3 SEPTEMBER 1927, Page 19

THE DEATH SENTENCE [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] -SIR,--Apart

from the unanswerable question of " guilty

or not guilty," the case of Sacco and Vanzetti suggests once more the disturbing problem, briefly stated many years ago

by Douglas Jerrold, in The Lesson of Life, thus :- " If no virtue, no wisdom, no strength, can escape the doom of death, why should it be inflicted as the punishment of the criminal ? Why should that be thought the proper punishment for the blackest guilt, which—it may be at the same hour—the brightest virtue is condemned by fate to suffer?"

_ 39 Mortimer Road, Kensal Rise, N.W. 10.

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