CAPITAL PUNISHMENT
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Among the many evil consequences of the widespread press publicity provoked by Capital Punishment is its disas- trous effect upon young children. A few days ago I received information of what happened in two homes on the morning of Rouse's execution, in a northern town 200 miles from Bedford Goal. I give the facts just as they reached me :—
" I went into the room," writes one father to me, " where my children were playing. My small boy, aged four, was lying motionless on the sofa, and the girl, aged eleven, had a piece of rope in her hand. ' Look, daddy,' she said, ' he has just been hanged.' " Another father writes that his little boy, only seven years of age, came home from school at dinner time full of the fact that " a man had been hanged." All his little class mates had been telling him about the gruesome details gleaned from what he called the " Daily
Harold."—I am, Sir, &c., E. ROY CALVERT. Parliament Mansions, Victoria Street, London, S.W. 1.
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