The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-09 00:00:00

Mr. EWART presented petitions from a public me,

ing held at Exeter Hall, signed by 13,000 persons ;
from Liverpool, signed by the magistrates of the borough
and the most respectable inhabitants ; from Exeter,
Southampton, Flyllast, and other places, in favour of the
total abolition of the punishment of death.
Mr. TiIORNELY presented a petition from Liverpool
to the a ame (effect.

Mr. EWART then rose to bring forward the motion
of which ho had g'vea notice—namely, the total aboli-
tion of the punishment of death. He said that it was
' now seven years since he had the honour of bringing
this subject before the attention, or rather before the
' patience, of the House. In Viese years this subject ex-
' cited a deep interest, but it had now assumed a far
deeper and greater interest. He thought this was shown
partly in the number of petitions on the table, and
partly by the numerous meetings which had
been held throughout the country. At that time few
of the clergymen of the Established Church had given
in their adherence to the principle of the total abolition
of the punishment of death, but now they had vast num
hers who thought as they did, and who had not only
appended their names to petitions, but also appeared
at public meetings held for the purpose of advo-
cating the doing away with that punishment.
There was also a great difficulty in obtaining verdicts
from juries which involved the punishment of death.
Many instances had occurred of this kind—instances in
which the guilt of the criminal had been clearly esta-
blished, but in which the juries refused to return
a verdict of guilty. He would not enter into
the theological or theoretical view of the question. He
contended that nothing but necessity could justify
punishment by death: One of the most eminent of
Italian writers had written upon this subject, he referred
to the Marquis Becarria: the ground of his argument
was, that it was impossible to justify the in-
fliction of capital punishment, except upon the
ground of absolute necessity.—(Hear, hear.) Another
person who had also devoted considerable attention to
the subject of criminal jurisprudence—no less a personage
than the King of Sweden—had also written upon
the subject to the same effect.—(Hear, hear.)
The question he put before the House and the country
was, whether the infliction of capital punishment was
any longer necessary for the executiona of justice. First
of all, he would prove that
it ,as not necessary, and,
secondly, that it was positively injurious. It was quite
evident that punishment of death was unnecessary, from
what took place under the reign of Leopold of Tuscany,
while he need not remind the House of what
occurred under the administration of Sir James
Mackintosh in India, who. abolished capital
punishment, nor need he
remind them what happened
when Lord Minto was in power in Italia, who also
abolished capital
punishment. In both cases capital
crimes diminished, and the same result had followed the
punishment on the part of the
abandonment of capital
present Emperor of Austria. Why, when it was
moved to abolish capital punishment in cases of
cattle stealing and forgery, it was urged that it
would be dangerous to the country. (Hear.) But
how erroneous had this proved to be ! The same
argument would apply with equal force when used ;in
reference to other crimes, which were formerly punished
by death,(as a diminution rather than an increase in their
number had taken place, but. virtually they only retained
the punishment of death for murder. It was true there
were two or three crimes which, according to the statute
book, were punishable by death ; but the punishment
was a dead letter—its living spirit only survived, for
capital punishment was only inflicted for the com-
mission of murder. But on what grounds die!
they abolish capital punishment for other crimes
and retain it only for murder ? The only argu-
ment was that there was some proportion between
tha crime of murder and its punishment by d. eath—thai
a man who had killed another ought to be killed by the
law in return ; but, after all, this was nothing better
than the law of retaliation, and would apply
with equal force to other crimes with respect
to which they had abolished the extreme punishment.
The punishment of " an eye for an eye, arid a tooth for
a tooth," had been abolished with respect to many
crimes, therefore there was no tenable reason that it
should be retained with respect to murder. Lord Bacon
described such a punishment as " that sort of retalite
tary justice which is nothing more than civilised and
deliberate revenge." He would next proceed to deal
with statistics, the authenticity el which were undoubted,
in support of his argument, that the punishment ought to
be abrogated. He proposed, first, to adduce statistics
relaticg to the period when corporal punishment was
abolished with respect to many crimes; next, the period
following it, and then he should compare them together
and show the result. Periods of distress frequently en
gend. ered violent crimes, so that they could not all be
attributed to the violent passions of mankind.
He merely made these statements to show Hon. Mem-
bers who were opposed to him on this question that the
increase of crimes to which he bad referred was not to
be ascribed to the abolition of capital punishments, but
to
,the distress which prevailed. He should limit his
ebservations on statistics to a few returns mainly
bearing on the particular question involved in his
motion. The first return he would read to the House
was one made on the 22d of May, 1830. It showed
that in 1830, the year when the abolition of capital
punishments took place to a considerable extent, and for
five ;years previous to it, the number of crimes
for which this punishment had been awarded was
greater than during the five years succeeding. Takirg
again the five y ears ending 1825, the five years ending
1830, the five years ending 1835, and the flee 3 ears end-
ing 1840, in each of these successive periods, a
gradual decrease of crimes, for which oipi-
!al punishment. had been inflicted was shown.
in proportion as executions had decreased, so had also
the crimes for which this kind of punishment was
inflicted decreased in extent. But there was after-
wards another return called for, at the sugges-
tion of an excellent friend of his who had
written on this subject. It was dated the 29th
day of August, 1843, and showed a decrease of the
crime of murder, and a lessening of capital punish-