The National Register.
London, England, 1819-02-08 00:00:00

„ c,

/le kx"at,e--

7ebr PUltionall

No. 574.—V0L. XII.

POLITICAL insQuisurloN.

ON OUR CRINIANAL LAW.

DR. PALEY lays down as his fundamental princi-
t?.it. punishment is inflicted by barium magistrates,
rin for the sake of retribution, of so much pain fur so
guilt, hut solely for the sake of preventing the
rtivtition .of crimes. ' The fear,' says Paley, lest
• the escape of the criminal should encourage him, or
' others by his exarnp!e, to repeat the same crime, or
• to commit different crimc., is the sole consideration
' Mhi.h authorises the intlietion of punishment by
' humaa how-. Now, that, -....hstever it may be, which
' is the cause and end of the punishment, ought un-
' doulnedly to regulate the measure of its severity.
Upon these principles this writer proceeds to account
fir, an,t to justify, the disproportion of punishments,
in many instances, to the moral turpitude of crimes ;
for the t:c.,;ree of punishment.is not at all regulated by
thm moral conAideration. The mischief of the crime,
and the ease with which it may be committed and con-
cealed, are the only two considerations which must re-
gulate the punishment. For these reasons, the stealing
of cloths front the teeters or bleazhing grounds, horse
stealing, and sheci) stealing, subject the offenders to sen-
tence of death, in order that the increased terror of the
punishment may counteract the of the crime.
Bat in laying down these doctrines, Archdeacon Paley
does not take into his view of the subject, ir. what way
the moral feelings of mankind arc induencedby any very
wide variations of this principle of human punishment
Lam the principles of divine or retributive justice.—
lie says, in another place, that the sole objects of
punishment are the amendment of the criminal, or
example to others. In ounsiderieg the wide infliction
of ("nth by the law of England, we have nothing to
do with the former of these objects. In investigating
the latter, we should remember, that by whatever mo-
tives of expediency legislators may be influeneed, in
assigning certain penalties to certain offences, the
people, who witness the execution of these laws, behold
them with feelings of approbation or disapprobation,
according to the principles of moral justice, and not
of political expeiliency ; and that, when one man is
banged for au atrocious murder, and another by his side
Cr stealing a sheep, the people will be shocked, and
outraged by the saute punishment king exacted fur
crimes so widely different in point of guilt. Whether
the people may be wrong in this, we will not now to-
quire. We only Mate the fact, whielt no one will deny.
But it follows from this fact, that that very example,
which Dr. Paley has laid down as the object of san-
gainaxy punishment, must be in a great measure
defeated, where the disproportion between the guilt
and the penalty are very great. The criminal becomes
an object of compusiJa, instead of execration, and,,
instead of a culprit, he appears as a martyr. The
moral feelings which so awfully enhance, in the minds
of the spectators, the weight, and soasequently the
example of capital punisluneat, when inflicted for an
atrocious offence, are thrown into the opposite scale,
tad produce the very opposite effect to that which is
;,,tended, Legislators must not merely study political
cspeliency, the object of their laws ; but u! so the
nalure or the human heart, by operating on which their
liws are to attain that object. Now it is one feature
of the mind of men in general, that their sense of the
guilt of an offence is increased by th 3 knowledge of the
punishment that is Axed to it, its long as that punish-
ment ;Ram obviously Out of proportieo. Thus, murder,
enceinte(' as it is with an inrainints drixtb, api•ears more
morally atrocious, than it otherwise would; but when
a glaring disproportion exists bet'•veen the orenec and
the penalty, this very feeling affee:s the people is the
++poosite direction. The sensibility of our common
tature is shocked) and-re-acts (to uses Fsench phrase,)