"In my opinion it was the Mahommedan soldiery who insisted on that awful measure. Having so many helpless Christians in their absolute power, they could not resist the temptation of sacrificing them, for their _faith's sake_."
It is to be regretted that previous to hanging "Tantia Topee," some statement was not extracted from him touching what took place at Cawnpore. Of course, it could not have been relied upon _per se_, but, as evidence, confirmatory or contradictory, of other statements made by other miscreants, who may yet fall into our power, it would not have been _entirely_ valueless. I do not mean to say that the culprit should have been allured to confess by any promise, or insinuation, that his life would be spared if he spoke the truth. That is, I would not have breathed the word of promise to his ear, and then have broken it to the hope; nor would I have subjected him to any _corporeal_ torture. Nevertheless, I would have had "out of him" something like "the truth"--if not "the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," and so would Sir John Lawrence, or Mr. Wingfield, now at Lucknow, or Mr. Dampier, or Major Elwall, and a score of ex-Thuggee officers now living. It is a sad mistake to hang this sort of people in a hurry; or, for the matter of that, to hang them at all. They have not that dread of death that Europeans have, but almost invariably meet their fate without exhibiting the faintest fear. There are punishments which, to their minds, are far more terrible. They are not as "cowards who die a thousand deaths in dreading one which must come at last." They are rather cowards who die a thousand deaths in dreading one _life_ which they long to end. I was never more impressed with the truth of this than when, with the permission of Lord Dalhousie, I had an interview with Moolraj in his cell at Lahore; he was then under the charge of Dr. (now Sir John) Logie, who is "in attendance" on the Maharajah Dulleep Singh. The constant cry of the wretched captive was, "Ah, let them take my life by one blow; but not draw it out of me by slow degrees!" As far as I can recollect, it was not then decided whether his life should be spared or not.
I would treat culprits like Tantia Topee, Nena Sahib, Bahadoor Khan, the Nawab of Bandah, &c., much in the same way as the convicts of Norfolk Island were treated in former days--make death the first favour for which they should crave, and the last which should be granted unto them; but with this difference, that if they murdered each other, the hope of ending their days for the deed should be a vain one. To hang such men is to frustrate the end and real object of all punishment, which is to deter others from the commission of the same offence. When such men are exterminated they are speedily forgotten, and their end is not regarded as an example for the prevention of evil; but so long as they are living, and suffering what to them is far worse than death, the case is otherwise. Be it known, however, that I am not an advocate for the abolition of capital punishment in _this_ country for the crime of murder. The gallows, judiciously used, is, in my humble judgment, a very wholesome terror.