Northern Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1857-08-17 00:00:00

taking away human life. It fails of its object—
it neither protects society ncr reforms the
offender.

In spite of all our hangings we do not observe
that the crime of murder is materially dimished ;
and we are satisfied that this vengeful mode of
dealing with the criminal never will effect the
desired end. Because a man has murdered some
other person the law takes and murders him .
So a violent and foolish woman who finds her
children fighting together commences banging
away right and left in order that she may teach
them proper behavior. By a vigorous application
of the strappado this silly and passionate woman
thinks to enforce the law of kindness and to
make her children behave as brothers and sisters
should to each other. Our Executive is that
foolish mother ;—to inculcate the humanities
it employs violence, and to teach respect for
human life, it seizes the criminal, and, suspending
him by the neck, makes him die the death of a
dog. Where is the consistency of such teaching,
and what must be the effect of such lessons, but
to lower the sanctity of human life, and make
human nature appear a very worthless thing.

If we should be told that the malefactor has
reduced himself to this class of worthless beings,
and especially that the murderer, who showed no
mercy to his victim, should receive none at the
hand of society—we reply that the malefactor
is still a human being, and that if ever crime is
to be repressed, it is not to be repressed by
degrading and vindictive inflictions ; the appeal
must be to higher impulses within us, and to
nobler principles; and the only justifiable grounds
of punishments, recognised by jurists and moral-
ists, so far as we are aware," are, to repair the
wrong which has been done in the past, to
protect society for the future, or to reform the
criminals. If all these ends can be combined, so
much the better. But mere vengeance is surely
not a ground of punishment at this time of day,
and at this era of civilization. Cruel and revolt-
ing punishments mark a barborous age and
people. In our own country they were far more
prevalent in ancient times,*than in our own time.
In the less civilized East they are more prevalent
than in the West, which has made more advance.
In China, in India, and in Turkey, torture is
still applied to criminals ; —to say nothing of
Naples, and other countries that we could name.
An English crowd ought not to be insulted by
these painful, humbling, and revolting exhibitions.
It is an evidence of weakness and incapacity ;
a confession that we can only mangle Gon's
image upon earth, but not educate, and train,
and unfold those high capacious powers which he
folded up in man. We call upon all good men
and women to aid us in our endeavour to
produce a sounder and more enlightened opinion
on the practical methods of dealing with crime ;
in order that, while we spare no effort to protect
society, we may do no thing to retard the
reformation of the offender, or to lower the
sanctity of human life

If the people of Liverpool are not thje4Most
abject slaves under Heaven---if they have one
drop of freedom's blood in their veins---they will
no longer quietly and passively submit to the
cruel and relentless corporate despotism by
which they have so long been trampled in the
dust; they will no longer be the uncomplaining
bondsmen of these who have hitherto claimed
them as a parcel of cattle, or beasts of burthen,
permitted to live only for the pleasure or profit
of those who have so far acted as their masters.
Let them bear in mind that "Who would be
free, themselves must strike the blow." Let
them arouse as one man, and with one voice
proclaim that they will no longer submit to be
plundered, kicked, trampled upon, and poisoned
by a company of scheming•quack-engineering
adventurers and charlatan chemists, supported
although these may have been, and are, by a lot
of drivelling imbeciles of Town Councillors.
The recent reports of the medical officer of
health exhibit a state of things truly
alarming. The mortality has been steadily on
the increase for several weeks, but last week
the number of deaths amounted to no fewer
than 265.

This is frightful ! To what is this fearful
mortality to be ascribed ? To the warm
weather, says Dr. DUNCAN. We question this.
Ask any person you may chance to meet,
the state of his health, and he will
tell you he is very unwell, and in
nine cases out of ten he will tell you he
ascribes his illness entirely to the use of that
abominable Pike filth miscalled water. And is
this a state of things which is longer to be
endured ? Are the people to be compelled to
die like rotten sheep, and is disease to be per-
mitted to make its insidious progress, as it is
now doing, in order that corporate jobbers may
gratify their cupidity or crotchets ? Certainly
not. To one and all of such we say, " thither
shalt thou go, but no farther." Talk of waiting
the result of experiments, forsooth, with the
seeds of death sown at every door ! We have
had experiments enough, to our cost and sorrow.
And what result need be expected from the
further experiments, as they are called ? True,
that celebrated amateur electro-gilder and would-
be-chemist, the liberally-paid philosopher of the
Town-hall—TßomAs SPENCER—teIIs us that he
has succeeded, by some magnetic process of
filtration in decolourising a portion of the Pike
water. It may be possible that this worthy has,
by some process of magnetism, electricity, or
electrotyping, distilled as much water through his
alembic as would suffice to mix his own and