The National Register.
London, England, 1819-03-01 00:00:00

No. 578.—V0t. XII.

POLITICAL IAISQUISI PION.

ON PROPOSED IMPROVEMENTS IN CRIMINAL

LAW.

Tel the course of the last century, a very general sm.
salon was created throughout Europe against the se-
verity and injustice of its criminal law In exciting
Cte feeling, hiontesquen and Voltaire led the way
w:th distinguished ability and success; but it was ia ti
State and nada despotic Government, that this
sebjxt was opened to its full extent, in the cel
work of the Marquis &eerie. liy these err:tine; not
only a great change of opinion, hut great imie-ove.nents
in criminal legislation, were M....cute& in many counties
et Europe. The uee of torture, netwitlistanding
it tinuid tier a time, like all existing abe,es, ife, support-
ers and its advocates, were generally abolished. The
jestice, or expediency, of capital punishments, even for
crimes of the first degree, was questioned ; and in some
very important instances the pure lee was relinquished;
esidi nianikst adeantage to the inters ste of the commu-
nity. The application of tbe penisliment of death to
minor offences was combated with still greater success,
and a willingness was evineed by almost every nation
Europe., to avail itself of the inferan ton that bed
t'ats been given, and to modify its institutions upon
:were humane and enlightened principles.
The most pronsitient fact, and which could not fail to
strike the attention of every writer on this sull,:cet, was,
that in the application of capital punishments to a great
variety of offences, different in their nature and degree,
it was hapee.,ible for the administrators of justice to ap-
ply the threatened pueishm nts with the indiscrimistat-
iae rigour reqeired Ly law ; and consequently, that a
rensiderable number, and perhaps a great re:3.04-4y of
(Anders, escaped without either punishment or cot-
reaion. In order to remedy a defect so dangerous to
society, as well as to alleviate the severity of existing
laws, two regulations seemed indispensably requisite :
Ist, That paeishinents should be proportioned to of-
fences; and My, That when justly incurred, they
slainid be invariably inflicted—and the demonstration
of these maxims, and the inculcation of the necessity
of their adoption, form the great and leading feature
ef almost every work which has hitherto been published
ea the
Favourable, however, to the interests of the ctnnmu-
nlty as suLli a a system may appear. and earnestly as
its more general introduction has Leen recommended, it
may justly be. deuhted, whether, if it could be carried
into effect, it would he attended with the advantages
expected from it. To define certain crimes by the
&vee of their enormity, to apply to each a re-
r,
mint proportioned to Cie 4i:fence, and to provide
tl;at sue!' pani.Oinctit shall be inflicted, seems to be the
perfection ef the ,clan. Pout it ought not. to be forgotten,
that these hillictions arc not to take place on inert mat-
ter, but on a sentinent and intelligent belch;,
nut merely of suffixing, but endowed with feelitis of
remorse, sorrow, penitence, and shame, which vary in
every individual, and are implanted by nature in the
human bosom, tin. the wintst and most. important pur-
poses. Disregardiug. however, the effect produced un
the iratient, the allotted punishment proceeds, equally
iestesible to the obstinate defiance of hardened
or the agonies and entreaties of the deepest coatritian;
and having pm-termed the same invariubic opeream on
every person subjected to its influence, dismisses
them alike, either to pc: severe in, or reform their con-
duct, according to the strength of their constitution,
the character of their diepoeititm, or the nature of the
circumstances in which they are placed.
Such, it is apparent, woald be the eTect of a system
which should proportim the punishment to the crime,
and require its invariable; iafietiun, if, indeed, we can