be supposed to be deterred from that act, by any apprehension of his life from remoter consequences.

It has, therefore, been proposed to place the murderer in such a situation as should effectually prevent a repetition of his crime; where, instead of escaping from ignominy and remorse by immediate death, he may exhibit, by a long course of humiliation and repentance, the fatal consequences of his guilt.

The effects produced by such an example might be advantageous, without being counteracted by other considerations. Whether the spectators who attend an execution, may be deterred from similar crimes by witnessing such a catastrophe; or whether they may become in some degree hardened against the feelings of humanity, by the frequent recurrence of such spectacles, may at least be doubtful; but a murderer, under restraint and correction for his crime, is an object, the sight of which, combining at once the enormity of the offence with the dignified forbearance of the law, must always be favourable to the best interests of the community.

Hence there is reason to presume that punishments of this nature would tend more effectually to the prevention of crimes, than the dread of immediate death; in which scene the criminal is the chief actor, and not unfrequently appears.

with considerable eclat. In fact, offences that subject the perpetrators to death are committed no where more frequently than at executions; and the horrible spectacle of the exposed body of a murderer seems to be only the prelude to similar crimes."

1

But if legislators and writers of great eminence have entertained considerable doubts both as to the right and the expediency of capital punishment, even for the most heinous offences, how is it possible to justify the application of it to such crimes as affect property only, and that frequently to a very trivial amount?" Among the variety of actions that men are daily liable to commit, no less than two hundred have been declared by act of parliament to be felonies without benefit of clergy, or in other words, to be worthy of instant death. When we inquire into the nature of the crimes of which this dreadful catalogue is composed, we shall find it to contain transgressions which scarcely deserve corporal punishment; we shall find it to omit atrocious enormities; and so to blend all distinctions of guilt, as to inflict the same punishment upon the offender who steals to the amount of a few shillings in a shop, as upon the malefactor who murders his father."*

*Speech of Sir John Anstruther in the House of Commons, 1811.

Nor is it only for the actual privation of property that the punishment of death is provided; even many offences which seem to be merely legal trespasses, are included by the legislature in the black catalogue of capital crimes. Such offences are undoubtedly the proper objects of a correctional police, but surely no humane or considerate person can for a moment admit that they ought, in a well regulated community, to be punished with death. "It must be owned," says Blackstone, "that it is much easier to extirpate, than to amend mankind; yet that man must be esteemed both a weak and a cruel surgeon, who cuts off every limb, which through indolence or ignorance, he will not attempt to cure."

"It cannot be too strongly inculcated," says a noble and excellent writer on this subject, "that capital punishments when unnecessary, are inhuman and immoral. Sensibility sleeps in the lap of luxury, and the legislator is contented to secure his own selfish enjoyments by subjecting his fellow citizens to the miseries of a dungeon, and the horrors of an ignominious death."* So true it is, that the most cruel and unjustifiable laws are those which are intended to effect their purpose by a sudden and decisive process; as if the promulgator had thereby freed

* Eden's Penal Law, pp. 287, 291.

himself from all further danger and trouble on the subject. This summary way of proceeding by capital punishments," says a distinguished writer of the present day, "though it may assume the appearance of vigilance and zeal in the public service, is, in reality, too well adapted to the indolence or the pride of men, in making laws which they are themselves under little temptation to violate. It presents itself readily to the coarsest understanding, and you fly to it with little reflection, though upon a collective view of all the circumstances which ought to regulate the measure, it will be found to require the greatest."*

Had it not been from the influence of examples handed down to the present times from ages of the darkest ignorance, it would scarcely be possible to conceive how we could tolerate laws that involve such a great variety of offences, so different in their nature, in one common punishment; not only with the most flagrant injustice, but with the greatest danger to every member of the community, whose life is thus placed in a constant competition with objects of the most trivial and worthless description, and is liable to be sacrificed to the security of offenders, against the consequences of very in

* Characters of C.J. Fox, by Philopatris Varvicensis. Vol. ii. p. 468.

ferior, and comparatively unimportant, crimes. To commit a murder, or to free a person from an arrest; to burn a dwelling house and its inhabitants, or to burn a haystack; to commit a parricide, or to obstruct an officer of the re`venue in the seizure of prohibited goods; to break into a dwelling house at midnight, or to cut down, or otherwise destroy a tree in a garden; to poison a family, or to maim or wound a cow-Is it possible to conceive, that if an enlightened and humane legislature had undertaken to form a code of laws for a civilized country, they could have adopted such measures as these, which are not less dangerous to themselves, than intrinsically extravagant and unjust; and which might render it indispensable to the life of the poor wretch, who is cutting a stake in a plantation, to murder the owner, who may unwillingly have it in his power to give that evidence which may take the forfeited life of the offender?

Such in fact is the present state of the criminal law in this country, that it seems to be universally admitted, that if it were to be carried into strict execution, it would form the bloodiest system of legislation, by which any nation, ancient or modern, ever punished itself. Instead therefore of attempting to vindicate our present institutions of criminal law upon any principle of reason and justice, it is usual for those who