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?"
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