Death Penalty This is an anti-death penalty letter to the editor by someone from Manor Twp.. Haggerty was hung in Lancaster for murder just before this letter was written..

The Columbia Spy
July 31, 1847
For the Spy and Columbian
CUI BONO

Well, Haggerty is hung, and the majesty of the law is vindicated. The thirst for his blood has been drowned out, think you -- no ! glutted for the present, to burn more fiercely for another draught. The examination of his cranium (while yet warm with the heat which God had given it) has proved that, to the Cerro Gordo and Buena Vista virtue of bloodshed, he added the deep enormity of a deception to save his life. No wound had ever injured his brain, until the faculty got hold of it. The great truth has gone forth that, after months of imprisonment, and fifteen minutes choking, the good people of Pennsylvania are matches and overmatches for John Haggerty.
And how have we profited by this great moral lesson ? That is the great question now; for his gain by the operation of choking with the newest and most approved apparatus, invented and recommended by a member of the healing profession- be the same more or less-is now a fixed fact. So, there is no use of discussing that matter.
But, I would most earnestly ask, what have we profited by the death of his man ? I shall feel grateful to you, if you are a supporter of the gallows, or to any friend of the death penalty, for a full statement of the most gain to mankind of the experiment with the newly invented choking machine, on Friday last.
M.D.
. Manor, July 25, 1847