to Spartacus ; but there is a truth in the his- torical parallel; for the spectacle of a hanging attracts men by much the same instinct as that to• which the Caesars pandered when they were debasing Rome by the pleasures of the Circus. The reporter narrates the climax with horrible fidelity.

" He was swung off at fifteen minutes peat eleven. "A slight grasping of the hands and twitching of the muscles was seen, and then all was quiet.

"The body in was several times exam ed, and the pulse did not cease until thirty-five minutes had passed.

Probably few of our readers know what death by hanging is ; but we do not hesitate to say that it is on many accounts one of the most brutalizing which can be witnessed, and we have just seen in this case how the exciting luxury can be prolonged. As usual, and it is an element in the demoralizing influence of the whole affair, the victim became for the day the favourite,

"The prisoner walked up the steps firmly, and was the first man on the gallows. Avis and Sheriff Campbell stood by his side, and after shaking hands and bidding an affectionate adieu he thanked them for their kindness.

"Brown executed an instrument empowering Sheriff Campbell to admin- ister on all property of his in the State, with thrections to pay over the pro- ceeds of the sale of the weapons, if recovered, to his widow and children. "Sheriff Campbell bid the prisoner farewell in the cell, the latter return- ing thanks for the sheriff's kindness, and speaking of Captain Pate as a brave man.

There was more exchanging of compliments between the hero of the day and those who took part in its ceremonies. Indeed, it was more than compliment. It was something very like affection. And there are strong grounds for the evoking of such sentiments. Where a fellow-creature, made in the likeness of humanity, en- dowed with some of the qualities which draw us to each other, is compelled thus to go through mortal agonies, moral and physical,— when he undergoes his suffering with a dignity that is not hardened insensibility, the beat feelings of our nature become roused to active sympathy so intense that it is on the spot height- ened into an emotion which is indistinguishable from strong affec- tion—from love ; the most generous feelings in our nature being thus prostituted to assist in what becomes very like the triumph of the man who was to have been the Helot instructing us by his degradation. None of these objections apply to a military death summarily executed. It is then a question of force contending against force. A certain chivalrous sentiment may be conceded on each side without injury to the moral which the example is to enforce, so that it be shown that the mutineer against authority' must suc- cumb. But when the civil power steps in with its delibera- tion, its pondering of right and wrong, its refinements, its leisure for the reaction of sentiment, it appeals to a totally different class of considerations, and then we want, not a theatrical show of man taking away man's life, but an absolute, practical, and unquali- fied degradation of the criminal who is to be the exemplar : this is supplied without-any .abatement for fine sentiment or touching sympathies, when the criminal is handed over in the uniform of degradation to repair his fault by years of seclusion and labour in penal servitude.

There is even something further in such scenes as that reported from Charlestown, which makes us revolt from this ugly trifling with human life. Let the reader peruse again our first extract, and observe the curious mingling of feelings in the criminal, where he gazes as a bystander might do, upon the spectacle pre- pared for his own death. Look at it once more, and then read this passage-

" On his way to the scaffold, a Mr. Sadler, an undertaker, who was in the waggon with him, remarked—' Captain Brown, you are a game man.' He answered, Yes, I was so trained up. It was one of the lessons of my mother ; but it is hard to part from friends, though newly made. This is a beautiful country ; I never had the pleasure of seeing it before.' "

Here the whole force of life is kept up to the very last. In other kinds of death, whether by violence in the field, in the struggle with the highwayman, in the 'sudden shipwreck, or in the sick bed, there is something which prepares for the mortal close, and the sufferer passes into the other world through one of the portals allotted to humanity by destiny. In the case before us, humanity, full of the instincts of life, in no way prepared for the other world, is abruptly, coldly, and mortally handled by our- selves. We thrust a soul into a province where we have no jurisdiction. We have no knowledge of what we are doing.