MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD. AN EXQUISITE SENSIBILITY -THE HORROR OF THE GALLOWSTHE SENTIMENTALITY OF POLITICS-THE LATE PROFESSOR MAYOR -HIS EDITION OF JUVENAL- HUMOUR AND IRONY THE CONSERVATISM OF SCHOLARSHIP. MR ARTHUR BENSON has created a pleasant diversion from the General Election by giving proof in 'The Times' of his exquisite sensibility. Now and then it seems that a breeze blows through his college window from the outer world and distresses him sorely. The news that Dr Crippen was to be hanged was more than he could bear. He confesses that he found himself "profoundly thankful when all was over"; and he asks those who have "any touch of compassion and humanity" to share his horror. From what, then, does this horror arise? From nothing worse than a vague hallucination. Mr Benson does not wish to raise the question of capital punishment, and we may presume that he still thinks a murderer should suffer the last penalty for his crime. It is the method of death which so grimly appals Mr Benson, He shudders at "the dreadful prolongation of the frightful business.' (What a pity it is that the epithets of horror are thus monotonous!) The delay between sentence and death appals him. "What equanimity of penitence is attainable," he asks magniloquently, "by a man who is counting the moments which remain before an act of such grim and repulsive brutality as an execution is bound to be?" The criminal, we may be sure, would not thank Mr Benson for being hastened from the dock to the grave. If he were as eager as Mr Benson imagines to finish with life, he would assuredly refrain from appeal, and thus shorten the moments of suspense. That he seldom refrains is proof sufficient that the prolongation, which so acutely tries Mr Benson's nerves, welcomed by the criminal,that, in fact, it is as beneficent as it is beneficently meant. Then after the delay, the gallows. is its "I saw a picture once," says Mr Benson, "of the little whitewashed room where an execution is carried out in some jail, with its beam, its trap - door, ugly lever." Why ugly, Mr Benson, why ugly? And if such pictures distress you, why look at them? The trappings of death are solemn, even when death be mourned and honoured, and those whom solemnity affrights would be wise to choose more trivial objects of contemplation. How would Mr Benson mitigate the discomforts of punishment? "I cannot help thinking," he says, "that at trial and cross-examination, to this embarrassing choice. From the moment of sentence the responsibility is the State's, and the State may not shirk it. Mr Benson, we suppose, thinks that it would add to the dignity of the condemned criminal to play the part of Fair Rosamund, -to be confronted with dagger and poisoned cup, and bidden to choose. It would not add to the dignity of justice, which, after all, is of far greater importance than the sensibility of those who prefer not to face life and death. The very words that Mr Benson uses show his preoccupation. "If a prisoner in the solitude of his cell," thus he writes, might be allowed to swallow a potion or be done to death by an anesthetic, death would have at least some touch of privacy and decorum about it." About the word potion clings the faded aroma of the novelette. And is not "done to death" a meek euphemism which suggests Mr Benson's reluctance to deal faithfully with the harsh methods of crime and punishment? all events a condemned man Still more ingeniously cruel is the suggestion that the criminal should be left to choose his own door out of life. The State has no right to put the miscreant, already shattered by 66 But in introducing Socrates into this somewhat squalid discussion, Mr Benson has surely surrendered all sense of proportion. "The well-known scene of the death of Socrates," he writes, "has little that is shocking about it." That is true enough, but the absence of what is "shocking" does not depend upon the poisoned cup, but upon the inherent nobility of the victim. Socrates would have shocked us as little at the gallows' foot, as he shocked us conversing simply with his friends. It is not the manner of death, it is the spirit of the dying man, which makes an execution "dreadful" or sublime. Socrates was no mean taker of another's life. He died in the full consciousness of wisdom and honour. "Blame he could bear, but not blameworthiness." We do not think that Dr Crippen discoursing on the immortality of the soul would have been an edifying spectacle, even though he had drunk the hemlock. Look back on those who have suffered a cruel and ignominious death, and ask yourself if the manner of dying has impaired the dignity of the brave and just. Montrose walked to the foot of the gallows, "his hair curled with his usual care, and in his best apparel," as though going to a festival. And when with unshaken composure he had mounted the lofty ladder, it was the hangman who wept. Montrose died with a smile. Again, the guillotine is not the pleasantest means of exit from this world. We can imagine in what terms Mr Benson would characterise it. His sensitive soul loves to linger a minute longer than is necessary upon the "pinioning" and "blindfolding," "the clang of the trap, the dreadful jerk, and the movements of the helpless limbs." Were he to discuss the guillotine, he would harrow us with a description of the bright knife, the fatal basket, and the headless trunk. Yet with what dignity and courage did the nobles of France, women as well as men, step from the tumbril to the scaffold! 'They nothing common did or mean upon that memorable scene. It was only when the miscreant Robespierre, forced to follow in their path, was lifted writhing from the cart, that the guillotine appeared a thing of shame and horror. It will be seen that the sympathy of Mr Benson is wholly reserved for the criminal. Like all the sentimentalists who shrink from the thought of just and righteous punishment, he dismisses the sufferings of the murdered with a curious indifference. "Of course one compassionates the victims," he says, which, in truth, is very thoughtful of one. "But,"-instantly comes the "but,"—"horrible and dastardly as such crimes are, they are not usually attended by any degree of suffering for the unhappy victim. It is to the interest of the murderer to make his deed as swift and painless as possible." Was ever a stranger confusion of ideas? The death of the malefactor is food for tears. The death of an innocent victim is cynically held a thing of no account, because it is to the criminal's "interest not to be cruel. Carelessness of suffering can be carried no further. If humanity be to the interest of the murderer, it is seldom within the compass of his strength or cunning. Mr Benson is happily ignorant of the Newgate Calendar, or he would know that the history of murder is the history of callousness, to others a proof of innocence; asserts his blamelessness unto the end, and then dies like a man. He dies without distress, because the skill of the State harmonises with its "interest" to make its deed "as swift and painless as possible." He dies in absolute seclusion, for Mr Benson's charge of "publicity" has no foundation in fact. And it would be difficult to explain Mr Benson's unwholesome sentimentality, which, if it does credit to his heart, does none to his head, if we did not remember the baleful effects of advertisement and notoriety. Men die every hour without evoking an outburst of sympathy. Dr Crippen is chased across the Atlantic, is brought back to England with pomp and circumstance, is defended in accordance with the best traditions of the Old Bailey, and appears to indiscreet readers of the newspapers a suffering hero. savagery and torture. Mur- to some seems a proof of derers, being the playthings of greed, lust, and passion, are rarely masters of their craft. Their one impulse is to kill; they care not how much they bungle by the way. Palmer, the well-known poisoner, spent a weary week in severing the soul of his hapless victim from its body. When Thurtell made up his mind to kill his friend and accomplice, William Weare, he did the deed so clumsily, that first he wounded him with a pistol-shot, then he attempted to strangle him, and finally cut his throat with a penknife. Was this death unattended "by any great degree of suffering for the unhappy victim"? Still worse was the inhumanity of the monstrous Dr Pritchard. This gentleman began the slow, deliberate work of murdering his wife upon February 10, 1865, and did not finish the job until March 18. Such are some of the miscreants whose feelings Mr Benson would have spared most scrupulously, and whose last days on earth he would have comforted with an ingenious delicacy seldom lavished upon the just man. Moreover, not merely are Mr Benson's letters a clear palliation of crime; he is asking pity for those who feel little pity for themselves. The criminal temperament, which in Mr Benson's despite assuredly exists, recognises plainly the consequences of detection. The conduct of the murderer is uniform and expected. He fights for his life, so long as there is a chance of winning, with a skill which However, the law of England is not likely to be changed that a salve may be administered to Mr Benson's wounded heart. Society will still protect itself by punishing swiftly, privately, and painlessly those who outrage the laws upon which its existence depends. The State will still assert its right of vengeance as a thing in accord not merely with its immemorial institutions, but with Christian ethics. And the prevailing sentimentality would not be worth a thought if it did not suggest that a deplorable fear of death is creeping over the country. Time was when England might boast her freedom from this fear. The contempt of death has long been a commonplace of our poets. Statesmen have matched the poets' courage. "The nature of Englishmen," said said that sturdy Elizabethan, Sir Thomas Smith, "is to neglect death, and to abide no torment." And again: "In no place shall you see malefactors go more constantly, more assuredly, and with less lamentation to their death than in England." And to-day a peculiarly brutal and skilful murder is committed, and we must read in the journals piteous wails of remonstrance because he who committed it is asked to pay the proper penalty of his crime. If we are to go through the world thus fearing death for ourselves and others, there is an end not only of our ascendancy but of our national existence. And this softness is invading every corner of our life. Politics is taken by the Radicals as a mere field of sentimentality. In the General Election which has just been brought to a close, nothing has been so obviously noticeable as the blank refusal of those who boast that they are the People's friends to face the plain facts of life. The old truth that he who would eat must work has been laughed to scorn on a thousand platforms. Plunder is the easier and more profitable device. Unemployment is suggested as a sound reason for anticipating what should belong to old age and old age alone. As VOL. CLXXXIX,—NO, MCXLIII, far as we know, scarcely a single Radical candidate made any higher appeal than to the bellies of their constituents. You might turn over the whole foolish heap of Radical literature and find not a word to suggest that England was the head of a great Empire, or had any other business in life than to provide cheap bread for the People. Cheap bread is an excellent thing, and there is no statesman of the Tory party who would not do his best to ensure it. It is not the only desirable thing on earth; it is not the final secret of happiness. But it is a most profitable cry for the sobbing candidate. And when we see side by side pictures of an imbecile peer exclaiming "Let's tax bread, I don't eat much," and a bluff, honest working man protesting, "What!-tax bread! How about my kids?" we see the bleak, uncompromising sentimentalist at work. In such legends as these there is neither truth nor sincerity. They are but part of a vast conspiracy to deceive the people, to suggest that the best ideal of life is a peasantry dependent upon doles, a pampered criminal class, jails like palaces, and the wrong-doer unpunished. What, in brief, remains for the man who serves his country with courage and devotion but shame, and for the rascal who murders his wife in hot or cold blood the sympathy of "kind English hearts" and a tomb in Westminster Abbey ! It is pleasant to escape from I |