On murders committed in deliberate revenge, or to remove a stumbling
block in the murderer's path, or in an insatiate craving for
notoriety, is there reason to suppose that the punishment of death
has the direct effect of an incentive and an impulse?

A murder is committed in deliberate revenge. The murderer is at no
trouble to prepare his train of circumstances, takes little or no
pains to escape, is quite cool and collected, perfectly content to
deliver himself up to the Police, makes no secret of his guilt, but
boldly says, "I killed him. I'm glad of it. I meant to do it. I
am ready to die." There was such a case the other day. There was
such another case not long ago. There are such cases frequently.
It is the commonest first exclamation on being seized. Now, what is
this but a false arguing of the question, announcing a foregone
conclusion, expressly leading to the crime, and inseparably arising
out of the Punishment of Death? "I took his life. I give up mine
to pay for it. Life for life; blood for blood. I have done the
crime. I am ready with the atonement. I know all about it; it's a
fair bargain between me and the law. Here am I to execute my part
of it; and what more is to be said or done?" It is the very essence
of the maintenance of this punishment for murder, that it does set
life against life. It is in the essence of a stupid, weak, or
otherwise ill-regulated mind (of such a murderer's mind, in short),
to recognise in this set off, a something that diminishes the base
and coward character of murder. "In a pitched battle, I, a common
man, may kill my adversary, but he may kill me. In a duel, a
gentleman may shoot his opponent through the head, but the opponent
may shoot him too, and this makes it fair. Very well. I take this
man's life for a reason I have, or choose to think I have, and the