The only excuse which capital punishment attempts to find is upon the
theory that the criminal is past the power of reformation and his life is
a constant menace to the community. If, however, he is mentally
unbalanced, irresponsible for his acts, there can be no more inhuman act
conceived of than the wilful sacrifice of his life. So thoroughly is that
principle grounded in the law, that all civilized society surrounds human
life with a safeguard, which prevents the execution of a criminal who is
insane, even if sane at the time of his criminal act. Should he become
insane after its commission the law steps in and protects him during the
period of his insanity. But Lynch Law has no such regard for human life.
Assuming for itself an absolute supremacy over the law of the land, it has
time and again dyed its hands in the blood of men who were imbeciles. Two
or three noteworthy cases will suffice to show with what inhuman ferocity
irresponsible men have been put to death by this system of injustice.

An instance occurred during the year 1892 in Arkansas, a report of which
is given in full in the _Arkansas Democrat_, published at Little Rock, in
that state, on the eleventh day of February of that year. The paper
mentioned is perhaps one of the leading weeklies in that state and the
account given in detail has every mark of a careful and conscientious
investigation. The victims of this tragedy were a colored man, named Hamp
Biscoe, his wife and a thirteen-year-old son. Hamp Biscoe, it appears, was
a hard working, thrifty farmer, who lived near England, Arkansas, upon a
small farm with his family. The investigation of the tragedy was
conducted by a resident of Arkansas named R.B. Caries, a white man, who
furnished the account to the _Arkansas Democrat_ over his own signature.
He says the original trouble which led to the lynching was a quarrel
between Biscoe and a white man about a debt. About six years after Biscoe