"Capital punishment" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... have been abominably extravagant, and she is not rich, and there are a lot of us. I owe a good bit to Tiffin, and to my London tailor too, but he will wait any time. Tiffin duns me, hang him! though why he should be devoted to capital punishment for asking for his due I don't know either. I should not have had such a lot of patties, fruit, ices, and stuff. He will have to be paid at latest when I leave; and at that time, if I get into Woolwich, there will be my outfit. ...
— Dr. Jolliffe's Boys • Lewis Hough
... crime whereto he is tempted; for with your true gamester the excitement seems to be in proportion to the value of the stake. Yet I hold as little with the humanity-mongers, who deny the necessity and lawfulness of inflicting capital punishment in any case, as with the shallow moralists, who exclaim against vindictive justice, when punishment would cease to be just, if ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... in the Chinese courts of justice. There is one mode of capital punishment in which a dozen or twenty knives are placed in a covered basket, and each knife is marked for a particular part of the body. The executioner puts his hand under the cover and draws at random. If the knife is for the toes, they are cut ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... prison and authorship, and its not unfitting close, in the English statesman's death by the headsman—so tranquil though violent, so ceremoniously solemn, so composed, so dignified;—such a contrast to all other forms of capital punishment, then or since. ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... his position uneasily, but steadily refuses to meet her beseeching eyes. He visits two more unhappy crocuses with capital punishment, and something that is almost a sigh escapes him; but he will not look up, and he will not trust himself ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... enemy unawares. This was just then regarded as of especial importance, for at the time of which I am now writing the traffic in slaves was regarded as piracy, and rendered its perpetrators liable to capital punishment, in consequence of which almost every slaver went heavily armed, and her crew, knowing that the halter was already about their necks, resisted capture by every means which their ingenuity could devise, whenever they had the chance, and often ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... was to point out the horror and the iniquity of capital punishment under any circumstances. The horror of capital punishment is great when it falls to the lot of courageous and honest people whose only guilt is their excess of love and the sense of righteousness—in such instances, conscience revolts. But the ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... the prisoner private Frank Halloway guilty of the third charge preferred against him, which is hi direct violation of a standing order of the garrison, entailing capital punishment, do hereby sentence him, the said prisoner, private Frank Halloway, to be shot to death at such time and place as the officer commanding may deem fit ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Teachers' Convention at Binghamton; Mrs. Stanton's comment; letter of Miss Anthony on family affection: the "raspberry experiment;" the "good old times;" "health food cranks;" New York Convention in hands of mob; stirring up teachers at Lockport; mass meeting at Rochester in opposition to capital punishment; gift of Francis Jackson. ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... forts, or factories. It was necessary that at least one of the seven should be the chief of an English factory, the governor or a member of council in a plantation or colony, or the commander of a King's ship. These courts had powers of capital punishment, and also had power to treat all persons who gave assistance or countenance to pirates as accessories, and liable to the same punishments as pirates. The Act was to be in force for seven years only. In 1706 it was renewed ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... flagrant, the unfortunate earl of Essex had forfeited all right to appeal, since it was himself who had first advised the same arbitrary mode of proceeding in the cases of the marchioness of Exeter, of the countess of Salisbury, and of several persons of inferior rank connected with them; on whom capital punishment had already ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... their servant, as well as another man. These people were brutally murdered by the Lynngams, and robbed of their property. The offenders were, however, successfully traced and arrested by Inspector Raj Mohan Das, and several of them suffered capital punishment, the remainder ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... paganism were erased in this century, and it remained only under Christian names. Capital punishment was proclaimed against all who worshipped the old deities under their old titles, and "this dreadful severity contributed much more towards the extirpation of paganism, than the exhortations and instructions of ignorant missionaries, who ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... the Pennsylvania Legislature for the abolition of capital punishment. Senator Sullivan, chairman of the committee to which they were referred, wrote to Mr. Niblock for the scripture view. He was ill and requested me to answer, which I did, and Mr. Sullivan drew liberally ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... those who had to leave their private concerns. In every third month, the meetings of the court would also be the occasion for convening the successor to the colonial courts of the Quarter Sessions, at which criminal charges not involving capital punishment were tried. ...
— The Fairfax County Courthouse • Ross D. Netherton
... government, committed to a belief in the efficacy of capital punishment, paid Tobias Dramm at the rate of seventy-five dollars a head for hanging offenders convicted of the hanging crime, which was murder. He averaged about four hangings every three months or, say, about nine hundred dollars a year—all ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... Talleyrand's prediction was fulfilled. Threats of capital punishment, and promises of ample rewards, transformed the editor of the Telegraph into as enthusiastic an admirer of Napoleon as he had formerly been of Queen Louisa; and, after having hitherto written nothing but fulsome eulogies, he now did not shrink from publishing the most shameless ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... behalf of those who should be found guilty. He informed the High Chancellor of all these particulars; observing to him that he was very glad the King gave public proofs that he had the safety of Ambassadors at heart; and that for his part he would do all in his power to save the offenders from capital punishment. ...
— The Life of the Truly Eminent and Learned Hugo Grotius • Jean Levesque de Burigny
... Tim. i. 10. The law is made for manstealers. This crime among the Jews exposed the perpetrators of it to capital punishment. Exodus xxi. 16. And the apostle here classes them with sinners of the first rank. The word he uses, in its original import comprehends all who are concerned in bringing any of the human race into slavery, or in retaining them in it. Stealers of men are all ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... impossible to see or even to think of what is here described without gravely meditating on its suggestions. Is capital punishment justifiable? This is the question I purpose to ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... (it seems) accompanied by some of his courtiers, who shared the pleasures of the chase with him on the condition that they never ventured to let fly their weapons before he had discharged his. If they disregarded this rule they were liable to capital punishment, and might esteem themselves fortunate if they escaped ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... theorists; one of the phantoms of that manifold, monstrous, phantom deity called Liberty, which has been so often invoked by the pseudo philanthropists and reckless reformers of the present day to subvert not only the law of capital punishment, but also other institutions and laws which have received the sanction of both God ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... is recognised that through Christ's death upon the cross man obtains all that makes life precious. Instead of being regarded with scorn, a cross is the coveted emblem now of valour and exalted achievement. The instrument wherewith capital punishment was inflicted on abandoned criminals has come to be an ornament of monarchs. Such a change is to be explained only by the fact that it is the sign of Christ's redeeming sacrifice, and that to multitudes who glory in the Cross, He who suffered the painful death on Calvary is the "power of God ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... that as accessories were equally guilty with the principals, under the law, and as by pleading guilty we could escape capital punishment, we should plead guilty. There was little doubt, under the circumstances, of our conviction, and under the law as it stood then, an accused murderer who pleaded guilty was not subject to the death penalty. The state was new, and the law had been made to offer an inducement to murderers ...
— The Story of Cole Younger, by Himself • Cole Younger
... beneficent rule whereby money multiplies itself, did not have to squeeze a living out of the tillers of their land. The lord of the manor held court leet and baron at the house of a tenant, and sometimes even inflicted capital punishment. ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... Annivers. and W. R. Con., no one else for common work, on large families, 162; unterrified by mob, rebukes teachers at Lockport con., 163; demands equal pay for women, not frightened by fogies, 164; calls meet. to oppose capital punishment, hissed by mob, trustee of Jackson fund, 165; desire for Free church, 167; persists in lecture courses for Rochester, shrinks from active work, feels spiritual loneliness, 168; exhorts women to be discontented, no freedom without pecuniary independence, ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... our culture on theirs, and think them very wonderful for mere centers of (Christian) paganism; we shall marvel at their genius, as shown in the fragments that go under the names of those totally mythological poets, Dante and Milton; and at their foul cruelty, as shown by their capital punishment and their wars. And what shall we know of ancient Athens and Rome? Our scholars will sneer at the superstition that they ever existed; our theologians will say the world ...
— The Crest-Wave of Evolution • Kenneth Morris
... Hash Just Criticism Progress of discovery and Improvement—Autotelegraphy; Edison's Phonograph; Type-setting Eclipsed; Printing in Colors; Steam Wagon; Fruit Preserving; Napoleon's Manuscript; Peace; Capital Punishment; Antarctic Explorations; The Desert shall Blossom as the Rose Life and Death—Marvellous Examples Outlines of Anthropology (continued) Chapter X.—The Law ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 - Volume 1, Number 11 • Various
... law was used extensively. Those slaves committing crimes against the state were more often considered unworthy of trial, though some were brought to trial, punishment being so many licks each day for so many days or weeks, or capital punishment. It is true that many crimes were put upon the slaves when the white ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - Volume II. Arkansas Narratives. Part I • Work Projects Administration
... order that the Assembly might reflect on the charge, and thus, at least, affect the impartiality of justice. "Hasten!" exclaimed Isnard; "whilst you are deliberating perhaps the traitor will flee." "I have been a long time judge," replied Boulanger, "and never did I decree capital punishment so lightly." Vergniaud, who saw the indecision of the Assembly, rushed twice into the tribune to combat the excuses and the delays of the right side. Becquet, whose coolness was equal to his courage, desirous ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... his book—a Pharisee of the Pharisees. Lying indeed! Why, you hate prevarication. As for murder, your friends know you too well to mention the subject in your hearing, except in immediate connection with capital punishment. You are, of course, willing to make some allowance for Cellini's time and place—the first half of the sixteenth century and Italy. 'Yes,' you remark, 'Cellini shall have strict justice at my hands.' So you say as you settle yourself ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... modern carnival; and from an expression used by Herodian, it is plain that masquerading had been an ancient practice in Rome.] which we have narrated in an earlier paper of this series. Another was set on foot by his eldest sister, Lucilla; nor did her close relationship protect her from capital punishment. In that instance, the immediate agent of her purposes, Quintianus, a young man, of signal resolution and daring, who had attempted to stab the emperor at the entrance of the amphitheatre, though ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... injure his stepfather, but without any intention of killing him, I think under the circumstances of extreme provocation, and what interest we could bring to bear on the matter, he would get off the capital punishment, for the jury would be sure to recommend him to mercy. I shall privately let Green and Porson, who are evidently acting as his friends in the matter, know that I think it would be far better for him to tell the truth and throw himself on the ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... privilege, by the side of St. George the Dragon-slayer, over the palaces of the Mukaukas at Memphis, and at Lykopolis in Upper Egypt. And in both these places the head of the family retained the right of arbitrary judgment and capital punishment over the retainers of his house and the inhabitants of the district he governed, after Justinian first, and then the Emperor Heraclius, had confirmed them in their old prerogative. The chivalrous St. George was placed between the snakes so as to replace a heathen symbol by a Christian one. Formerly ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... red-coloured bag fixed under, fell to the ground—the blood spouted forth from the neck like water from a fountain—the body, lifted up without delay, was flung down through a trap-door in the platform. Never did capital punishment more quickly take effect on a human being; and whilst the executioner was coolly taking out the axe from the groove of the machine, and placing it, covered as it was with gore, in a box, the remains of the culprit, deposited in a shell, were hoisted into a wagon, and conveyed to the prison. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... deterred by such opposition. Nestor admired him very much. He says that Vladimir was a different man after he had been converted; that he was so afraid of committing a sin, that he hesitated to inflict capital punishment, until the bishop reminded him that crime must be punished. He also divided his income among the churches, and thus became the Saint (p. 044) Vladimir of Russia. Popular ballads keep alive the memory of the first Christian prince. He is ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... in the twentieth century and in real life, not in the dark ages and in a dime novel. Nowadays, a man doesn't risk capital punishment, lightly, for the fun of springing on a total stranger, in the dark, with a razor-edge knife. Mr. Standish, no man does a thing like that to a stranger, or without some mighty motive. It is no business of ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... and, after due notice, it is thought reasonable, in earthly business transactions, for people to run their chance. A man may commit a crime in a minute, for which he is sentenced to imprisonment for life or to capital punishment. We think this reasonable; why should we think it unreasonable that God should send men to an everlasting hell in consequence of sin committed ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... arose and sat up very straight in the bed. "I tell you I am goin' to have no more nonsense. Gimme quinine, hell, a gold basis, and capital punishment! That's my platform from this on. I'm goin' to look up a good Sunday-school to-morrow, in a church with a steeple on it, and a strict, regular minister, and all the fixin's. Remember, mother, after this I travel on my muscle weekdays, and keep ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... intelligence, however, which I heard of him was that he had undergone capital punishment by order of the king; to whom he had written, when in prison, saying that he was punished by the just judgment of God, because he had loved the king more than God; and that out of deference to his sovereign he had caused many innocent persons to be put to death, not ...
— The Scottish Reformation - Its Epochs, Episodes, Leaders, and Distinctive Characteristics • Alexander F. Mitchell
... remarkable thing that the Roman Inquisition was never known to pronounce the execution of capital punishment, although the apostolic see was occupied during that time by popes of extreme rigor and severity in all that relates to the civil administration. We find in all parts of Europe scaffolds prepared to punish crimes against religion; scenes ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... dwelt upon. Much has changed in these few years. Now a Hapsburg recognises the privilege of mercy amongst his kingly attributes. The last words of Maximilian, the ill-fated Emperor of Mexico, were, "Let my blood be the last shed as an offering for my country." Since then capital punishment has become of rare occurrence in Austria; and remembering his brother's death, the Emperor, it is said, can hardly be induced to ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... by law, but a legislative body soon came into existence consisting of six deputies from each town. Before this Portsmouth meeting of 1647 adjourned, it adopted a code of laws in which witchcraft trials and imprisonment for debt were forbidden, capital punishment was largely abolished, and divorce was granted for adultery only. In 1652, the assembly passed a noteworthy law against the holding of negroes ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... potatoes, tea, coffee, newspapers, brown paper, copper coinage, streetlamps, shawls, muslin or cotton goods. But there is at times the dreaded plague, which decimates wherever it comes; the terrible frequency of capital punishment for comparatively trivial offences; the pleasant probability of meeting with a few highwaymen in every country journey; the paucity of roads, and the extreme roughness of such as do exist; a lamentable lack of education, ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... that there are only two sensible modes of punishment—those that have been used in olden times: corporal punishment and capital punishment. But with the advance of civilization they have gone ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... who had been committed to custody." A full senate, however, had but a short time before[236] declared them traitors to their country. On this occasion, Decimus Junius Silanus, who, as consul elect, was first asked his opinion, moved[237] that capital punishment should be inflicted, not only on those who were in confinement, but also on Lucius Cassius, Publius Furius, Publius Umbrenus, and Quintus Annius, if they should be apprehended; but afterward, being influenced by the speech of Caius Caesar, he said that he would go ...
— Conspiracy of Catiline and The Jurgurthine War • Sallust
... to be true by the explanations that had been given. The indictment, therefore, was made to include the verdict and the sentence; the criminal was accused, was to be found guilty, and condemned to capital punishment in one proceeding, without the privilege of trial, or a recognition of the right to be heard. The argument of the resolutions was, that certain acts were a violation of law; that the secretary had ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... the female part of our community let it be recorded that only one woman has suffered capital punishment. On her condemnation she pleaded pregnancy, and a jury of venerable matrons was impanneled on the spot, to examine and pronounce her state, which the forewoman, a grave personage between sixty and seventy years old, did, by this short address to the court; 'Gentlemen! she is as much with ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... nature an abhorrence of depriving any living thing of life, and with regard to his own diet he totally abstained from animal food. This led him to bestow his active attention towards putting a stop to capital punishment. In 1809 he published Opinions of Different Authors on the Punishment of Death. The work was so well received, that he added a a second and third volume to it. In 1811, when the important question occupied Parliament, he edited The Debates on ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... a man in high authority, who complained of the number of thieves, the Master explained that this was due to the greed of the upper classes. "But for this greed," he added, "even if you paid people to steal, they would not do so." To the same man, who inquired his views on capital punishment, Confucius replied: "What need is there for capital punishment at all? If your aims are worthy, the people ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... ordinary Courts of the country, or before such special Courts as later on may legally be constituted. The punishment for their misdeeds shall be left to the discretion of the Court, with this reservation, that in no case shall capital punishment be inflicted. ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... after it has once started, there is, like treason in the body-politic, but one remedy—capital punishment. Parleying with the rebels is worse than useless. Pastes, caustics, X-rays, trypsin, radium,—all are fatally defective, because they suppress a symptom only and leave the cause untouched. Only in one form of surface-cancer, the so-called ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... preface, almost two-thirds as long as Bug-Jargal itself; the other, Claude Gueux, contents itself with thirty pages. Both are pieces with a purpose—manifestos of one of Hugo's most consistent and most irrational crazes—the objection to capital punishment.[95] There is no need to argue against this, the immortal "Que MM. les assassins," etc., being, though in fact the weakest of a thousand refutations, sufficient, once for all, to explode it. But it is not irrelevant to point out that ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... more necessary from the standpoint of good citizenship than the ability to steel one's heart in this matter of granting pardons. The pressure is always greatest in two classes of cases: first, that where capital punishment is inflicted; second, that where the man is prominent socially and in the business world, and where in consequence his crime is apt to have been one concerned in some ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... amputation of the first joint of the fore-finger of the right hand for the first offence. For the second, the whole hand was sacrificed, and for the third, the head itself was forfeited. Sometimes, in cases of capital punishment, decapitation was performed by degrees! and other refinements too horrible to mention ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... Montagues." Two prominent advocates for the abolition of capital punishment were Sir Samuel Romilly (who died in 1818) and ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... restrained only to magicians, sorcerers, and enchanters: for otherwise, if the word Maleficus signified what it most naturally implies, every evil-doer, then drunkenness and whoredom were to meet with the same capital punishment as witchcraft But why should I squander away my time in a too tedious prosecution of this topic, which if drove on to the utmost would afford talk to eternity? I aim herein at no more than this, namely, that since those ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... some," he said, "to go contrary to my life-long principles. I'm a humanitarian by conviction and I'm opposed to capital punishment. It seems to me that the taking of human life is not justified, and that the advance of civilization, especially in the great republic of which I ...
— The Island Mystery • George A. Birmingham
... was very eloquent, but he had a hopeless case. The defence he put up was that Helene was irresponsible, but the major part of the advocate's speech was taken up with a denouncement of capital punishment. It was a barbarous anachronism, a survival ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... to see his father for the last time, and if he failed in moving his compassion, he had formed the desperate resolution of putting an end to his own life in his presence; a far greater crime than that for which he dreaded receiving a capital punishment. ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... man was a nominal Christian, yet to him, plainly, the Bible was only a book of fables and fairy-tales. The Mosaic account of Creation is simply waived, as we waive Jack the Giant-Killer when dealing with the question of capital punishment. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... is not particularly concerned with the progress of the trial, for he has already attended many. It is enough to say that a jury with undershot jaws, who had proved by previous experience their indifference to capital punishment and to all human sympathy, were finally selected and that the witnesses were duly called, and testified to the usual facts, while the Pearl Button Kids and the rest, spitting surreptitiously beneath the benches, ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... into a marble. To vary is to change from time to time, often capriciously. To commute is to put something easier, lighter, milder, or in some way more favorable in place of that which is commuted; as, to commute capital punishment to imprisonment for life; to commute daily fares on a railway to a monthly payment. To convert (L. con, with, and verto, turn) is to primarily turn about, and signifies to change in form, character, use, etc., through a wide range ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... Westminster Hall was obliged to borrow from the Star-Chamber, for the same reasons as the Star-Chamber had borrowed from the Roman Forum, because they had no law, statute, or tradition of their own. Thus the Roman law took possession of our courts,—I mean its doctrine, not its sanctions: the severity of capital punishment was omitted, all the rest remained. The grounds of these laws are just and equitable. Undoubtedly the good fame of every man ought to be under the protection of the laws, as well as his life and liberty and property. Good fame is an outwork that defends them all and renders them all valuable. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Roman pearls, and then led off to instant execution." The Welshman doubted if that could be warranted by law. And, when I hinted at the 6th of Edward Longshanks, chap. 18, for regulating the precedency of coaches, as being probably the statute relied on for the capital punishment of such offences, he replied drily that, if the attempt to pass a mail really were treasonable, it was a pity that the "Tallyho" appeared to have so ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... women, was probably at the bottom of the condonation. We know from a paper, reproduced (to our thinking unnecessarily) in one of these volumes, that in 1840 Thackeray went to see Courvoisier hanged, and was so much upset by the spectacle that he prayed for the abolition of capital punishment to wipe out its stain of national blood-guiltiness. It may be noticed, moreover, that his stern denunciation of crime and folly has by this time settled down into a philosophic mood that is almost fatalistic, as when he suggests that 'circumstance only brings out the latent defect or ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... an a priori principle, that "without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin," is both foolish and futile in an age that has abandoned the conception of bloody sacrifice and which is loudly demanding the abolition of capital punishment. ...
— The Church, the Schools and Evolution • J. E. (Judson Eber) Conant
... of the land required the capital punishment of witches, no blame ought to be attached to judges and jurors for discharging their respective duties in carrying it into execution. It will not do for us to assert, that they ought to have refused, let the consequences to themselves have been what ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... was pacing from corner to corner of his study, recalling to his mind the party he gave in the autumn fifteen years before. There were many clever people at the party and much interesting conversation. They talked among other things of capital punishment. The guests, among them not a few scholars and journalists, for the most part disapproved of capital punishment. They found it obsolete as a means of punishment, unfitted to a Christian State and immoral. Some of them thought that capital punishment ...
— Best Russian Short Stories • Various
... That the evidence of this man, not having been encountered at the time when it might and ought to have been by the said Warren Hastings, remains justly in force against him, and is not abated by the capital punishment of the said Nundcomar, but rather confirmed by the time and circumstances in which the accuser of the said Warren Hastings suffered death. That one of the offices for which a part of the money above mentioned is stated to have been paid to the said Warren Hastings was given ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of sinning, provided it be made violently enough, for actual proof and confession. What is more, he takes an intense joy in the mere chase: he has the true Puritan taste for an auto da fe in him. "I am ag'inst capital punishment," said Mr. Dooley, "but we won't get rid av it so long as the people enjie it so much." But though he is thus an eager spectator, and may even be lured into taking part in the pursuit, the average American is not disposed to initiate it, nor to pay for it. The larger Puritan enterprises of ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... impoliteness in not repairing to the house of him who had invited them. According to the tenor of the sentence, which the criers read aloud and incorrectly, two farmers of the revenues, monopolists of money, dilapidators of the royal provisions, extortioners, and forgers, were about to undergo capital punishment on the Place de Greve, with their names blazoned over their heads, according to their sentence. As to those names, the sentence made no mention of them. The curiosity of the Parisians was at its height, and, as we have said, an immense crowd waited with feverish impatience ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the morning of December 30th, the president, Carel, declared the trial closed, and the court retired to "form its opinions." Not till three o'clock did the bell announce the return of the magistrates. The verdict was immediately pronounced. Capital punishment was the portion of Mme. Acquet, Flierle, Lefebre, Harel, Grand-Charles, Fleur d'Epine, Le Hericey, Gautier-Boismale, Lemarchand and Alexandre Buquet. The Marquise de Combray was condemned to twenty-two years' imprisonment in irons, and so were ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... moral, sometimes an inverted one, in the Rops etchings. Order Reigns at Warsaw is a grim commentary on Russian politics quite opportune to-day. La Peine de Mort has been used by Socialists as a protest against capital punishment. Les Diables Froids personifies the impassible artist. It is a page torn from the book of hell. Rops had read Dante; he knew the meaning of the lines: "As the rill that runs from Bulicame to be portioned out amid the sinful women"; and more than once he explored the frozen circles of Gehenna. ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... assassination, trucidation|, iccusion|; effusion of blood; blood, blood shed; gore, slaughter, carnage, butchery; battue[obs3]. massacre; fusillade, noyade[obs3]; thuggery, Thuggism[obs3]. deathblow, finishing stroke, coup de grace, quietus; execution &c. (capital punishment) 972; judicial murder; martyrdom. butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur[obs3]; guet-a-pens; gallows, executioner &c. (punishment) 975; man-eater, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Christian countries it is universally prohibited. In Sweden it is punished with death. In England, besides the nullity of the second marriage, it subjects the offender to transportation, or imprisonment and branding, for the first offence, and to capital punishment for the second. And whatever may be said in behalf of polygamy when it is authorized by the law of the land, the marriage of a second wife during the lifetime of the first, in countries where such a second marriage is void, must be ranked with the most dangerous and cruel of those ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... a laugh at Lord Norbury's expense. The laws, at that period, made capital punishment so general that nearly all crimes were punishable with death by the rope. It was remarked Lord Norbury never hesitated to condemn the convicted prisoner to the gallows. Dining in company with Curran, who was carving some corned beef, Lord Norbury inquired, "Is that hung beef, Mr. Curran?"—"Not ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... of the present public movement for the abolition of capital punishment, and however far future experiments may go towards establishing the expediency and safety of such a change in criminal jurisprudence, the history of every nation and people will show, we believe, the remarkable fact, that ever since Cain stood before his Maker with his hands reeking ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... little regarded in Ludamar, it was necessary when crimes were committed that examples should sometimes be made. On such occasions the offender was brought before Ali, who pronounced, of his sole authority, what judgment he thought proper. But I understood that capital punishment was seldom or never ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... the amount of three thousand livres was discovered; which they had received the day before from a man who called himself a merchant from Paris, but who was a police spy sent to entrap them. After giving up the bond of the Cardinal, the Emperor graciously remitted the capital punishment, upon condition that they should be transported ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... the time we write about, regular witch-finders, as in the time of James the First, still the feeling against witches, and the belief that they practised, existed. They were no longer handed over to summary and capital punishment, but, whenever suspected, they were sure to meet with very rough treatment. Such was the fate of Mr Vanslyperken, who was now seized by the crowd, buffeted, and spit upon, and dragged to the parish pump, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... him; and the villagers closing round and impeding them as much as possible, the young hero got off to the mountains in safety. He was, however, taken some time after this scene, and carried to Bayonne to be tried, when every one expected that he would meet with capital punishment; but it was found impossible to identify him—no one could be induced to appear against him—and the magistrates, wearied out, at length gave him his discharge, and he returned to live quietly in his village, and marry his love, after having been a hunted man in the woods ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... sir, capital punishment. And I goes round reg'lar jest to keep an eye on my capital coves. Lord! I vatches over 'em all—like a feyther. Theer's some volks as collects books, an' some volks as collects picters an' old coins, but I collects capital coves,—names ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... it is absurd to ask you," he said suddenly, "but I presume you have not devoted any of your studies to the question of capital punishment. I see you haven't; but there is one interesting fact about the execution of criminals which is not generally known to the public, and it is that in many countries, my own for example, before a ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... appointed in Oregon with power to execute all process issuing from the courts of that Province, and to "sit and hold courts of record for the trial of criminal offenses and misdemeanors" not made the subject of capital punishment, and also of civil cases where the cause of action shall not "exceed in value the amount ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... contradiction with its own bloody deeds, it celebrated the last day of its existence by a law which, as a farewell to the thousand corpses it had sacrificed to the revolution, it had printed on its gory brow. On the day of its dissolution the Convention gave to France this last law: "Capital punishment is forever abolished." [Footnote: Norvins, "Histoire de ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... we have gone too far in laying capital punishment aside, and that it ought to be inflicted in many cases not at present capital. I think, for instance, that political offences should in some cases be punished with death. People should be made to understand that to attack the existing ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... refuge within the precincts of a church, and refused to surrender himself to justice. We decide that the capital punishment shall be remitted out of reverence for his place of refuge, but he shall be banished to the Vulcanian [Lipari] Islands, there to live away from the paternal hearth, but ever in the midst of burning, like a salamander, which is a small and subtile beast, of kin to the ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... upon intuition alone, in his advocacy of the abolition of capital punishment, may be expected to maintain next that a state, in going to war, should stop short at the point where the lives of its citizens are put in jeopardy. Why kill a good man, when it is wrong to kill ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... far more magnificent than he found it. The fall need not necessarily have been fatal, especially to one insensible and opposing no resistance, but even supposing that death had not resulted, in those Draconian days, the intent to murder was equally subject with its full accomplishment to capital punishment. Still, as Colonel Archfield could plead with all his heart that he had left home with no evil intentions towards young Oakshott, the lawyers agreed that to prove that the death of the victim was uncertain would reduce the matter to a mere youthful ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... attitude of medieval Europe toward animals as legally responsible beings see E. P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... opposed to capital punishment in any case where the convict can be kept in solitary confinement without pardoning his life; it was extremely painful and awful to me to be the instrument in the hands of the law to pronounce sentence of death upon my fellow-man, extinguishing ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... direction of a great weight of public opinion against capital punishment is, I trust, the sign of an awakening perception that punishment is the last and worst instrument in the hands of the legislator for the prevention of crime. The true instruments of reformation are employment and reward; not punishment. Aid the willing, honour ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... what ought to turn the human mind from some peculiar tendency produces the opposite effect. One would think that the perusal in the newspaper of some crime and capital punishment would warn away all who had ever meditated the crime, or dreaded the chance of detection. Yet it is well known to us that many a criminal is made by pondering over the fate of some predecessor in guilt. There is a fascination in the Dark and Forbidden, which, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... jurisprudence and its superiority to pagan codes. If at times he supports a greater severity than the Palestinian rabbis eventually allowed, that is where greater severity implies a closer relation to Roman Law. Thus he has not the horror of capital punishment which the Jerusalem Sanhedrin exhibited; he would condemn to death the man who commits wilful homicide, whether by his own hand or by poison;[288] whereas the other Halakah allows it only in the former case. He who commits perjury also is to suffer capital punishment.[289] ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... penalties and persecutions are deemed necessary. It is sought to drive out the devil with Beelzebub. Prof. Haeckel also considers it proper to proceed against criminals with the severest punishments possible, and that capital punishment, in particular, be stringently applied.[162] By this stand the Professor places himself in sweet accord with the re-actionists of all shades, who otherwise are mortally opposed to him. Haeckel is of the opinion that incorrigible scape-graces must be uprooted like weeds that ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... he wrote, "and as I have never received any representation against the laws, or the manner in which they have been administered, I must conclude that the people are content with both." Content with laws which prescribed capital punishment for the killing of a cow! Content with laws which had been conceived in an iron age, and under a state of society which was now happily passing away! Content with the laws! When a majority of the population, through their representatives ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... expected from a generation which abhors torture, labours for the reformation of criminals, and even doubts whether it should not abolish capital punishment—a shaking of the heavens is abroad, of which we shall hear more and more, as the years roll on—a general inclination to ask whether Holy Scripture really endorses the Middle-age notions of future punishment in endless torment? Men are writing and speaking on this matter, not merely with ability ...
— The Water of Life and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... Emerson delivered an address at Harvard on the "Progress of Culture" (printed in his Letters and Social Aims), in which he enumerates optimistically the indications of social advance: "the new scope of social science; the abolition of capital punishment and of imprisonment for debt: the improvement of prisons; the efforts for the suppression of intemperance, vice, etc.," and asks: "Who would live in the stone age, or the bronze, or the iron, or the lacustrine? Who does not prefer the age of steel, of gold, of ...
— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury
... knows? But on the other hand, they may call our life noble and honour its memory. We've abolished torture and capital punishment, we live in security, but how much ...
— Plays by Chekhov, Second Series • Anton Chekhov
... based upon old laws. None of his countrymen disputed his authority, and he established himself in Bacolor. The British Council then convened a meeting of the chief inhabitants, at which Anda was declared a seditious person and deserving of capital punishment, together with the Marquis of Monte Castro, who had violated his parole d'honneur, and the Provincial of the Austin Friars, who had joined the rebel party. All the Austin friars were declared traitors for having broken their allegiance to the Archbishop's authority. The British still ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... there seemed as little chance of a Whig Administration as of "a thaw in Nova Zembla," Holland, in the House of Lords, supported Catholic Emancipation, advocated the emancipation of slaves, opposed the detention of Napoleon as a prisoner of war, and moved the abolition of capital punishment for minor offences. From November, 1830, to his death, with brief intervals, he was Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the administrations of Lord Grey and of Lord Melbourne. Outside the House he kept the party together by his great social gifts. An admirable talker, 'raconteur', ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... breaking. When the dawn comes we shall have a revision of the Bible on very different lines from any yet attempted. In the meantime may we not ask, Is there any curse or crime which has not appealed to the Bible for support? Polygamy, capital punishment, slavery and war have all done so. Why not the subjection of women? Let us hold fast that which is good in the Bible and the rest will modify itself in the future, as it has done in the past, to the needs of humanity and the ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... true that, although Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN is still nominally Chancellor of the Exchequer, he is really a prisoner in the Tower, conveyed under guard to and from the House, and that the reprieve of the sentence of capital punishment passed on him by The Daily Mail may expire—and he with ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... capital punishment, Norfolk Island had been for some time a place of banishment; and the convicts in general felt this second transportation more severely than the first: notwithstanding which, they continued to commit offences that they knew must end in that punishment. Four prisoners, one of them a soldier, were ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... testimony to this. In the crowds who sign petitions for the reprieve of the condemned, the hysterical element is too prominent to make any other estimate possible. But the reaction is steady, and it will not be long before capital punishment becomes a thing of the past. To abolish it before a suitable substitute were ...
— A Plea for the Criminal • James Leslie Allan Kayll
... money from the person by cutting or opening the apparel. Manu, ch. 9, sl. 277; where the third offence entails capital punishment.] ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... Governor, who was absent from Brussels and would not return for two or possibly three days. We asked Conrad to inform the Legation immediately upon the confirmation of the sentence in order that steps might be taken to secure a pardon if the judgment really proved to be one of capital punishment. Conrad said he had no information to the effect that the court had acceded to the request for the death sentence, but promised to keep us informed. I stood by the telephone and could overhear both ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... he writes, "or the premeditated slaughter of a citizen, is a crime of so deep and scarlet a dye, that there is scarce a nation to be found in which it has not, from the earliest period, been deemed worthy of a capital punishment. 'He who sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed,' is a general maxim which has received the assent of all times and countries. But it is equally certain that even the rude legislators of former days soon perceived that the death of one man may be occasioned by another, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume I (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... in due order, with counsel for defense and ample opportunity to call witnesses. There were no more capital punishments. It was made known that the Committee had set for itself a rule that capital punishment would be inflicted by it only for crimes so punishable by the regular law. But each outgoing ship took a crowd of the banished. The majority of the first sweepings were low thugs—"Sydney Ducks," hangers-on, and the worst ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... human skeleton was found, with a table, a book, and a candle-stick. It is supposed to have been the remains of the fourteenth abbot, who, it is stated, was for some crime sentenced to be immured—a mode of capital punishment not uncommon in monasteries. Four views of the abbey are given in Allen's History of Lincolnshire, vol ii., and some farther notices of its ancient state will be found in Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. vi. pl. i. p. 324.; Tanner's Notitia, Lincolnshire, lxxvii.; and Beauties ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 211, November 12, 1853 • Various
... her crimes can go no length to prove the possibility that another class of witches, no otherwise resembling her than as called by the same name, either existed at a more recent period, or were liable to the same capital punishment, for a very different and much more doubtful class of offences, which, however odious, are nevertheless to be proved possible before they can be received as a ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... style in the comedy 'Every Man in His Humour,' which was acted by Shakspere's company, it is said through Shakspere's friendly influence. At about the same time the burly Jonson killed another actor in a duel and escaped capital punishment only through 'benefit of clergy' (the exemption ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... it had been customary to inflict capital punishment by decapitating the victim with the sword. At the opening of the Revolution a certain Dr. Guillotin recommended a new device, which consisted of a heavy knife sliding downward between two uprights. This ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... studied to please others as she did himself, which was the reasoning of a man of nought and one of little sense. Being grown thus jealous, he kept such strict watch over her and held her in such constraint that belike many there be of those who are condemned to capital punishment who are less straitly guarded of their gaolers; for, far from being at liberty to go to weddings or entertainments or to church or indeed anywise to set foot without the house, she dared not even stand at the window nor look abroad on any occasion; wherefore her life was most wretched ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... and this is the same in all places. The priests occupy themselves with benevolent ministrations and with chanting liturgies; or they sit in meditation." Fa-Hsien tells us the Indian people were happy and honest; capital punishment was unknown. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda |
