Page:The rights of women and the sexual relations.djvu/145

Rh had to vent itself in petitions for pardon when the spectacle of a feminine delinquent presented itself. And since at the same time the consciousness arose that this aversion had not made itself felt on occasions of the hanging of men, its manifestation is now brought forward under the pretext that it is inhuman or unmanly to hang a woman. If a woman had not sufficed to disgust our republican gentlemen with hanging, a beautiful maiden, or perhaps a child, would have been required to at last universally awaken the consciousness that capital punishment, especially hanging, is a barbarity, nay, even a bestiality. That this recognition could be held in abeyance until a woman became the means of bringing it to light; that the gallows adorned with a male corpse could hitherto be considered as a show, or at least as an interesting spectacle, and was advanced to the dignity of a tragedy only at the thought of a hanged female, proves only how vulgar and unrepublican our popular consciousness still is; for capital punishment, especially hanging, is as great an anomaly in a republic as, for instance, torture for the "religion of love." Perhaps Mrs. Robinson will have the honor of involuntarily having given the impulse towards the abolition of capital punishment in the chief State of the Union. To be sure, it is no flattering testimony for our worthy law-givers that it required the instruction of a poison-mixer to teach them to become humane!