plebiscite,
each canton was empowered to restore the death penalty for offences in
its territory. The Federal government was unwilling to take this course,
but was impelled to it by the fact that, between 1874 and 1879, cases of
premeditated murder had considerably increased. Seven of the cantons out
of twenty-two have exercised the power given to restore capital
punishment. But there do not seem to have been any cases in which the
death penalty has been inflicted; and on the assassination of the
empress of Austria at Geneva in 1898 it was found that the laws of the
canton did not permit the execution of the assassin. The canton of Zug
imposes the lowest minimum penalty known, i.e. three years' imprisonment
for wilful homicide, the maximum being imprisonment for life.

_United States of America_.--Under the Federal laws sentence of death
may be passed for treason against the United States and for piracy and
for murder within the Federal jurisdiction. But for the most part the
punishment of crime is regulated by the laws of the constituent states
of the Union.

The death penalty was abolished in Michigan in 1846 except for treason,
and wholly in Wisconsin in 1853. In Maine it was abolished in 1876,
re-enacted in 1883, and again abolished in 1887. In Rhode Island it was
abolished in 1852, but restored in 1882, only in case of murder
committed by a person under sentence of imprisonment for life (Laws,
1896, c. 277, s. 2). In all the other states the death penalty may still
be inflicted: in Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Maryland, and West
Virginia, for treason, murder, arson and rape; in Alaska, Arizona,
Kansas, New Jersey, Mississippi, Montana, New York, North Dakota,
Oregon, and South Dakota, for treason and murder; in Colorado, Idaho,
Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New
Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Utah and Wyoming, for
murder only; in Kentucky and Virginia, for treason, murder and rape; in
Vermont, for treason, murder and arson; in Indiana, for treason, murder,
and for arson if death result; in California, for treason, murder and
train-wrecking; in North Carolina, for murder, rape, arson and burglary;
in Florida, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, for murder
and rape; in Arkansas and Louisiana, for treason, murder, rape, and
administering poison or use of dangerous weapons with intent to murder.
Louisiana is cited by Girardin (_le droit de punir_) as a state