The Benton Record

The Death Penalty.

Capital punishment was abolished in Switzerland four years ago, and since its abolition there has been such an increase in the country in crimes of violence, especially of murder, that petitions, signed by 30,000 persons, for restoration of the death penalty, have been presented to the Federal Council. The Council have been seriously considering the question for six months, and have decided that the statistics of four years do not give data sufficient for a definite and satisfactory conclusion. They have looked up the facts and figures of crime in other lands, where murder is punishable and punished with death, and find that violence has increased there not less than in Switzerland. In England there were 22 executions in 1877, against 4 in 1871; in Belgium, 92 in 1877, against 62 in 1871; and in France 31 in both years. In Denmark, Holland, Italy, Germany and Austria murder has terribly augmented in the same time, and is due, in the opinion of the Council, to growth of misery, licentiousness and intemperance. The last five or ten years have been especially marked by poverty, wretchedness and suffering throughout civilization, and where these are in usual proportion crime is likewise. Much of what we understand to be sin is the direct or indirect result of unhappiness in some form.—New York City.