After You Delete A Web Page, Should You 404 Or 301 It?

After You Delete A Web Page, Should You 404 Or 301 It?
A HighRankings Forum thread asks what should this webmaster do after he deleted an unwanted page. Should the webmaster 404 the page or 301 the page.
To me the answer is simple. Let's look at the definitions of a 404 vs a 301.
404 Not Found: The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. No indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. The 410 (Gone) status code SHOULD be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address.  This status code is commonly used when the server does not....