Judge in Kentucky Would Cleave Assassin’s Body with Red-Hot Saw [excerpt]

Robert Pearcy of Princeton City, Horrified at Contemplation of the Abominable
Crime at Buffalo, Makes a Grewsome Suggestion as to Best Mode of Punishment.

NEW YORK, Sept. 21.—The following letter has been received by the New York Herald:
     “Office of Robert B. Pearcy, Municipal Judge, Princeton City Court, Princeton, Ky., Sept. 14, 1901—To the Editor of the Herald: On receiving the sad news of the death of our beloved President McKinley I wish to say that there should be no delay whatever in getting rid of the brutal murderer of our honored and beloved President, and it is unnecessary to waste any time on him at all.
     “After discussing the modes of punishment that should be inflicted upon the assassin, Leon Czolgosz, the first should be to make a box just the length and width of the assassin and make it out of three-inch well-seasoned oak lumber, put together with 40d nails, and then saw the box in two with a redhot crosscut saw, running at the rate of one stroke per minute. By the time the box is in two pieces, if Czolgosz does not think that hell has broke loose in old Georgia, I will set up the cider and ginger cakes.

“ROBERT B. PEARCY.”