Page:Dealings with the dead.djvu/272

 civilization will be the rule, and then we shall have a better "Public Opinion;" therefore, less hanging, and things of that sort. Let us work for it. Turn we now to the fellow that earned his ten dollars by performing the choking operation—the nice young gentleman who so gaily looped the rope and pulled the neat little spring which sent a soul to God on a yard of twisted hemp. How does he feel when the job is over? Why, not at all uneasy. The guilt of doing this wicked thing is not his, he feels—albeit, he and I disagree on this point. It is not his, and so he "don't care a fig." That's it exactly. He, like the choked-to-death, whose eyes bulge out, who bleeds at the ears, whose tongue is so largely swollen that it won't stay in his blood-slavered mouth—he, too, I say, has sent a soul prematurely cross-lots home; but feeleth he remorse? No more than a good dram of sixpenny damnation will drown—but not forever! Oh, no!—for just as sure as God reigns, he must come up to the bar for sentence, and must expiate his error somewhere, at some time. The judge, the jury, the legislators—all, just as the executioner, feel that they are clear of even this judicial murder, and at last, we trace the responsibility home to a formless, brainless monster, without a body, yet with a great black soul, whose name is, "." Presently, you and I, sir and madam, will beget a better one—God speed the day! Now for the other murderer. He has too much tact and finesse to be caught, caged, and strung up. Chemistry can't fasten the deed on him, nor can skilful detectives trip him up; and so he goes along, happy as a lark in the day-time! But somehow or other his dreams are devilishly unpleasant! Why?—Because in the