Star. — London, England, 1818-12-11 00:00:00

whit t, that he wastrae.st. der sentence of (loath -for whirled his hat round the Tore he could be prevaike rants. He next adverse rivntely stealing, and ft)s ive shillings out of a shop. thority of Lord Grenville oportionate to the offence. zing crime was to make its h not unnecessarily severe. acient and modern, he re 7 i position. The inequality Le laws he shewed from the different periods, and be the same offence—that of is sentenced by Mr. Justice months imprisonment ; the surrendered on hearing of !sting to be dealt with in tilt. :e Gould taking a different :need him to transpottation :ontended, at great length, wally repressed by severity beea in many instances sup were too severe, they inva etter. He had no wish to mike dunge..ns comfortable ounishment of crime certain, t to the offence committed. they could not he executed. fudge, Sir Vicary Gibbs. on :sling five shillings worth of I to the Jury, that if they be t bad, they would be justified lty—thos pointing out to the im escape the excessiverigour a Jury had found two good 10, and eight Bank notes to under forty shillings in value. id refused eight guineas for 'as found guilty of stealin74 to logs. It would thus be seen h cases fnade by Juries, and Ford had given it as his tecutions did not produce that upon by those who favothed ment by night, or labour dur of which prisoners were die !sent there were '2OO crimes t was impossible that so many one severe punishment. He orities to the many he had al 'your of a less sanguinary code I have for its object the reform ate individuals had shewn this Lettsoin had, he believ men the means of reforming a the most striking case he had urnished by the Rev. Rowland I Gentleman preached the fune who had been his servant, and had well discharged his duty to :he close of the Sermon he had L, that he had then to state what s lips before—that that man had on the highway. .There was a al that made a favourable im . Hill), and after some resistance e had told the man to canon him. his servant, and was completely olutions which he had' to submit to call for a general revision cf the country. Ile had to remark, was with him in this, for he had g..one of Sir S. Romilly's these Bills in every year, why dtee to examine the whole coder nt period, one of profound peace, the new Parliament as offering a nteringaipon this important work. great principles, he would call i to the prev . ention of crime.— s and moral principles and laws— , but invincible when collectively'. spirit of the laws contained not the eir execution was impossible. This of the most eminent men in the n world. It was asserted by Plato, ilontesquieu, and by the most emi orities. Es en our immortal Shak !d— for use ; in time Ole rod -,,:ked than feared. So our decreer, t, to themselves are dead !" her then paid an eloquent etilogium' efforts of Mrs. Fry ; and observed, nt conversations with the unhappy !red for forgery, they all dwelt on hich the uncertainty of punishment would not trespass longer on the rt, as any thing he had omitted to loabted not, be well suppled by the would second his Resolutions, who ersonal friend of the benevolent n read a series of Resolutions which •inci ral topics of his speech.—(See I tlr•• first page.) s, in rising to second the Motion, in the request of the Worthy Mover, e had no wish to offend any man ; hat one statement advanced by his could not be contradicted, namely, I increased nearly fourfold within a owed that some inquiry should take !ct to the cause of such an extraordi- The late distress of the country could it, because this increase had occurred essively advancing before that distress h, no doubt, had been done •by the Bi d the Sunday Schools, to promote the •tut and to check the progress of vice.l g to bear testimony to the utility of n , , hut he would ask, if so many crimes nitted notwithstanding their existence, re taken place if they had never been 'his was a serious question, in the con which the mind was naturally led to the proposition before the Court. In 11 persons and parties, whatever their )ns might be, ought to feel a particular mest—t.)r, the increase of crimes be mer proportion or precedent being Ntablished, it behoved that Court or • of Englishmen, to consider what l be arplicd to so serious an evil.— lit considering• the stature of this remedy, he hop . that the subject would be discussed with temperan and that Gentlemen ba each side .Would' have the justice to ascribe of inions. to those nimives only, which candour and liberality would war asst for ;his was a case upon which party 'teeli kt could Got fairly be supposed to operate—the public mini uni versally calling for its consideration, while there could be little doubt what decision that mind had formed on the subject. And this decision ought not, could not he disreg arded by considerate men. For, h o wever the mind of the public might be occasionally misled by mistaken or designing men, it would be absurd to su i .pose that upon any question of great national interest, the judgment of the public was likely to be erroneous—(hear, hear); and it was no torious that the increase of crimes of late years was deemed by the public o proceed from the extreme ' punishment presciibed by our Criminal Code. For (humane beings, naturally revolting at the punishment '• ot death which that code annexed to comparatively Ismail crimes, rather acquiesced in the impunity of those-crimes, than institute any prosecution, or pro- Imote the infliction which that Code denounced. To illuvrrate the wickedness of disposition which the severity of our Penal Code was calculated to produce, the worthy Member quoted a paragrao, which he had this day read in one of the Public Journals. Ac cording to this paragraph, two men being sentenced to death.fOr a clime of comparatively small enormity, one of them exclaimed to-the other, " what a hen hearted fellow you were not to let me put that fellow mead the way, who could alone have informed against us." So here was a case in which a man to guaid himself against a conviction for a minor offence, was willing to commit the heinous crime of murder ; and was not this instance a ,strong illustration of the mischievous' character of our penal code? it appeared from' the StAue tent of the worthy mover, that the punishment, of death was denounced against no less than 200 of fences, and was not this, prima facie, objectionable, for the whole could not possibly be deserving of the same degree of, punishment. Notoriously indeed they were not all deserving of the highest punish ment which the law could inflicx—theo why should our laws be allowed is reiriaVillluch a state. But our penal laws were in fact not,,Osii eiCeptionable in equity and humanity, than iidicAdh . V . s. to common sense; for what was to theitighi'Ot a statute upon our hooks which consigned any one Capitol punish meat who should - be found guilty of aiding Or assist ing hobgoblins ?—( Hear, hear! and a laugh.)':4 - le agreed with the opinion that a great deal of the de pravity which led to the multiplication et crimes was owing to the licentiousness that prevailed in our pri sons. Much mischief resulted too from theinal-ad , ministration of the law, through the ignorance and: inattention, and 'sometimes the misapplied clemency of the Magistracy.—This observation he meant to apply rather to country Ma iistrates, for .he, did' not mean to impute any thing irregular...to, the worthy Alderman who acted for this cisi..: But even of these worthy Aldermen, he must say, that through their facility to pardon minor of fences, they too- often contributed to the commis sion of greater crimes. Another cause of the preva lent depravity and consequently increased criminality of the times, was the toleration of those numerous prostitutes who at present patrole the streets, Ano ther great *cause of the evil was the licentiousness which prevailed in ;he prisons. If, instead of con demning criminals to death, they were confhied iji prison tinder proper regulations, and compelled, as they ought in certain cases, to work for the purpose of indemnifying those from whom they stole any property, a much greater good would, he was con vinced, be done to the cause of public morality, than by septencing such criminals to death. The prisons in this country ought, in fact, to be regulated as those on the Continent notoriously were. There was a prison at Ghent which he had seen, and which he be lieved had also been examined by a worthy Alder man (Wooe), in which prison from 800 to 1000 pri soners were confined, under such a system of classifi cation and regulation as was pecUliarly calculated for the reform of prisoners, and the consequent pre vention of crime. But in this country the youngest offenders were confounded with the oldest, and bus the disposition to crime was.•rather propagated than repressed. lie was Sorry that the prisons of this country, and especially those of this city, were not under a similar government. He was also sorry that, in order to guard against the crime to which poverty too often' prompted, there were not asylums in this country as oh the Continent, at which both males and •females could demand employ ment and thus by the produce of their own la bour, save themselves from absolute want—( Hear !) The question before the Court was, he observed, of such a nature, that men of all parties should, and he hoped they would, look at it with a calm good feel ing, free from any party spirit. If the Gentlemen who heard him really loved their country, he trusted they would prove it by their conduct in this case, for it was truly a case in which, to use the language of an eminent seaman—" England ex pests every man to do his duty." Hence he expected that that Cou nt would unanimously ad o p t the proposition o worthy Friend, and thus excite the Legislature to look the whole of this important question directly in the face. He had had the honour of a personal - ac quaintance with the philanthropic Howard, from whom he had imbibed, in early life, chinch rnciples as could never be cancelled. By those p r ples he -was naturally prompted to follow the example of his distinguished friend. He therefore never visited any town without examining its prisons, and he had , seen many prisons on the Continent which presented gene rally a very striking contrast to those which he had seen in this country. But yet he had seen some pri sons in this country peculiarly worthy of praise from the manner in which they were conducted. He in stanced particularly that of Bury St. Edmund's, the system of which, as well as that of Lancaster, it would be well for the ether county prisons of Eng land, as well as those of this City, all of which he had seen, most studiously to imitate. Mr. JACKS could not forbear from stating his dis sent from the Motion, as well as from most of the sentiments by which it was supported. The worthy Mover had alleged, that there had been a long and loud outcry for the revision of the Penal Laws; but for himself, he must say, that he had never heard of this outcry, unless from Sir Samuel Romilly and his adherents. Against this outcry, however, he recol lected that :k g reat majority of both Houses of Par- • Ilament was decidiidirdpOosed :he also remembered that at the time Sir Samuel Rental); brought for ward hts peopositions, the Judges, who were con , suited, were unanimously against his views; so, in deed, were the Recorder and the Common Serjeant of this City—and the latter still retained the .same objection;as he (Mr. Jacks) learned from him within the last half hour. Here, then, was practice against theory. If, then, his worthy Friend who brought forward the Motion had rather consulted the opinion of Parliament and the Judges, and that of practical men generally, than that of the visionary speculators whose judgment he had quoted, his decision would, the could not help thinking, have been much more I correct. The worthy Mover had stated, that the Criminal Code of this country was more sanguinary than any that had ever existed; but, surely, when his worthy Friend made this assertion, he had forgotten the, laws of Menu, the Indian Legislator—of Draco, of Solon, of Lycurgus, of the Twelve Tables of Rome, as well as the laws of Augustus and of Justinian. Mr. FAVELL begged to correct the worthy Gentle man, by calling to his recollection that what he had said was this, that the criminal laws of England were more sanguinary than those of any nation in the civi lized world. Mr, JACKS resumed, and obsers'ed, that he should next advert to the laws of Moses, which be presumed the worthy mover would admit to be the laws of the civilized world.—Here the speaker recited some of the laws of Moses, especially those denouncing the punishment of death against blasphemers and adul terers, and was proceeding in his recital, when he was called to order by Mr. DISON, who deprecated the attempt to read all the Bible in Court. Mr. Jecits complained of interruption, as he had no t trespassed long upon the attentio n of the Court, while he had listened very patiently to the speech of the worthy Mover. He did not mean much longer l l to occupy the time•of the Court. He was adverse to I any general proposition for the revision of our Penal I, Laws, if any particular law were deemed objection able,-let the repeal of that law be proposed. It was open to any Member of Parliament to make the pro• position, as Mr. William Smith had done the repeil -- of the law respecting the Trinity. He understood from the Common Serjeant, that with regard to those laws which had been repealed upon the proposition of Sir Samuel Romilly, the crimes to which they had applied had since multiplied no less than four fold ; and it was notorious, that since the relakation, of the Bank of England with respect to such persons as pleaded guilty to the charge of forgery, the crime of fbrgery had increased to an alarming extent. As to the abuses of prisons, he concurred with what had fatten from the Gentlemen on the other side ; for he fully believed, that the less of licentiousness, and the More of employment and classification that existed in prisons, the more crime Was to be prevented and 'morality -promoted. He, therefore, recommenc'ed that all the prisons of London should be amalga mated ; and, among the whole, the classification and regimen desired might be easily established. Mr. RICHARD TAELOR—(the Gentleman who suc ceeded Alderman Waithman as Common C. uncil man for the Ward of Farringdon Without.)—" Irise, my Lord Mayor, -with great diffidence, this being the first time of my taking part in the deliberations of the Court, to express my sentiments on a subject in which 1 feel no common interest, and shall there rfore rely on the indulgence of the Court for any im perfection in the observations which I have :o make. The worthy Gentleman who has just spoke., has en deavoured to justify the severity of our Criminal Code, by horrible details of the cruel laws of barba rous ages and heathen nations ; but, my Lord, is it not our boast that we live In an enlightened age and in a Christian country ? I cannot but feel ninth sur• pr ise, that when the worthy Gentleman so frequently appealed to the maxim, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,' as being the principle of so many ancient codes, and of that of Moses among the rest, this should never have called to his mind those words of our SAVIOUR, " It hath been said by them of old—An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth ;---but I say unto you, love your enemies Indeed, this seems to me to be a most powerful argu ment for a mitigation of the severity of our laws, whether that severity be justifiable or not, that in proportion as the influence of Christian principles in creases, it is found more difficult to carry these laws into execution. I object, therefore, to our Criminal Code, because it grows still more inefficacious, for as the feelings and principles of those who have to ad minister the laws, revolt against their severity, they cannot be carried into execution. When death is the punishment apprehended, prosecutors and wit e ses are unwilling to appear, Juries will not con vict, and Judges will not condemn. In many cases Judges themselves direct Juries to evade the capital part of the offence, by fixing a false value on the thing stolen: thus mercy is shewn by a legal quibble, instead of being inherent in our laws. Impunity then is the general consequence of the excessive severity of our laws ; and where but one in a hundred who commit capital offences actually suffer death, it can not be wondered at, that those who are entering upon a. criminal course should reckon upon escaping where the chances are so much in their favour. There is another consideration, my Lord, upon which -I am sure I need not dwell in •this place. which is, that it should be the tendency of punishments to res form the guilty, as well as to deter from crime. But t is evident, that when we cut off our erring brother in the midst of his guilt, reformation is out of the question. Again, I object to so many offences being made capital, as producing a rnonstious inequality of punishment. Three men, for stealing one sheep, have suffered the same punishment which the law inflicts oa murder or parricide. A very serious ob jectiost to the punishment of death, which has not, I '7lelieve, been touched upon by the Gentlemen who have preceded me, seems to me to arise from its not being remissible. Excellent as is the administration of our laws, it cannot be free from errors. Men have sometimes been convicted of crimes of which they have afterwards been proved to have been innocent ; and for all other punishments some atonement may be made: but how dreadfully aggravated is the cala mity of an undeserved punishment, when that punish ment has been death, whcih precludes all compensation? When the sad sentence of the law is carried i.:to exe cution, it seems to me, my Lord, that the effect is most deplorable upon all classes of society. Those who are prone to ill, so far from being cbcckcd in i evil coutsdt; ire- hatcletieti and bittatizeii theee hoitid exliibitlons. Can Ott ty tine have obseteidd she conduct and conversation of the shreugs return tng from them, when the bchaeioui and sufferings of the criminal are the subject of many a coarse joke, without being struck by thi s ? Though I tr,ver wit. nessed an execution, I have had sufficient ~pportuni, tics of learning, that those who ate going on most rapidly in a career of depravity, are most frequent in their attendance on these occasions. And with those of better feelings, what is the effect, my Lord, but to excite sympathy for criminals, and disapprobation of the laws? I shall not, I trust, be understood to desire impunity for critnieals. I conceive my argu ' menu to have exactly the opposite tendency. But surely it would be desirable that our punishments should be such as even the best of mankind would. concur in inflicting ; such as, while they deterred from crime, even a kind regard for the guilty, and an earnest desire to reform them, would justify to the most benevolent mind. Surely such moderate,• equal, and certain punishments, would be more likely to repress crime than the present system, where one is punished with horrible severity, and ninety-nine escape with impunity. But the worthy Gentleman who preceded me has said—' How then will you punish, or what would you substitute He has himself furnished an answer, in wharhe has said in favour of improving the discipline of our . pri• sons, agreeing with what was urged by my friends near me, as to converting them into places of refor mation. The substitutes which have long been found efficacious in other countries, might surely he tried M this. The worthy Gentleman has also had recourse to an usual topic, on questions of this kind, and de precated any innovation upon systems which have the sanction of great antiquity. But, my Lord, why is that innovation only to be decried which is on the side of mercy ? Is not every new enactment by which a crime is made capital ; an innovation ? And the wor thy Gentleman is, I believe, mistaken as to the anti quity of •our present Criminal Code, in supposing that it has lasted a thousand years—whereas, for A long period after that date, I think not more than fair nr five crimes were capital by the laws of England. "11 e laws annexing death to so great a, multitude of offences are, I believe, comparatively of late date. If then innovation be a ground for objection, surely we may be allowed to petition that our Criminal Law may be purged from the injurious consequences of these sanguinary innovations. N ith these views, mz Lord, I shall give my hearty support to the motion. Mr. DIXON, in remarking upon the motion, denied that we had any Criminal Code in England.. There were, no doubt, several statutes upea the subject of crime, but it could not be said that we had what u as called a Criminal Code. The increase of crimes of late was owing, in his opinion, to the increased els tress of the times, which produced a want of employ ment, and therefore, however he admired engines of extraordinary mechanical powers, he lamented their tendency to deprive human beings of emrloyme - t. He also thought, that a great deal of the muidplica ttion of crime was owing to the forgery of smt-11 Bank-notes. Therefore, he thought if desirable, that no Notes .under I:5 should be issued in future. That the Penal Laws should be mitigated, he was willirg to admit; but he would not agree to the establishment of any, fixed 'tale of punishment for crimes of the same description, because that would be to exclude mercy where peceliaicircumstances Might occur to call for it. Here'the worthy Member adverted to the deficiency of the law, especially In that fragment of barbarism, the law with regard to seif-destruction. The abo minable character of this law, which was never dealt equally towards rich and poor, was, he obser ved, most forcibly illustrated in the rece.ttly shocking treatment of the unfortunate Spaniard, Mann= Le Castro...--He wished punishment fei theft to be In flicted on him who made a livelihood by it, rather than on the unhappy being who might be urged by extreme want to commit one solitary offence. _ Mr. PATTEN said a few words on the'necesaity of proportioning punishments to crimes, bet was obl; test to sit down, the cries of " Question atestion be came so loud. • Mr. Otvitnat tliou7lit the best remedy for th^ ex isting evil would be found in enforcing an an ebser vance of moral and religious duties on those com mitted to prison. The Resolutions were then read seriatim, moved, seconded, and adopted tinanitnously. In the course of the day it was by the Court tot don Parliament to extend the power of tlse Court of Requests. ConeNee's Loaursz.--Joseph Pelham, a carman at the Lon dou Docks, having been pteviously ill, was, cra Saturday morn ing, about eleven o'clock, seized with a ht, and seemed to the approaching' and to Mr. Chapman, an Officer at tle . Docks, fast rt his last hour. . He placed deceased *under the lodge, ar.d applied to the adjacent Poor-house.' Saw both the Churchwardens and the resid.ent Deadk. Tuey refused to mit him, saying, " We, know our duty." It was urged, with out effect, that lie was a parishioner. During the converavidu deceased reline stagg,•ring towards the Woriehout.: application was renewed; •but .the Beadle said he could not be admitted without an order from the Upper Warden. At half-past two, deecasrd had crawled back to the Dock-Eaccs. Mr. Chapman applied to a neighbouring Parish; they set., thdr Beadles, w!.O conducted him once more to the adjacent Workhouse, to thew Parish We.rkiouse was half a mile distant. Again it was stated that he was a parishioner, which was confirmed by the by-etw.s. tiers. The Officer then replied, " I cannot help it ; ,the man must be passed in the regular way." The Beadles front tbc fore-mentioned Parish observed, " Yost art acting with 010 greatest inhumanity probably before' be reaches our Poor-lao - wec, he will die." Deceased was then shiking all over; and had tea apnearanceOf being id a dying state. Fiedir:g their epplicatic* useless, each of the Beadles took an arm of the deceased, and surported him towards their own Poor-house. Ori his antral there be war seized with a fit, and instantly died. -A mediell Gentleman stated, that he found the deceased affected with s'..- gours, from which, and other symptoms, be concluded it war • case of hydrocephalus. He went down to the first-menticmcd Workhouse, and heard the altercation : the Officer refusing ad mission, asked whether be considered the deceased ins vary dangerous states? Ile said that he did or was asked if he was in inuninent danger ; and replied he w-s not. The Officer then observed, " It is really painful to me to refuse admittirg but the law will not permit Mr to act otherwlse."—The Glioseta. said, that whatever was inhunian was Mega]. It was char that every person in eztrtraity, whetter a stranger or a parishioner, must, if necessary, be received irto the nearest Workhouse, an d, not removed thence:until it can be done with safety. ear individual feseir.g a Wet Tenon into the street, and death ens. - ing, bad been held to-be gags)* of wilful murder. This cooed not go to that extent, bat there was El:kW= ground for charge of misdemeanour; that was for the consideration of parish. Verdict--. Died by the 'Cis:vs.:lon of Goa. SMITHFIELD MARKET, DEG • Beef 4s Od• to Ss 04 I Veal 56 to 7a platten .. ~5s Od to is ed Vbrk Want 7VI-;-Calves 160—Sheep and Lambs 4480—rigs HAY AND sviv.v PER I•I'AD. .€5 Ps to 4 1 1 et pt::: - N ...E2 10s to 2 les eltifct o tls to 90* c s co b t 4) • 7 . • • • -1 \ • • ,• • 1, , 15, I .0 I •/. ! • 1 , ii • • 1 . . 4 he lb- he he th- ttin t +! icy t ttd • r a t ". 1 !•4.1.r ktad LSI • o'4 ;a*, I t.tot ah.la • atd str..l 41411 h sr WA? • • i0C4.4 sad - Wary ews • than trx , tOtr=ll. Lt !ha • OA I an AA for a of rdaa t ° Cd SS ACJ 4 I s 200 lei ye • •