The Press.
London, England, 1856-08-23 00:00:00

APPENDIX TO LORDS' REPORT.

Mr. Baron Alderson : It is a bad thing to have verdicts
continually given in the teeth of the law and the evidence.
Mr. Justice Wightman : There can be little doubt but
that secondary punishment may be made so severe as to
be a sufficient substitute for the punishment of death, pro-
vided such secondary punishment is invariably and in-
flexibly carried out; but whatever the substituted punish-
ment may be, it must be fixed and certain, leaving no
discretion to be exercised by the judge who passes sentence.
Mr. Justice Coltman: I um disposed to think that im-
prisonment for life, without hope of any remission of the
sentence (unless the innocence of the accused should be
made to appear), might be substituted without inconve-
nience for capital punishment. Many guilty persons now
escape who would then be convicted ; and, though the
punishment has little to excite apprehension in comparison
with that of death to the majority of persons, I do not
think that the apprehension of death operates much on
the mind of a man who is meditating a great crime ; he is
generally, I conceive, under the dominion of some over-
powering passion, which leads and enables him to set all
consequences at defiance.
Mr. Justice Perrin : I am convinced that in many [mur-
der] cases when juries have either acquitted or not agieed
in a verdict, the apprehension of taking away life, where a
mistake might by any possibility be made, has been the
cause, and that if the punishment had been short of death
convictions would have taken place.
The evidence of statistics is stronger than
these opinions ; for, while it is found that the
number of convictions to committals ranges
above seventy and eighty per cent. for such
crimes as burglary and forgery, the number of
convictions to committals for murder is only
about twenty per cent. We again extract from
Mr. Dymond :
... - -

Takiirg the criminal law returns for the six years
ending with 1834, we have, under the head

Committed, 432 ;

At ani,En—
Convicted, 90;

Executed, 52.

Thus the proportion of convictions to committals was
bat 2013 i per cent.; and the executions as compared with
these convictions were but 571 per cent., whilst we have
for the same period, under the head

BURCLAIIY—
Propotion of.convlctions to committals "0115 percent.
HOUSEIIitEAKING
Prop )rtion of convictions to comtnittals 831 per cent.
FORGERY—
Proportion of convictions to committals 701 per cent.

If m.we startling proof he needed of the evil attendant
upon the present state of things, it would be found in the
fact that the proportion of convictions is gradually becom-
ing less as time advances, and this, ton, in the face of a
most undeniable addition to those appliances which enable
justice to overtake guilt.

During the 7 years 1. Convictions. Committals.
ending 1840 J 125 to 455 •or 27'17 per cent.
" 1447 130 to 494 or 231 per cent.
" 154 113 to 50$ or 22'24 per cent.
whilst for the last three years of the above periud they
have only averaged l 9•8 percent.

From these facts we may fairly concl►udle that
the penalty of death is far too uncertain in its
operation to exercise that detersive influenco

AUGUST 23, 1856.

which its advocates ascribe to it; while, on
the other hand, the chances of escape may act
as a temptation to the most cunning classes of
villains to perpetrate the crime.
The instances collected in these papers of
persons who, having witnessed executions,
have shortly afterwards committed capital
crimes, are very numerous and striking ; but
they seem rather to belong to the argument
against public executions than against capital
punishments.
The penalty of civil death in every case of
murder, with the extinction, so far as society
is concerned, of the existence and name of
the criminal, by life-long imprisonment in some
special fortress cut off from all intercourse
with the outward world, would probably deter
from murder far more effectually than the pre-
sent uncertain system, and consequently tend
more 10 the great aim of all punishments—the
safety of society.

On the State of Society in France before the
Revolution of 1789. By Alexis de Tocqueville.
Translated by Henry Reeve. London :
Murray.