Once during our residence at Cincinnati, a murderer of uncommon atrocity was taken, tried, convicted, and condemned to death.  It had been shewn on his trial, that some years before he had murdered a wife and child at New Orleans, but little notice had been taken of it at the time.  The crime which had now thrown him into the hands of justice was the recent murder of a second wife, and the chief evidence against him was his own son.

The day of his execution was fixed, and the sensation produced was so great from the strangeness of the occurrence, (no white man having ever been executed at Cincinnati,) that persons from sixty miles’ distance came to be present at it.

Meanwhile some unco’ good people began to start doubts as to the righteousness of hanging a man, and made application to the Governor of the State* of Ohio, to commute the sentence into imprisonment.  The Governor for some time refused to interfere with the sentence of the tribunal before which he had been tried; but at length, frightened at the unusual situation in which he found himself, he yielded to the importunity of the Presbyterian party who had assailed him, and sent off an order to the sheriff accordingly.  But this order was not to reprieve him, but to ask him if he pleased to be reprieved, and sent to the penitentiary instead of being hanged.

    (The Governors of states have the same power over life and
     (death as is vested, with us, in the crown.

The sheriff waited upon the criminal, and made his proposal, and was answered.  “If any thing could make me agree to it, it would be the hope of living long enough to kill you and my dog of a son:  however, I won’t agree; you shall have the hanging of me.”

The worthy sheriff, to whom the ghastly office of executioner is assigned, said all in his power to persuade him to sign the offered document, but in vain; he obtained nothing but abuse for his efforts.

The day of execution arrived; the place appointed was the side of a hill, the only one cleared of trees near the town; and many hours before the time fixed, we saw it entirely covered by an immense multitude of men, women, and children.  At length the hour arrived, the dismal cart was seen slowly mounting the hill, the noisy throng was hushed into solemn silence; the wretched criminal mounted the scaffold, when again the sheriff asked him to sign his acceptance of the commutation proposed; but he spurned the paper from him, and cried aloud, “Hang me!”

Midday was the moment appointed for cutting the rope; the sheriff stood, his watch in one hand, and a knife in the other; the hand was lifted to strike, when the criminal stoutly exclaimed, “I sign;” and he was conveyed back to prison, amidst the shouts, laughter, and ribaldry of the mob.

I am not fond of hanging, but there was something in all this that did not look like the decent dignity of wholesome justice.