Jonathan is such a philanthropist that he with difficulty makes up his mind to execute a fellow-creature even legally. So, when he has kept a year in prison a criminal, whom he is at last forced to hang, he leads him to the scaffold, puts a rope round his neck, jerks him up in the air, and manages to take twelve or sixteen minutes dispatching him.
This is philanthropy with a vengeance, and it is to be hoped that execution by electricity, which has just been adopted by the Governor of New York State, will put an end to such sickening proceedings.
It is to be hoped, also, that the Americans will some day do better than that. I, for my part, do not doubt that they will abolish death sentences before very long. They are too intelligent not to understand that the death sentence deters no criminal, and this for a very simple reason. A crime is committed under the impulse of passion, or it has been premeditated. In the first case, the criminal never thinks of the punishment to come, he is blinded by passion; in the second, he always believes he has planned his crime in such a manner as not to be found out.
To lighten this rather lugubrious subject, I will terminate with a little anecdote, which has never seen the light, and which I think is too delightfully humorous and pathetic to be allowed to remain unpublished.
The scene was the smoking-room of the Savage Club.
A notorious criminal had been hanged in the morning. Several members of the club were talking of the affair, and each one described what his feelings would be if he were led to the scaffold to be hanged.
During this conversation, an actor, well known, but to whom managers, I scarcely know why, never entrust any but secondary parts, sat silent in an armchair, sending up long puffs of smoke soaring to the ceiling.
"Hello, there is N., who has not given his opinion," said one of the group, suddenly noticing the actor: "I say, N., tell us how you would feel if you were being led to the scaffold."
The actor raised his eyes to the ceiling and, after another puff at his cigar, said quietly: