In today’s society we have multiple ways to punish someone for their crimes, like a criminal could be put either on probation (subject to a period of good behavior under supervision) or parole (sent to prison for a period of years) but say the criminal was speeding in his car, he would have to pay a fine or if he affected the material and personal well-being of other people the offender would have to pay money to the victim which is called restitution. However Canada used to have another way of punishment during the 1860’s to the 1970’s called Capital Punishment which the offender would be put on a death penalty by the state as a punishment for a crime that they committed. In 1865 criminals were punished if they committed any kind of acts that include murder, treason, and rape but then the punishment slowly progressed in 1961 were you could be put on a death penalty if you murdered a police officer, guard, or warden in the court of duty and in 1966 Capital punishment was decreased except if you killed a on-duty police officer or prison guard and by 1976 Capital punishment was removed from the Canadian Criminal Code. In the short story “Two Fishermen”, by Morley Callaghan, if the setting was placed in Canada it would be between 1880’s to 1950’s because during that time you could be sent to a death penalty just for murder which includes Tom Delaney crime (he killed his wife’s molester).

Since Tom Delaney was executed for murdering a man that tried to molest his wife, his actions shouldn’t have been the reason to end his life. Tom shouldn’t have been killed because he was trying to do the right thing by protecting the person he loved (his wife) from a man that was in the process of committing a felony. Another reason why Tom shouldn’t have been executed was because maybe the mans death was an accident and it wasn’t particularly Toms fault unless a witness has seen the murder in action and maybe Tom was driven by his own anger and couldn’t stop himself from killing the man. The final reason for Toms innocence would be because Tom was defending himself as well, “There
had been a struggle and Thomas Delaney had taken a bad beating before he had killed Rhinehart” (Narrator 1). Either way a person should not have to be killed if they were protecting themselves or someone from a dangerous person that were the cause of the case or incident in fact they should be respected if they stood up for someone and were brave enough to fight back.