The Sun.
London, England, 1862-12-02 00:00:00

THE SUN.

LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 2, 1862.

If we are not much mistaken the Garotters not
yet caught will think twice over their chances of
capture before determining upon a perseverance
in their profession. The punishments awarded at
the close of last week to those who were caught in
the act of brutally strangling or bludgeoning their
fellow creatures will—we may be quite certain
of this —be effectual to some extent in
warning their comrades from the path lead-
ing so inevitably to those bitter doses of
penal servitude. For four years—for five years
—for ten years—for twenty years—for Life! It is
enough to make the most daring ruffian of them all
pause in his career of villany before tempting his
destiny so rashly as a SYKES turned Thug and
armed with a knuckle-cluster.

Effectually, however, though Baron BRAMWELL
has brought these modern Stranglers to bay by his
inexorable distribution of punishments—when the
first shock produced by that earliest batch of 18
sentences has in some measure died away, we fear
that the exploits of the Garotters still at large will
be heard of again, a little later on, with terrible
frequency. The more audacious among the gang
will trust to their luck that they may escape
detection. They will once more be lying in wait at
the foggy street-corners—watching for one of their
deadly opportunities. It has curiously so happened
that in the instance of one of the moat atrocious
cases tried in the Central Criminal Court, the effect
produced by the punishment awarded to one of the
convicted felons, the effect produced by that award
upon a relative of the offender, a sister of the man
LANE, appears to have been the reverse of either
quieting or cautionary. The instance of Garotting
we are here alluding to, was the very flagrant case
in which four men were all but the murderers of a
Mr. MICHAEL MURRAY, of Chelsea. Those who
watched the trial of the various Garotters brought
in succession before Baron BRAMWELL, cannot but
remember how it was that the victim of those four
garotters was cruelly maltreated : his jawbone
being fractured—his teeth knocked out—he himself
left by his assailants in a state of insensibility.
Scarcely had the news got about London that a
fittingly severe punishment had been awarded to
the three out of this amiable parti carree of Garotters
who were caught in the act of assaulting Mr. MUR-
RAY or immediately afterwards—when the sister of
one of them is proved to have had the consummate
audacity to threaten the life of the unfortunate vic-
tim of those Garotters. Swearing that she would be
revenged upon him, though it were forty years
hence, for having been instrumental in bringing
the offenders to justice. The incident is significant
if only for inasmuch as it evidences the fact that,
telling though the sentences of Baron BRAM-
WELL have proved to be oa the whole—they have
not invariably, by any means, told the right
way. No! we are brought back here again to
the recognition of the truth that an especial and
peculiar punishment is required for an especial
and peculiar offence. And that punishment ? It
has been recently suggested very fairly by Mr.
ADDERLEY, and only this morning effectively en-
forced by the arguments of an intelligent corres-
pondent (E.) of our chief morning contemporary.
"The remedy," writes this correspondent, "is ob-
vious. Furnish for violence an additional
penalty that shall be short, sharp, and, above
all, immediate. It has not escaped, nor is it con-
demned by so experienced an inquirer as Mr. AD-
DERLEY, but it has been regarded for some time in
England with so almost superstitious a dislike that
I will not name it at once. I will only say that it
is a punishment well known and well defined, the
very instrument by which it is inflicted subject to
strict regulation ; that it is proved by an immense
experience to be productive of no lasting injury,
and that it supplies the very kind of motive
most likely to be effective with the kind of
villains who can maltreat their fellow-creatures for
the sake of a few shillings. In our times the
threat of it arrested at once a particular sort of
crime which every
'leers put down by its agency,
Every man of
pro-
bably loyal subject viewed with dread.
experience must have known muti-
neers
well-educated m
youth to its infliction ; and in grave c
ap-
plied to our soldiers and sailors. B
enough in their early days f
. Most educated,
en, have been liable in
it
ritecfEtai,tr
among us, and is good enough,
our pilot defilidors, is too bud, it Rooms, for our