What? No Protest!

Within a fortnight Illinois and New York have each seen a woman convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to death. The extreme rarity of such occurrences is apparent if it is realized that the former state, in which Cook County alone (according to the report of the investigating committee of the American Bar Association) has more crimes than the entire Dominion of Canada, has never executed a woman. The two sentences come a few months after the infliction of the death penalty in England, and it is noteworthy that public sentiment does not appear to protest.

This is the more extraordinary for the reason that popular feeling against capital punishment is, if anything, on the increase. It can only be accounted for on the theory that people have concluded that women must assume the same responsibility for their acts as men. In addition it is doubtless true that the reaction resulting from sentimental acquittals has been even stronger than criminal lawyers have realized.