The National Register.
London, England, 1819-02-15 00:00:00

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No. 575.—V0L. XII.

I'ULITLCAL DIbQUISI f lON.

ON OUR CRIMINAL LW.

(IFONTINUED FRUNI QUIZ LAST.]
• IN war last number we examined the doctrine of
Dr. Paley in defence of tke discretion, which by the
law of England (es it is practised) is vested in the
LAOS of the Judges, of punishing a vast number et
()Ganes in general with transportation, but in many
instances with death, and the consequent severity of the
i.Av in some cases, as well as its uncertainty in all ; and
we endeavoured to controvert the reasonings of the
learned Divine. We have shewn the fievent dispro..
portion of the punishment to the offences, sad the
neral uncertainty of what the punishment will be
in each case. Now this disproportion and this uncer-
tainty are, we conceive, two fundamental defects in the
criminal code of this country. Let us hear what Mon-
tennieu says—' Experience proves, that in countries
where punishments are mild, men's minds me at much
• Meted by them, as they are hi other countries where
• the penalties of the law are severe. Is any crime
• more particularly prevalent in a state ? a violent
government is anxious to remedy this immediately ;
mid, instead of enforcing the existing laws with great-
' cr vigilance and activity, they enact some severe
punishment, which, may be, • Stops the evil at once.
• But the springs of government am strained : the
imagination soon becomes accustomed to the new
punishment, as much as it had been to the old; and
• the dread of the former sentence is thus diminished
h. is soots found necessary to have recourse to the new
coal more violent remedy in all eases.—Highway rob-
' beries were become very common in several countries ;
governments were anxious to put a stop to them:
• the punis .went of the wheel was invented, which
suspended their frequency for some time; since that
• time,. however, highway robberies have become as
common as ever.
In fact, mankind are not to be governed by extreme
rnoa!tares, and it is necessary for their governors to
:nisband the means which nature has entrusted to
them. If we examine the causes which have made
' the laws at different times insufficient to suppress
offences, we shall find that they consist in the
im-
punity crimes by reason of the lax administration
3f the laws; and not insufficiency of the punishment—
. We should follow nature, who has assigned shame as
the severest infliction on mankind, and has made the
heaviest weight. of punishment consist in the infamy
of undergoing it.—lf in any country disgrace is not
• the necessary accompaniment of suffering under
' the sentence of the law, a tyrannical government
• is the cause, which has inflicted the same punish-
' meats on rascals and on honest men. If in mother.
' country men are not restrained except by the in-
' diction of severe anA cruel penalties, the caul*. in a
great measure is the violence of thegovernmant which
' Nis had recourse to such punishments for minor of-
' fences. A lawgiver,. who, ddsires to correct an evil,
too often thinks of that correction alone to this object
'his eyes are open,—to. all other inconveniencies they
' are s'iut. When the evil has Leen cured, men see
' only Cie severity of the legislator ; but there remains
a new evil which this severity has itself genertoed :
• the tone of feeling in men's minds is spoilt, for they
have been accustomed' to despotism '6
These last observations are peculiarly applicable to
the criminal law of this country ; for, if we look into
the history of many of oar mast severe statutes, we
shall find that they originate in these very motives of
esgerness to suppress temporary evils. The cause, the
motives have passed away, but the bloods, statute has
remained ; and, worse than that, the indite. rence oftbe
legislature to the infliction of capital punishments, and
of the nation to the apprehension of them. 13,y these