The Sun.
London, England, 1864-01-16 00:00:00

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

SIR,— I have said the words " it shall be lawful," which
occur in the first clause of the act of 1840, under which
Townley has been reprieved, are permsssive, not peremp •
tory. Their meaning, I contend, is that the Secretary of
State "may" reprieve the prisoner if he sees reason, not
that he " must" do so whether he sees reason or not. And
my reason for holding this view is that, if it is not the right
one, then it must have been the intention of the Legislature,
and is the meaning of the act, to give power to a brace of
county " Dogberries," arm in, arm with a brace of "starved

apothecaries," to overrule and extinguish the Lord Chief
Justice of England and a jury, to quash the judgment of the
Lunacy Commissioners, to nullify the opinion of the Crown
lawyers, headed by the Attorney and Solicitor-General as
well as the Secretary of State ; and finally, to make the
Crown itself subservient to the execution of their august
crotchets. Now, I submit it is utterly impossible that this
can be the meaning of the act, or the intention of the
legislature.
We have heard great clamour lately against the punish.
mane of death for murder. But what proof more conclusive
that hanging is the most efficient preventive of murder, than
this very clamour raised against it on the ground of its
severe and terrible character ?

But this clamour raised against hanging in general and
the hanging of Wright in particular, proves something
mere. It proves how unwise, how unjust, how cruel to
society whose lives are endangered, it is to let a murderer
escape the punishment he deserves. Directly one murderer
is allowed to get off, like Townley, it is immediately put
forth as a precedent for letting other murderers escape. It
Townley had not been wrongfully exempted, Wright would
not have been the object of such misplaced morbid sym-
pathy, or the subject of a protest against awarding to
murderers the severest punishment known to the law,
merely because he was rightly hung. No sensible person
has any feeling in the matter ; nobody capable of reasoning
feels anything like vindictiveness against either Townley or
Wright ; nor is it pretended by the wise and humane that.
either should be punished for the sake of mere expiation.
But what we say is, that your life, Sir, mine, and every-
body else's ought to have the best protection and security
that the law can give us ; in other words that, murder being
the worst of all crimes known to the law, the convicted mur-
derer should with the utmost speed and certainty undergo
the severest punishment known to the law, in order to deter
men from destroying life. We bave heard a good deal
about Wright beirg hurried out of the world too rapidly
for repentance. I exposed this nonsense before. It is a
blasphemous reflection upon the character of the all wise,
all merciful, omnipotent, and infinitely just Supreme Being
to urge that He cannot, or will not, make all due allowance

for the circumstances of the case. It is not necessary to
criticise the implication that a few weeks or months of sel-
fish and equivocal repentance under sentence of death ought
to wipe off whatever punishment, present or future, is due to
the shedding of human blood, which is death by the Divine
law, by which these very sophists pretend to be guided.
Wright expressed himself quite happy and comfortable in
his mind, and quite sure he was forgiven, and that he had
nothing to fear in the next world. Men ought to be punished
twice over, here and hereafter, or they ought not;
in the one case deathbed repentance will not save them,
however prolonged ; in the other, deathbed repentance is
not necessary to save them. Indeed, it is doubtful how far
it is expedient to make murderers believe that they have
only to say certain prayers, and think certain thoughts,
and that their crimes will b© forgiven in the next world, so
that they have only "a bad quarter of an hour" to suffer in
the present outside of Newgate or Horsemonger-lane,
cheered and sustained by the huzzas of a mob drunk and
delirious with excitement, and shouting "Bravo!" "God
bless you, my lad I" " Judicial murder I" "No more hang-
ing !" Truths, sir, ought to be told. There is an immense
deal of morbid cant in the world ; not only morbid, but mis-
chievous. There are those who would place the lives of
the whole country in jeopardy, from an unnatural abnormal
sympathy with the shedder of human blood. To save the

life of one who has destroyed human life they would make
all human life unsafe, and expose every member of the com-
munity to the knife of the assassin. Against this sin,
which is virtually murder in the second degree, as being
accessory in general before the fact, pray, sir, publish the
protest of

COMMON SENSE.

What the Emperor said to the Ambassadors
on New Year's Day.

It was just three minutes past one when the Em-
peror entered the Salle des Marechaux, and the
clock of the Tuileries struck the quarter past as
the company left the hall. It is but just to say that
his Majesty made the best use possible of the twelve
minutes allotted to the service of diplomacy, for in
that restricted space he found means to pay his
usual annual compliment to Monseigneur Chigi, the
Pope's Nuncio; to hope (aloud), in the ear of M. de
Budberg, that the amicable understanding between
France and Russia would continue to exist ; to ex-
press, in a marked manner, to Djemil Pasha all the
pleasure which his master the Su tan had effordei
him by his ready acquiescence to the invitation to
the Congress, to which Djemil Pasha winked and
stuttered, and made a most truly graceful and
Oriental bend of the head, but answered not a
word, which silence may be accounted for by his
total ignorance of the French language. Then a
few words to the Count de Goltz, to condole, with
hint on the indisposition which has prevented the
King, his master, from holding the usual reception
on the occasion of the New Year; to thank M.

Isturitz, in many words, for the cordial reception
accorded to the Empress, and to assure him that
both their Majesties would preserve an eternal sou-
venir of the regal hospitality of Spain. Then came
the turn of the Republican Dayton, who also re-
ceived his share of compliment in the wish ex-
pressed by his Majesty that the coming year would
be one of conciliation for the adverse parties in
America,.

Prince Metternich got his ready made phrase
likewise, and so did M. de Kern, but when his
Majesty came to Lord Cowley he seemed to hesitate
for a moment, then passed by without uttering a
word. It might be that time pressed; it might bo
that he had nothing to say; or, better still, that
there was so much to be said that he felt that it
were wise not to begin. But whatever the cause,
the consequence was great astonishment on the
part of the company, and some little embarrass.
ment on the part of his Lordship. The greatest
wonder of all, however, in the morning's perform-
ance was the late arrival of M. Nigra, the Italian
Ambassador, whoentered the hall absolutely radiant
with smiles—all gay with bright " good mornings,"
just as the whole assembly was leaving. Those
who know more than they read declare that the
negligence was intentional, that Victor Emmanuel
wishes neither to receive nor bestow compliments
just now, and that M. do Nigra had received in-
structions from Turin concerning the behaviour he
was to adopt ; others assign for the omission merely
a natural cause. His Excellency's toilet was most
elaborate, his tenue unexceptionable. He is a late
mau—twelve o'clock is an early hour—and there-
fore was the Chevalier Nigra rather behindhand
with his New Year's compliments. The only thing
which could justify suspicion was the perfect un-
concern with which the Chevalier took his misfor-
tune, for he joined the groups who were departing,
and mingled-in the conversation on the stairs, with
as much ease and freedom as though he were
ascending to the hall of audience instead of descend-
ing without being heard:

CONSPIRACY, OR NO CONSPIRACY ?—W a have no
further details about the plot, writes the Paris
correspondent of one of our morning contemporaries, and
as is invariably the case, some sceptics set a rumour afloat,
which, however, few people are simple-minded enough to
believe in, that the whole is a trumped-up affair. I can re-
member that under Louis Philippe the Republican journals
used openly to complain that the police invented the con-
spiracies which marked that unfortunate monarch's reign
to claim credit for putting them down. Only two days
before Fieschi's attempt (see Guizot's " Memoires") one of
the papers actually printed this :—" The Citizen King yes-
terday came to the Tuileries from Neuilly, with
auguste fatale.' He was not in the least assassinated."
Two days later Fieschi's infernal machine scattered death
throughout the King's escort, It is the same sort of spirit
that denies the existence of the present plot, which, after
the particulars given in the official law papers, no man in
his senses would venture to deny. According to the Italie
of Turin, Trabucco is a native of the Terra di Lavora, and
has been several times in gaol. Greco was brought up,
according to the same aultority, at the Seminary of Pizzo ;
he was expelled from the Jesuits' Convent at Naples, after-
wards expelled from the Barnabite Convent, and finally
found a refnge among the I►nmaculatelli at Castellamare—
a kind of political Bon Basilio. Both he and Trabucco are
said to be mu,icians.

ROSSINI'S " MOISE;' AND AUBER'S " MA-
sANTELLo," are the groat attractions of the Grand Operas

in Paris.

MR. BENEDICT has returned from his rush over
to Germany to superintend the production of his " Colleen
B awn."

WILLIE PAPER THE AMERICAN BOY PIANIST,
is making a very successful provincial tour.

ANE. ARABELLA GODDARD, the pigniste, dill
return to town, fron) Boulogne, next week.