Peace often declared that he never took human life if there was any means left open for him to escape without having recourse to such a dreadful alternative.
He was, perhaps, the most reckless scoundrel of modern times, but “fired wide,” as he termed it, to frighten his pursuer, whose life he had no desire to take.
It is very questionable indeed whether he intended to kill Mr. Dyson when he fired at him, but in this case he seems to have lost himself, and to have been worked up into a sort of furious kind of madness; but his conduct, as far as the murder of Mr. Dyson is concerned, does not accord in any way with his former acts.
If, however, capital punishment were altogether abolished the completeness of the chain would be destroyed, and offenders whose crimes had already occasioned them to fear penal servitude for life would be encouraged again to resort to violence in order to escape detection.
It has been shown conclusively, on more than one occasion, that the punishment of death, while best for the protection of society, could not be compared in cruelty with the alternatives suggested by the would-be abolitionists. The horrors inflicted upon a man by immuring him in a living tomb without hope are too horrible to contemplate.
The deterrent effect exercised by the punishment of death mainly consists in its appearing more rigorous than it is; its real severity is much less than is supposed.
It is, perhaps, true that the cold-blooded premeditating murderer commits his crime with the full knowledge of the punishment he must suffer. This, however, is no argument for the abolition of capital punishment.
For such men our laws are not made, and it is best that such wretches should be destroyed like beasts of prey.
The evidence of prison governors and warders before the Royal Commission went to show that the lives of turnkeys and warders would not be safe from such men, devoid of hope; and the idea of holding out to them any expectation of being once more let loose upon society is quite out of the question.
Shortly after the condemnation of the wretched man, Joe Doughty presented himself at the prison gate with an order from the sheriff to see the prisoner. He was at once conducted into the cell in which Chudley was confined.