The Sun.
London, England, 1831-01-27 00:00:00

Robert Peel introduced to the House of Common,
with a pompous eulogium on its merits, as a hu-
mane revision of that branch of the crimin d Statutes
which rakes coonizanee of those written frauds that
are effected by means of forged instruments. Our
readers are aware how frankly we expressed our opi-
nion at the time upon this, the last production of
the legislative labours of the Right lion. Baronet,
;n reft te nee to the criminal code. They will recol-
lect that the reasons which we urged against that
Bill passing into a law were responded to in the
Senate; and that, after several animated discussions,
the Bill was, on the third reading, thrown out of the
House of Commcns ; or, to speak more precisely,
amendments were carried which substituted milder
punishments for its various sanguinary provisions,
abolishing the penalty of death in every instance,
with a solitary exception—that of the forgery of
wills. But those amendments were subsequently
lost in the House ef Lords, and the sanguinary pro-
visions restored, on the motion of the then Lold
Chancellor, who most zealously exerted himself to
induce the august assemblage of hereditary legisla-
tors to contravene, in a case where human life was
at stake, the deliberate and righteous decision of
the representatives of the people, and unhappily
succeeded. It is not for us to inquire into the mo-
tives of men—their acts are the objects of our cri-
ticism, either for praie or censure, as they appear
to us to be founded in wisdom or in error—
their motives rest between their consciences and
Heaven. We charge. not the House of Lords
with any wilful resistance to the principles of
sound and considerate jurisprudence, but we do
think that where a question of life and death came
before them, and the merciful view of the question
was stamped with the approbation of the Commons
of England, they ought to have paused before they
threw the weight of their decision into the opposite
-tide, and revived the law of blood ! We can hardly
think it will be denied to be sound policy, that a
law making a crime capital should never be passed
but with the concurrence of a unanimous, or as
nearly as possible a unanimous, Legislature—because
life should never be taken away but on the clearest
conviction of the propriety of exercising a
power, which, if wrongly exercised, admits of
no reparation. When Legislators or Judges err
on the side of blood, they cannot command the
grave to give back the victim—no writ of error
runs into the realm of death. Unjust altainders have
indeed been sometimes reversed by the tardy justice
of the Legislature, but to afford redress to the suf-
ferer by the unjust sentence was beyond the " om-
nipotence" of Parliament. Where error admits of
no remedy, it is particularly necessary that doubts
should always have a retaining authority with those
w'ho enact laws and those who execute them. On
this part of the question the author of " Anti-
Draco" says, " In criminal trials, when a Jury hesi-
tates upon its verdict, and the life of man trembles
in the balance, the Judge invariably tells those on
whose decision it depends whether the prison-
doors shall fly open to give him to freedom or the
grave, that, if they entertain a reasonable doubt,
they should give the benefit of that doubt to the
prisoner. That principle should never be forgotten
by Legislators proposing the enactment of capital
punishments. If adverse sentiment be strong,
they should shrink from the danger of de-
stroying life where judicial homicide has not
the sanction of opinion. Where a reasonable doubt
exists, they should give that doubt to the benefit of
mercy—they should give it to the benefit of their
own reflections, and save ti,eir consciences from
remorse !" And was not the House of Lords
bound to consider it matter of reasonable doubt
whether death ought to be inflicted in cases of for-
gery, seeing that upon three solemn discussions, and
with the influence of the House of Commons
thrown into the scale of severity, the House of
Commons finally decided that forgery was • not a
crime for which the Ye of a man ought to be sacri-
ficed? Seeing also that petitions from all parts of
the country, and from the most respectable and in-
telligent classes—merchants, clergymen, and law-
yers—were presented in favour of a milder law;
and seeing that one petition, in particular, to the
same effect, was signed by upwards of one thousand
bankers—men for the especial protection of whose
property it was said that the crime had been etigin-
ally made capital,but who were Lest acquainted with
i,s intfficacy, and therefore supplicated the Legisla.
cure that they would not continue to inflict upon
them the spurious protection of a law which was
too vindictive and inhuman to be capable, in a moral
arid Christian country, of being carried into any
thing like uniform or general operation. Such is
the law under. which the unhappy woman Ann
Pearman Pain had been capitally convicted, and
whose sentence, we are told, has only been deferred
in consequence of her peculiar and pitiable situation
as described io the paragraph which stands at the
head of this article. The House of Lords restored
the Draconic law under the circumstances which we
have stated ; and the sanguinary provisions of the
Bill having been brought back to the . House of
Commons, which had previously rejected them,
while almost all the Members, except those
under the immediate influence of the Govern-
ment, had left town; to address their constituents
ru antizipation of a general election, Sir Robert Peel
obtained for his principles the inglorious triumph
which temperate justice and enlightened humanity
still deplore. Had the Administration under which
this Bill passed continued in power, we confess we
doubt whether even they would have dared, in spite
of the resolution of the House of Commons, to ad-
vise the Sovereign to carry it into execution ; and,
therefore, we cannot believe the present Govern-
ment, composed as it is of the men who led on the
Opposition and thiew out that Bill on its third
reading, will ever take upon themselves the awful
responsibility of taking away life under the sanction
of an Act whose principles they so indignantly repu-
diated. We are the more decidedly of that opinion
when we consider that the foremost man among
that Opposition was the present Lord Chancellor,
who never exercised his great and splendid talents
in debate with more energy and effect than in
his eloquent exposure of the inhuman, impolitic,
and inefficient provisions of a Bill, which, in punish-
ing crime, was itself a crime against civilised legis-
lation ! No—we repeat it—we cannot believe that
the present Ministers will advise the Crown to allOw
this law to take effect on the unfortimate woman in
question, or on any other convict. They have it
in their power now to apply to the offence those se-
condary punishments of which they were the advc-
cates. We cannot believe they will think it their
duty to enforce, in their power, the extreme penal-
ties of a law, which, v hen out of office, they. de-
scribed as disgraceful to the age and country. In
other Ministers its enforcement might be attributed
to ignorance and obstinate prejudice,—in them it
would be a " sin against knowledge," and no better
than judicial murder : arid surely the instructive re-
sult of the recent trials for high treason in Paris will
not make them more enamoured than they were be-
ore of sanguinary examples !—Morning Herald.

ALTER ET IDEM.—YOU tell us your wine is
had, and that the clergy do not frequent your house, which
we look upon to be tautology.— Gay to Swift.

THE FANCY.—The battle money, in the late
fight between NEAL and SAM, was given up to SAM by
Toat CRIBB on Monday night, in the presence of an over-
flowing house.
Among the importations from Londonderry
last week was a lot of about 200 turkeys under charge of
one individual. About half of them were sent forward
to Edinburgh.— Glasgow Journal.
MR. O'CONNELL AND LORD CLONCURRY.
—We understand that the lion. and Learned Member for
IWaterford had an interview on Saturday with his Lordship
at Maretimo, the country seat of the latter.—hublin
Morning Post.

MODERN ROME.—The only habitations now
remainimg on the Palatine Hill, on the resting-place of the
tabernacle of Roman magnificence and sensuality, the
Golden House of N Rao, are a few cottages among the ruins
by the Vignerole, and the convent of St. Bonaventura.—
Asiatic Journal, No. XIII.