The Angry Exile: I'm not one for retributive justice but...

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Thursday 10 November 2011

I'm not one for retributive justice but...

I've argued against the death penalty here before and I'm sure I've said that I'm not even that fussed about prison as punishment. I like to think I'm a fairly practical kind of guy and the main thing I see society getting from prison is the lack of crimes committed by inmates while they're locked up. If they see it as a punishment or if they can be rehabilitated while they're in there, both with the aim of them not reoffending, then great. That's a bonus we should be grab if it's available but the main point for me is that someone who commits on average one crime per day at liberty will commit 365 fewer crimes if locked up for a year for just one of them - it's really that simple. Rehabilitation and retribution should be part of sentencing but the main thing for me is that a crim locked up is a holiday from his activities for everyone else.

However, now and then there are times when my principles really are pushed to breaking point, and today is one such day. I have just seen a story online at The Telegraph about some unknown person who swung a cat around by its tail for no apparent reason. Certainly cats will scratch and bite if provoked or frightened so I can't say for certain that the cat did nothing to hurt him, but I will say that it seems highly unlikely that catching a frightened or angry cat by the tail in the outdoors isn't easy. They're small, fast and agile, so when it's vet time for ours we have make sure they're inside and the doors and windows are closed before the cat baskets come out, which leads me to suspect that this was a probably a friendly cat who was enticed to come and say hello and had no idea that it was going to be cruelly tormented. There is video of it here for those who can stomach it - I needed a mental run up before I could watch it and won't be watching agin nor posting it here. I really don't recommend it unless you live in the Ramsgate area and think you might be able to help the police.

Needless to say the cat is now a bit fucked up.

Michelle Buchanan, who owns the cat, said her pet had been left mentally scarred by the incident.
"He's not physically injured but he is mentally. Ever since the incident happened, when he eventually came home, he's never gone back outside," she said.

I don't doubt it.

RSPCA Inspector Caroline Doe added: "This was a very violent, nasty attack on a cat.
"Anyone who witnessed this outside the pub must have been as shocked and appalled as we were.
"We are hoping that someone will recognise this man and come forward so we can investigate this fully."

For reasons documented on other blogs, the Ambush Predator for instance, I'm pretty ambivalent toward the RSPCA since they've assumed the role of animal police, but in this instance I'm on their side. The local police in Ramsgate are also investigating, and I do hope they catch the bastard.

But I hope for more than that. As I said early on in this post there are times when my position on retributive justice is strained, and typically it's the same kind of times most normal people look at something with the kind of shock and disgust I felt towards that fucking mutation in human form as he swung that cat around. Doesn't matter whether its casual cruelty toward a child, such as Baby Peter, or toward an animal, such as Mowgli here - and there's a stage where a young child has a lot in common with a cat or dog in terms of size, emotional development, trust and relative helplessness in the face of adult aggression, so anyone willing to torture a small animal is one to fucking watch because it seems a pretty small step from there to torturing a small person. They kind of thing prompts a pretty visceral response in all of us and so many people who read about this or see that video will naturally think that the cruelty shown towards Mowgli the cat deserves to be repaid in kind.

And so do I. I wouldn't want the kind of thing this sack of shit deserves actually made available to the judicial system as a criminal sanction for the same reason I oppose capital punishment even when I agree that someone deserves death - if it can be done to the deserving it can be done to the undeserving too. But I'm not going to sit here and say that the punishment that this humanity deficient defective can expect to receive if caught and convicted will fit the crime because it won't, and without the judicial system being turned into something that provides far more in the way of terror than justice it can't.

So instead I'll settle for hoping he gets caught and convicted as well as hoping against hope for some kind of karmic justice to provide a nasty, painful, debilitating and eventually terminal retribution. Face cancer starting with the eyes seems appropriate.