Fagë ë
THE OTHER MOSS
red
I met Pul Mess, a smiling,
"What frightens me most is Inside a relaxed gure Austin Healey 100 on the read the thought of losing control and to the rambling country mansion damaging a car. The unexpected hazards that come up are the that has always been her home.
hold dangers. You know the route on She didn't tell me to tight because she didn't intend a map but you don't know the
THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY," MAY :27,":" 1960.
Capital
THINK it would assist a discussion
of capital punishment by first considering the conditions which existed not in the very far distant past, but almost in the living memory. of man at the beginning of the 19th century.
punishment and the
Chessman
At that time the criminal code of England case
was unique in the world, inasmuch as it listed
· to
of "half- banged Smith". he had hung nearly 15 minutes....and being house in the conveyed to neighbourhood, he soon recover- ed in consequence of bleeding and other proper applications".
the
sible to make a legal contract or to make a will; but he is suffi- to be ciently responsible hanged without signing a will.
(Insane Asylum)-ás are actinl- saint with an endearing sense of ly executed.
humour-vide, his famous "Give Murder, of course, is more me Chastity, but not yet." closely related to insanity that When some Donatists, a here-- any other crime. But this et tie African sect, had confessed plays only a minor part in the to a heinous murder of Chris- enormous disparity (40 as op- tians, Augustine pleaded with his posed to 0.15 per cent) between friend Marcellimus not to indiet insanity as a defence in mur- the death penalty on the mur
deras:
"We do not wish to have the der, and non murder trials.
True reason
sufferings of the servants of God avenged by the infliction of precisely similar injuries in the way of retaliation.
of
The true reason is that in all I have quoted some ghastly offences the punishment
is a matter details of executions because the convicted parsons arguments if those days against for the discretion of the Court
mentary
of
ma
"Not, of course, that we ob- ject to the removal from these wicked men of the liberty to perpetrate further crimes, but our desire is rather that justice be satisfied without the taking of their lives or the maiming of their bodies in any particu- lar; and that, by such coercive measures da may be in accord- ance with the laws they be drawn away from their insane frenzy to the quietness of men in their sound judgment, or compelled to give up mis- chievous, violence and betake themselves to some useful labour" (Quoted in the Re-- part of the Select Committee on Capital Punishment 1929- 1930, page 292).
WHILE Stirling Moss succumbed again to his between 220 and 230 offences punishable by death,
racing jinx at Silverstone, his golden-haired from the stealing of turnips to associating with In 1748, William York, a boy the abolition of capital punish-except in murder cases where sister Pat was on her way to Greece for the gipsies, to damaging a fishpond, to writing of 10, was sentenced to death ment for even petty crimes such the penalty of death is m
stealing of turnips, datory. Acropolis Rally-and is more than likely to win it. threatening letters, impersonating out for murder. The Chief Justice as the
Ashponds, cutting A burglar or replt can be out whether it was prover to down trees were precisely the sentenced, according to the to For Pat Moss, who has been the shadow behind her pensioners at Greenwich Hospital, to being found toned the execution to find damaging brother for so long, is slowly managing to steal armed or disguised in a forest, park or rabbit hang the child. All the Judges same arguments which are ad- dividual circumstance of the
it was Their vanced today for the retention of case, to anything froth proba
to be quoted capital punishment. ruling deserves
tion to 18 years, tropriscarmenty, the thunder from Stirling; she has no jinx, in fact, warren to cutting down trees, to poaching, forging, ccurred that
it epitomised
The arguments in defence of when a murderer is convicted. she is becoming the world's top woman rally driver. picking pockets, shop-lifting to the value of 5/- because
Judges bind belief, in the rapital
punishment have re- regardless whether he la's cold- a xperty unique and replaceable deter- mained essentially the same blooded poisoner, Her record, this year alone, "The best part of a rally for upwards, and so on through 220 odd items. has been phenomenal. With her me is completing a speed test
was then cut rent effect of the death penalty. since Lord. Ellenbrough's days. killer or a partner tú a suleide The exact number of capital and he or she
In one of the most recent Partio- pact, the jury only has a choice Ann and knowing that if you had en-driver and navigator,
Suffer
debates
date of 10
finding him "gally" or every the chance to do it again you offences was not ever known dow Wisdom, she has taken
In one case, that award in every couldn't do it better. This is the to, the best legal authorities as Hop woman's
The Judges ruled that the February 18 and July 22, 1955- "guilty but insane,” statute cach
Lloyd George, was so broadly
again In our day, even among the best satisfaction I know.
child: "is certainly a proper Major framed that "the actual scope major international rally.
the 3 most ardent supporters subject for capital punishment, patiently tredded cut of the death penalty was often
why reasons
the capital punishment, the sufer; for it customary and ought to as much as three or four times
would be a very dangerous Government opposed abolition. jority denies that they are as extensive as the number of
consequence to have it thought. That the death penalty carried a gulded by motives of vengeance capital provisions would seem
unique doterrent; that no satis- against the criminal. factory alternative punishment In spite of these denials re- to indicate."
Capital punishment has been could be designed; and that ribution is a powerful and abolished, or In abeyance, in all public opinion was in favour of conscious motive which in European countries except the trates and confuses the other United Kingdom and France. The fear of death is no doubt issues. The popular argument, a powerful deterrent but just "he deserves to be hanged," how much more powerful is it "you are only concerned with than the fear of a dife sentence, the murderer, not the victim,
strong and The gallows obviously failed has as a deterrent in all cases where emotional appeal.
murder has actually been Those in favour of the aboll- committed. It is certainly not tion of capital punishment are who classed 19 insensitive persons a deterrent to murderers commit suicide and one third and those in favour of 'reben- murderers do (Charles tion will give details, march of all Duff, a New Handbook on Hang- more ghastly than ing. London, 1954).
spoken of today, of the terrible It is not a deterrent to the things that some zaurderers insane and mentally deranged; have perpetrated on their vic nor to those who have killed in tims. That does not mean that
to show off for my benefit, road. You find corners that de Hurtling along at what seemed unexpected twists so that you she find you've approached it too fantastic speed, 19 be a casually pointed out the ash fast. Or maybe you hit a bump, trays "such luxury. I can't or a patch of ice, or water. Any remember the last time I had of those can mean you lose your ush trays in my own car."
Here is a girl in a world of spied anti excitement, of success triumph, intense satisfaction, applause and fear. These are the exclusive ingredients of the file that makes Pat Moss tick. For her they are the right things.
For the past three years, rally driving has given her all she wants from life. Every part ef her career has been essential to
her.
that.
HER PILLS
car,
"There are times when 1 lind myself going too fast. Then 1 have to tell myself not to be stupid and slow down.
"I go to a rally to win but fundamentally to do my best in win. If I know I couldn't have done better, I am pretty well content."
She doesn't have to -
SUCCESS
|
I am not talking of the Dark Ages, but of the beginning of Queen the 19th century, up Victoria's reign, where every- where in the civilised world, offences against property were being removed from the list of capital crimes.
Puzzling
By.
Gerald De Basto
These
In a speech to the Y's Men's Club Luncheon Meeting Yesterday
horrors
there
that children may commit such with im- atrocious crimes punity, and therefore, though the taking away the life of a boy of ten years old may savour of cruelty, yet as the example of this boy's punish- ment may be a means of deter ring other children from the like offences; and as the spar- ing of this boy. merely on ac- count of his age, will probably have a quite contrary tea dency, in stice to the public. the laws out to course."
IL.
3
a
Jasting
Abolished
It has also been abolished in many other countries including certain states in North and South America and Australia.
Before I close I think I should of say a few words on a case capital punishment which has shocked and disgusted most of the civilised world.
After a game of cat and mouse for some 12 years, Cary! Chers- have man was executed in May of
this year.
One can hardly but feel ra- vulsion when one considers that for 12 years this man was kept
Quentin in a room the size to find the are also authenticated cases of
more.
take its
of
a quarrel, in drunkenness, in a abolitionists are insensitive to a cell on Death Row at San sudden surge of passion--and the sufferings of others but this type of murder amounts to what they say is that killing, 80 to 90 per cent of a murders even after die process of law,
are committed. (The is morally wrong. that Observer, 1st July, 1952).
A deterrent?
who
commits
which we in Hongkong give our servants....12 years he had his
This slate of affairs was the
continued more puzzling as in some other
The respeels British civilisation was through the 19th century.
whole process was carried out ahead of the rest of the world.
such uncertain, haphazard Foreign visitors were inte ip pressed by the exemplary and barbaric ways that not only A craving to be best, un inbred fairness of British courts, were vielims found to be alive love of competition has pushed and horrified by the savage 15 minutes and more after the Pay Moss into the world class. penalties they inflicted. They onset of strangling, but
Were Aznazed How far is her brother respon-
highways dotted with gibbets, people reviving in the dissecting "I suppose I love every minute sible for her success?
"When 1 was
a little girl,"
creaking and groaning with hall of ally. Except the drive to
the bodies of criminals.
Others were resuscitated by the start. I am always terrifled said Pat, "my biggest triumph
"Hanging Days" were, during their friends after cutting down something awful will happen was to do something better than
and up to half way by immersing the victim in hot get there. Once I Stirling. If ever I did, that was the 18th before I
SO wonderful something to through the 10th century, the water, bleeding, massaging the wrapped myself round a tele-
of national bank limbs etc. to a really chalk up. But now I've equivalent graph pole on the way
but only rally and smashed up the rally got used to the idea that he's holidays, car. I'll never be able to forget one up on me. I don't mind frequent.
being described as his sister any
We read, for instance, that in III's reign, working George "A tally isn't necessarily more."
any burs for the poor "were in- exciting. The object of the exercise is to finish. That is the more.
ordinately long, and there were only real achievement to start
very few holidays except just at Easter,
Whitstuntide something difficult and carry it
The Moss family is used to
Christmas,
ஆ the through with the best of your
It is anticipated. Bad ability, regardless of what hap-
luck is accepted, and so is "Once the rally is on. I might brilliance. Mediocrity alone is have to be at the wheel to 36 not tolerated. hours at a strelch. I take pep-up pills always. Starting off. I talk comes into my head. The further
be hanged twice and even three times, In some
During the same half-century, you go the less you can find to
For a moment Pat looked sad. victim was revived by bleed.
Lord Goddard, Lord Chief 4,077 people were ried for mur- talk about, and pretty soon
"At the back of my mind," ing his heels and then hanged
For they all irushading there's silence. There is nothing
and the hanging of Mrs Thomp Justice of England, remained der. Of these, 1,013 were dis but the road and the
aware again. car and she said quietly. "I am
I might run out of road. I don't In others, the hangman and son in 1923 was a butchery and equally true to tradition when, charged or acquitted; of the re- teachers, employers and society intense concentration
his assistants had to add their revolting as any reported in in the 1948 debate, he success maining 3.064 convicted mur- at large were accessories to the
derers, 1,241 were found "guilty crime. aiding and fully opposed raising the age but insane." Insane on arraiga act long before it the the Newgate Calendar,
This all happened in a country weight by hanging on to
Her executioner attempted limit for ability to suffer
com-which glories in equality, liberty victim by his logs in others
reprieved as insane, mitted. short time later. capital Kuicide #
and the pursuit of happiness. his his body was mangled or
making a total of about 40 per IL on the other hand we whose happiness did the State and the prison chaplain stated eighteen years to twenty-one head partly or entirely tom off,
cent (Charles Duf-o "that the Impulse to rush in years. According to British
Now accept freedom of the will and pursue when it exccuted Chess- on several occasions the
Handbook on Hanging London, its inevitable religious con- man? Are his victims better off and savo her by force was
a person under 21 is nnt 1954), inw,
sequences, then vengeance ap- for his death? Has anyone considered sufficiently respon- almost too strong for him."
In other words, insanity as a pears not as a sin against logic benefited by his execution? Is defence is an exception in but as a sin against the spirit, the world a better place now crimes other than murder, and for if the murderer is not mere that Chessman has convulsed almost the rule wirere murder ly a robot with a faulty switch, himself
into eternity? Has
food passed to him three times From the determinist point of a day and for the rest of the view.
the day he was left deliberating as vengeance against human being is an absurd as to when the State would dis- 1800, another boy of ten
It is not a deterrent to the punishing a machine. But even patch him into eternity.
Picture to yourself 60 ghouls if I sometimes have the foolish exhibitionist It is unavoidable, in' dis- was sentenced to death for cussing capital punishment, to secreting notes at the Chelms- murder because he desires to desire to hit my old car on the jammed in front of the windows breaking down, it of the death chamber watching go into these ghoulish, techni- ford Post Office. The Judge, be hanged and these cases are bonnet for calities in order to make in a letter to Lord Auckland, not infrequent. It is not a de- would be more logical to hit the the writhing of a dying man.
This, apparently, is what people realise what exactly we explained the reasons why he terrent to the person who firmly garage mechanic or the foreman,
"the black-hatred they saw: refused commutation of the sen- believes in his own perfect or the chairman of the firm who
man in the chair breathed are talking about.
tence, referring to the infinite method by poison, acid bath, made it.
deeply several times and his Vengeance mouth opened as the deadly These are not entirely matters danger of its going abroad into and to on which, he thinks, ала
Official the world that a child might
fumes hissed. Chessman's face 8 of the distant past.
suddenly contorted, his head Hanging Days" at Tybum (B. hypocrisy, taking advantage of commit such a crime with im
jerked back and his eyes stared He therefore refused the ap-
dully at the rivets in the cell- longer public, pretends that Williams, The Whig Supremacy. the fact that executions are no punity." 1714-1760; Oxford, 1945)
a nice plication of his Counsel
ing of the chamber. The long, "When I come back from a The volcmes of the Newgate modernised hanging is
lean body twitched, and be with ex- and smooth affair which is
ground of his tender years,
came rigid for a moment be- rally the family asks: 'Did you Clen bound
fore it slumped sightly. After four minutes Chessman ap- they don't want to know about
ly and without a hitch",
But the
hanging of
peared to be panting as if he had Nuremberg War Criminals in
just completed an uphill Tun. Then his head fell for- 1946 was as terribly bungled,
ward, his hands trembled for
pens.
success.
and
to
will never be found out,
If, guided by vengeance, we In the first 50 years of this punish the
criminal, then we century. approximately 20,000 ought also to punish the alcoho men and women were tried for lic father, the over-indulgent serious offences other than mur mother who has made him what
3 lot abou! any nonsense that win?' If I say I came second amps of people who had to always "carried out expeditious respite the judgment on the der in the United Kingdom. Out he is, the Government who has
five
it.
plan beyond the end of the year The worst time of all o'clock in the morning, when it ahead, but I know I'll have to begins to get light. I feel a pack it up one day.
"Driving has to be a young person's life.""
buzzing in my head. I tell myself
I must be mid and I'll never go again. But you know what
memory is you only recall the
good parts.
and
-(London Express Service).
victim
cases
the
́SALLY VINCENT Royal reprieve arrived when the was already suspended
the
Opposed
of these, altogether 29 were condoned the slums in which he found "guilty but insane"; that was born and in whirch he is 0.15 per cent.
was brought up. along the long chain of causation back to the snake in Paradise.
punishment. from ment or
abetting the
was
a few seconds, then came merciful stillness"
is concerned. In considerably then we move in a realm beyond civilisation been vindicated by more than half of the munder the reach of human justice
'his death? trials the question of the ac- Perhaps the clearest formula- cused's sanity is debated in tion of the problem was given court and twice as many mus- by St. Augustine, himself û re- derers are sent to Broadmoor formet profligate and simmer, a
Can we now expect a drop the number of murders committed fn the United States?
THE SPACE RACE-BY JAK
HIS
BEFORE THE SLIDE... DENE, WITH ESOO A WEEK TO
SPEND AND A CONTENTED WIFE. EDNA SAVAGE.
How the
bubble burst for Terry
"THEY PUT A CROWN
Dene ON YOUR HEAD AND
CALL YOU A STAR...THEN ONE DAY YOU WAKE UP AND IT'S OVER: NO FANS, NO MARRIAGE"
life story has been filmed-and forgotten. He now sits alone in the Wardour Street night club where he sings in the wee small hours of the morning to people beginning to wish they were in bed.
Gone are the squealing fans with his name embroidered on their sweaters. The girls who once pushed him to the top in a hurry with their adoration are now somewhere else. At somebody else's concerts. In some- one else's fan club.
In the past, along with his broken career, is a broken
marriage and a long sickness.
Yet this is no show-business
at 21.
by PETER EVANS
nid - timer: No music hall the bottom. It's going to take a for ever, because you are young, veteran at the end of his days. long time to get back to the I suppose. Seventeen I was when This is Terry Dene, i has been top. Before, I went to the top I started. Seventeen. You buy
too quick, too quick.:
Lots of clothes, a car. You throw around and act your money "Well, now I know there's no crazy, like it's going to last for quộc way to the top. They put ever.
No kidding
without emotion: "But I've no was discharged from the Army. resentment. I now know you, People laughed, thought it was have to put something into life funny, me being sick. But that to get anything out of it, and was the turning point in my I wasn't putting very much in He. was 17
T
"You set, I knew then "At first, when I began slip- been a failure. T'd made a mess and ping, I used to blame everybody of everything My career
Edna (pop and everything, but sooner or my marriage to later you have to face reality, einger Eden Savage) were on rodire. F don't know. Well, I've reached that point the
I've learned to Ace Perhaps I tried too hard Worried
too much.
now,
reality."
They laughed
That's Twenty
“But not now? I don't worry. any more, I've gone home to Mum and Dad. Pin working thard learning this business. I've got a new contract with Oriole He unfolded the napktri on Maybe I en malce a core-bad the table and spread it out. After all I'm only 21: ironing out the creases with his no age at all, really. small, chunky' hands, Then one No age at all. a crown on your head and calf Al he waited to do his at 1 jour a star and save you a lot "Well, it don't. It don't last "Remember when I went into
I bone Tek-Tana: makes it' and talked to him about his paste money
you think. for ever. One day you wake the Army?.. I sted. a-couple of
agam really do. For fou and his duture,
*Marvellous Pve Mile (150 “on” and it's over, No-more-book-diy-then they took me off to time'
ings. No more £500 a week, boepital. Mental straft they people can ve fered so No more fans. No nothing."
called
He said: "I don't have to kid
you. You can.dee Fm not certi
Dene, his face a white blob in
nine WAK
wy.com
never think it - can. I very much money any mbnej happen: to you. Lesing it all, I've begun all over again. At, I mean. You think it will last tr durimness, went on slowing hdmpital. Wise, wakasi
much in the pursuit of socess. Next time I think he will baya
Express Burólce).
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