The Sun.
London, England, 1847-03-10 00:00:00

,
capital punishment was altogether done away
The punishment of death had been abolished on that
country in 1834, but in 1835 some wise philosopher
conceived that it was again necessary to label the
capital punishment for the sake of setting an example'
capital punishments were, therefore, revived, and what
was the result ? Why, that the crimes which in the
years 1830 to 1834 had been only committed by 60 persons,
had risen in the years succeeding the revival of the
punishment of death to 80 or somewhat like 23 per cent:
tie therefore thought that this was a strong argument
to show that that punishment was not necessary. Ile
thought that the present improved system of Prier
discipline, the larger army of police kept up, not onli 1P
the towns but in the rural districts, and the extended
education which was granted to all classes, were the
best securities fur the due observance of the I°Y;
It was incumbent on them to prove that the punishment
of death was necessary, rather than for him to Pre
that it was unnecessary. Ile was. however, prepare°
prove that the punishment of death was not only
necessary, but was positively injurious to the criintet:
the jury who tried the case, and the public who
wit
nessed the execution. The first object of all Pleas t
ment should be to insure its certainty. At Pres,ege
there was no certainty in the infliction of the pue'ssa
meat of death ; the criminal felt that it wbie
uncertain, and this uncertainty encouraged in
mind a species of moral gambling, and induced hi::
to stake his existence against the severity of the It
Another cause of the uncertainty attending the pre,at
_
law was, the badly defined legal acceptation of the cello:
of murder; it depended upon the proof of the erlbtce
,
having been committed with malice prepense. whet
the criminal was or was not convicted ; and this rasp;rde
prepense was judged of according to various standt,e
by the different judges who tried the case.
consequence of all this was, to encourage uncertainty'
and that uncertainly would not fail to encourage °rills°
The magnitude of the punishment created a
left
heroism, but its great objection was, that it le`t,
criminal unreformed, and sent him to his last account
"Unabsolved, unannealed, with all
His imperfections on his head."
'gee
The existence of this punishment enfeebles the deel
of their tribunals, for the magnitude of the punishrat
threw the crime into the shade. The decistons of trA
jury ought to be clear and distinct, and not overshadel7
by the magnitude of the penalty imposed by tabusta
But what was the effect upon the public—the p/0r .
whom they ought first of all to look—the public
ere
a,
whose sake it was said that capital punishments
`s•
to be continued as an example ? Why, it 1,-e
pitai punishment was to be continued, should tmetie
not make it a solemn, a serious ceremony? why net 1;1
vest it with all the dignity of decorum ? But, los'rif
of that, it was carried out hurriedly, at an sect,
hour of the morning, and had no salutary eus;td
But what was the glorious example it was heir
to inculcate ? Would they wish any of beet
relatives, any of their children, to witness an °scone ?
with the view of inculcating a deep moral lose%
What father would take his children to witness sucb
.bi. ,
exhibition ? None. Yet they held that such eltiP„ie •
tions were for the public good ; but were the Pee,
whom they ought to do all in their power to elevates ifi •
stead of debasing and demoralizing, to be allowed lello,
to witness such sanguinary spectacles, and to have 7:es.
natures thereby perverted and hardened ? Wee„"ed'-
would ask,was the effect of an exhibition upon the
who witnessed it ? It was expected, as he haae-eer
to do good ; but they left it with au,,e-
rence and disgust. And more, it bad 11-ete
proved—repeatedly proved—that the spectators Woe
brutalised, that many had subsequently hetet'
criminals, and that a great majority of the nuntheree,e
had been executed had, at some period of their 11;4
witnessed an execution.—(Hear, hear.) If it eoef,,, st
ee
good upon the public —if it inculcated a were
moral lesson its infliction ought to be were
dignified, instead of hurrying it over as if theY bed
' ashamed of what they were doing. Its effect was p•" •
in the extreme, for after the criminal was rather:acts
sidered a hero than pitied. Attempts had been
ni-rder
to get the punishment inflicted in private, is it •
that the public mind might not be brutalised; but f
were made private what would become of theexatePle„tPeae
wished to inculcate?—there was an end of it at "ieri
But further, if they established private executions, 'fide
then was their great moral example ? Such PI rr
ments could not be inflicted in a free country withee:end
ceiving the full force and pressure of public opinien:
in a country like England, no punishment Otto,
not fully combine the feeling of public apre"P rer
could be long maintained it must have the full exttbei
sion of this opinion in its favour. It might be said d•
ae
public opinion went in favour of the law, but the recta'
tions which he had presented that night would bus
that this was not so. And not only these petitions,f the
daily experience and the annually growing feelieE ;iht
country was against the punishment of death. pithsßutkef
be asked, what would he substitute for it ? 1-111eue,:dten
refinement of the system of punishment which hadfot
place thep might fairly substitute inaprisonmee' ass-. 1
life. 1 his had been tried in other countries, and he "sttr,
no reason why it should not be tried in this. It Nan hi
his system of punishment was not severe enough; 1;0
opinion it was far more severe on the individual toe
the punishment of death, while it held out 1.4.
Prospect of the reformation of the crier
Iu shorter periods of imprisonment the prisoner ell•
come out, if not altogether improved, at least colnPe,. att
tively pure. This might be done by irepriserorteettiel
it' legislation could not accomplish every thing. it es/re-
do much towards alleviating the evils by which the P•nr
sent system was beset. But it was not for the objelt
punishment that the imprisonment should bo impoio",ist
much as the reformation of the prisoner, and they le,
strike deeper than that for the extirpation of aim.
They must educate the people, and not leave them
to
conceive that punishment was to become a sort of
•
verge. There were two sorts of the
which was internal, and which arose f
her which
operations of the mind itself ; and the other d
was external, derivable from the influence of extern
_
objects. Those were the means by educatiom
which they tee
they
toe ffect the improvement of the culprit, for 11 most
looked to the periods when the punishments were
that
every, they would find that crime was at doe
time most frequent. They need not look to the were
of Henry the Eighth, when 70,000 Perseeseyeeld
executed, but to contemporaneous history theY " that
find from the excellent book of the King of Sweden, 'one
in Spain, where crime was most frequent there was has
execution to every 150,000 persons, but in Swedeletose
was one only to every 170,000 of the poPel"bere
The Hon. Member then quoted certain statistic': to s was
that in those countries where the punishment of death ei•
less frequent, the crime of murder was proportionalcoe
tninished. He was aware this subject required theexe...„.
of great patience on the part of the House, as the aiet
nests were neither very new nor very interesting;
there was one point to which he must refer, 0
meant the consideration of this questio in cOneltes
with the doctrine of Christian repentance. Some death
opponents of the abolition of the punishment of deli
had conceded that two or three, four, five, or tee or
should be granted for repentance, but they thel,eital,
ceded the principle that the abolition of all 7,p'rion
punishment was necessary, as who could tell what rbts'
vas required for repentance. In all periods of 1004
tory of the world, when civilisation had adv aeilt
to the highest point, and the greatest 000
was shown to avoid the infliction of the punieb.l the,
of death, in the high and palmy days of Rome, flea
close of her Republic, when she had attained the Petiole
of her highest grandeur, and her greatest civilise
they found in the fourth oration of Cicero Wine esie
line, that there were many among them who
.„ ego
Mortem a diis immortulibus non supplicii canisawidert
datum; itaque cum sapienlis nunquim inviti feria "-p
libenter oppetiverunt," They found that this avers'o
viol
inflict the punishment of death was admirably dereere
in a speech of Mous. De Lamartine some bri,S,
ago in the Chamber of Deputies ;„ re
lie called upon the House to unite with hial_rerebi
pealing the punishment of 'death, to achieve t°_;'d
a great social, moral, and religious victory, 1":
offer up a last sacrifice, expiatory of the stte4,7;jier
legislation of the past, upon the united altars of el"-
don and Christianity. that
Dr. BOWRING, in seconding the motion, said out
every discussion which took place in that House, an hen'
of doors brought the time nearer when the totalbed
Lion of capital punishment would take place. Seeeeseferiti
hitherto attended every attempt to mitigate the se' j 001
of the criminal laws of the country, and he doutelition
but that the same result would follow the total auu
of the punishment of death. It would be found that state
regard of human 'life was always associated with Penne'
of barbarism, and that a disposition to retr`e."oea.
the sacredness of life, and .an till'
to throw it away, was the great, the tel6ve
guishing boast of civilisation and ehristrebte
and the furtherst advance of civilisation and te` et
losophy. It would be found also that in a etse-hefe
society in which human life was wasted „v•toe.
would also be found, the greatest amount of fiia'-e of
The legisture wanted to create a horror of the c,r'; be'
murder, and yet by means of their legislation teeJaead
came murderers themselves ; they wished to rirereisle
life by safeguards, and yet by their systems oti.
ment they strove to overthrow and destroy
Wee
the intention of the legislature to eherise"oolo
they should not take it away themselves.- -% d
The murderer was a man of universal abhorrence' setbeir
undoubtedly ought to be so ; but did they etreeeetetielg
object by this mode of punishment ? Had ex`-'OOl4
impressed upon the public mind any additional hfurages
By no means. It appeared to him that of all the J'etest
beings who gather around the scaffold, the gra ;be
number of them applaud the courage and heroism begin
sufferer, instead of decrying his crime. Let there Were
themselves at the right end, by showing that thole; is
not willing to destroy life—let them show that IS er
their estimate, was a thing too valuable to be spilt
of
thrown away, and thus, by adding to the self
so
life, they would create a new state of things, ana_! a
bin
prove the public mind, as even to effect a reform ,r
the man who was disposed to throw life away
sacrifices of life, and the amount of suffering the her
nishment led to, induced him to think that some be
mode of punishment could with safety and proprietlor
adopted. It was most gratifying to contrast the legLae.
tion of the past with the legislation of the presen e tu
much as it proved that the experiments they had elree e
goo
made had been successful, and he hoped the !,
~a,
would, therefore, agree to the motion of his Hon. I.l.'le:ot
Sir GEORGE GREY regretted that he coula ,"ad
agree to the Bill which the Hon. Gentle:3;i%; it
sought leave to introduce. On the present oe
aliasr.
was true he had avoided the objection which Ws
merly entertained with respect to a similar Wist
vhich,the Hon. Gentleman made settle years eV:4,Od
1841, he believed the Hon. Gentleman brought 0
aaffirermsoeludtion,
that,w hiincht,hief iotphinadionbeeonf atdhoaptteHd:ouwsee,llll,delipilitlael
punishment ought to be altogether abolishedo.b
Jett::
resolution as that was open to the greatest
of
and would have had the effect, if it had been adftee
"d'
placing those intrusted with the administ r
the laws, in a vary. painful and difficult P°3144