1. That hanging a man (or doing him to death in any other such coldblooded way) is a dreadful business, degrading to those who have to do it and revolting to those who have to witness it. 2. That it is useless, for it does not deter others from the same crime. The first of these arguments, it seems to me, is plainly too weak to need serious refutation. All it says, in brief, is that the work of the hangman is unpleasant. Granted. But suppose it is? It may be quite necessary to society for all that. There are, indeed, many other jobs that are unpleasant, and yet no one thinks of abolishing them. I pass over those connected with surgery, obstetrics, plumbing, military science, journalism and the sacred office, and point to one which, like that of the hangman, has to do with the execution of the laws: to wit, the post of Federal judge under Prohibition. Consider what a judge executing the Volstead Act must do nearly every day. He must assume that men whom he esteems and loves, men of his own profession, even his fellow judges--in brief, the great body of wet and enlightened Christian men--are all criminals. And he must assume that a pack of spies and blackmailers whose mere presence, in private life, would gag him--in brief, the corps of Anti-Saloon League snouters and Prohibition agents--are truth-seekers and altruists. These assumptions are obviously hard to make. Not a few judges, unable to make them, resign from the bench; at least one has committed suicide. But the remaining judges, so long as they sit, must make them as in duty bound, whatever the outrage to their feelings. Many grow callous and suffer no more. So with the hangman, and his even more disagreeable offices. A man of delicate sensibilities, confronting them, would die of horror, but there is no evidence that they are revolting to the men who actually discharge them. I have known hangmen, indeed, who delighted in their art, and practiced it proudly. I have never heard of one who threw up his job.