CAPITAL OFFENSE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Capital offense

... about. "Will you go and find somebody to take our cards?" said my mother to the child. He ran off and brought the Irishman, whose duty it was to receive callers at the door. That was the same Irishman who, when the poor soldier's wife was going in to plead for her husband's pardon of a capital offense he had committed, said to her: "Be sure to take your baby in with you." When she came out smiling and happy, Patrick said to her: "Ah, ma'am, 'twas ...

— Recollections of a Long Life - An Autobiography • Theodore Ledyard Cuyler