The Sun.
London, England, 1841-05-17 00:00:00

ABOLITION OF CAPITAL PU-
NISHMENTS.
(From the New York Journal of Commerce.)
Mr. O'Sullivan, from the Select Committee to which
was referred so much of the Governor's Message as r(..
lutes to the subj ct of capital punishment, and also pc-
titions from sundry citizens, praying for the repeal of
all laws :Inrhorizing the infliction of such punishment
in this State, has broeght in a long report favourable to
the views of the petitioners. It proposes as a substi-
tute, Imprisonmeot for life, in solitude and at labour,
and also to take away from the Governor the power to
grant a pardon for treason, murder, or arson in the first
do roe. After conviction for. either of these crimes,
the Governor may, on the discovery of any new or ma-
evidence in favour of the accused, grant a new
trial. No law shall be passel in any of the said cases,
to pardon or mitigate the sentence of any prisoner con.
victed of the crimes just mentioned, within twenty
years from the date of such conviction ; and then such
a law must have the concurrence of two-thirds of all
the members of each branch of the Legislature. For
these purposes, a Bill and a concurrent resolution to
amend the Coestitution are annexed to the report.

Among the reasons used in the report for the aboli-
tion of capital punishment, is the uncertainty of convic-
tion. Every criminal lawyer in the State, of any ex-
tended practice, will regard this remark as a truism. It
is vain to talk of jurors' oaths—they will violate them,
by what their consciences regard as only pious perjuries,
under a thousand pleas of technical deficiencies or im-
perfections of evidence.
The axiom is familiar to all, that it is the certainty,
not the increased severity of the punishment, that deters
from crime.

It is no untried experiment that is here proposed,
says the report. Other communities, with far inferior
general moral culture, have abolished the punishment
of death, and with such success as amply to justify us
in the great reform. Throughout all the better age of
the Roman republic, for a period of about two centuries
and a half, the infliction of the punishment of death
upon a Roman citizen for any cause whatever, was ex-
pressly forbidden by the famous Porcian law—a demo.
erotic law, passed in 454th year of Rome, by the tri-
bune Porcius Locca. "In this period," writes Black-
stone, " the republic flourished. Under the Emperors,
severe punishments were revived, and then the empire
fell."

In ancient Egypt, under Sabaco, for 'a period of fifty
years, as Herodotue and Diodorus Siculus inform us,
these penalties were changed with much success into
stated kinds of labour, and Grotius recommends this
example to other nations.
The Empress Elizabeth, of Russia, on ascending the
throne., pledged herself never to inflict the punishment
of death ; and throughout her reign of twenty years she
kept the noble pledge. The great Catharine adopted it,
with the exception of very rare offences against the State.
" If," said she, " I can show that in the ordinary state of
society the death of a citizen is neither useful nor neces-
sary, I shall have pleaded the cause of humanity with suc-
cess." From that day to the present, there have been
but two occasions on which the punishment of death
has been inflicted in Russia. The Count de Segur, on
his return from his embassy at St. Petersburgb, declared
that Russia, under the operation of this law, was one
of the countries in which the least number of murders
was committed ; and added that Catharine often said
to him, " We must punish crime without imitating it ;
the punishment of death is rarely anything but a useless
barbarity."
During the seven years of the Recordership of the
celebrated Sir James Mackintosh, at Bombay, in India,
the punishment of death was never once inflicted in the
Court over which he presided. Of which, he says,
" Considering all the circumstances, it will appear that
the capital crimes committed during the last seven
years, with no capital execution, have, in proportion to
the population, not been much more than a third of
those committed in the first seven years, notwithstand-
ing the infliction of death on forty-seven persons."
In Tuscany the most satisfactory experiment has
been made. The Grand Duke Leopold, in 1765, abo-
lished the torture and the punishment of death. After
an experiment of twenty-one years, he issued a solemn
edict in which he declared that, instead of increasing,
smaller crimes bad considerably diminished, and atro-
cious ones had become very rare. And he proceeds
to say," We have resolved to abolish, and by the present
law do abolish, for ever, the punishment of death." A
report to the French Chamber of Deputies in 1830
states that " The mildness of the penal legislation in
Tuscany had so improved the character of the people
there, that there was a time when the prisons of the
Grand Duchy were found entirely empty. Behold
enough to prove sufficiently that the abolition of the
punishment of death is capable of producing the most
salutary effects."
This report will be found highly interesting by all
who take an interest in the subject. It is also highly
creditable to the author, J. L. O'Sullivan, Esq., one o
the members from this city. It makes, including the ap-
pendix, a pamphlet or volume of 164 pages, large Bvo.
We are inclined to regard the doctrine urged in this
report, as founded in reason and the nature of man.
Perhaps we might hesitate to go the whole figure at
once, but when we see how the most horrid crimes
stalk abroad in the land, increasing both in number
and (if possible) in enormity, in spite of laws decree-
ing an ignominious death as the penalty for their
perpetration, we a. e dri‘ en to the alternative either of
admitting that all punishment is ineffectual for the pre-
vention of crime, or that the kind of punishment awarded
to the most flagrant crimes, is not well adapted to se-
cure its object. The latter supposition is daily gaining
strength in this country, and is beginning to affect the
legislation of some of the States. The laws of
Alabama, as revised at the last Session of the Le-
gislature, says the Louisville Advertiser, makes but
one kind of crime punishable by death, while forty-two
kinds are held punishable by confinement in the Peni-
tentiary, from periods varying from two up to fifty
years. Murder, in the first degree, is the crime which
the law makes punishable by death, but even this the
Court can at its option punish, by sentence of imprison-
ment, in the Penitentiary for life. Death in a duel is
held to be murder in a second degree, and made punish-
able by confi..ement in the Penitentiary for a period
of ten years. To give, accept, or carry a challenge,
disqualifies for holding office in the Stat.-, and is fur-
ther punishable by confinement in the Penitentiary for
two yei.rs. Rape is punishable by confinement there
for life ; bribery of executive, legislative, ministerial,
or judicial offic rs., from two to seven years ; steam-boat
racing, by which life is endangered, for two years ; and
loss of lite, or injury to the person by negligence or wart
of sk.ll in officers of boats, from two to ten years.

THE GHOST OF JUVENAL-STREET.—For
some time past, more especially for the last ten days,
much annoyance has been occasioned to the inhabitant's-
of Juvenal-street, and the neighbourhood, owing to the
immense crowds of persons who nightly assemble there
in consequence of a rumour that " some phantom of the
other world" is in the habit of paying his or her (for the
sex is doubtful) nocturnal visits to the house of a re-
spectable gentleman residing at No. 2, Juvenal-street.
Several respectable inhabitants of the neighbourhood
have assured us that most unusual noises are frequently
heard in the house alluded to, although they smile at the
idea of these noises being occasioned by supernatural
agencies. A lady residing near, a person of education,
and not likely to have her fancy led astray by a belief in
supernatural beings, told us that the nuisance occasioned
by the ringing of bells in the house, without apparently
anything to account for seuting them in motion, became
so great, not only to the inhabitants of the house, but to
the neighbours, that it was deemed necessary to take
them all down, and they remain unhung at the present
time. This unusual occurrence commenced about three
months ago. After the bells were taken down, a greater
nuisance occurred, owing t) an unusal and unaccount-
able noise being heard at intervals in the house, occa-
sioned by the sudden and simultaneous bursting open
and bang Lug to of the doors of the different rooms. No
later than yesterday at noon, so great was the noise
thus occasioned, that it might have been heard a hun
Bred yards oil, and the vibration was such as to cause
the house to shake to such a degree as to attract the at-
tention of the police-officers (who have for some time
been appointed to parade before the house), and persons
in the street. These statements we had confirmed by
several of the neighbours, and they
urrphoen
police
facts,and
otherse t what
investigated the
e the_
effects
m tt matter, buted
no clue has yet been obtained to account for the unusual
occurrence.—L iverpool Journal.

The survey Of the western provinces of India
seems to have been nearly completed, and the definition
of agricultural rights and boundaries, which
bwhieh was in-
eluded in the work, has proved of greataswellenefit in re-
moving a fruitful source of litigation,vaollueenceet
landed property. The extension of this
,
and has, in consequence, greatlyenhanced .
survey to tha
' the value
Benares district appears to have been v. recent
enlarge-
ment of the original plan. After the portion of theAzinghur district, which is beyond Benares, had been
surveyed, and the revenue had been settled, the collec-
tor proposed to the Government that they should con-
tinue the survey to Pergunnah of Secunderpore, not to
make a new settlement of the revenue, but to obtain a
clear definition of rights and boundaries. The desired
survey was effected, and the benefits that resulted were
so obvious, that the western provinces solicited an ex-
tension of the plan to the whole of Benares. Lord
Auckland readily sanctioned the scheme, which, after a
few interruptions, arising from the disapproval of parties
at home, and the loss of some money, has been allowed
to proceed, and is expected shortly to be completed.
We are informed that several valuable veins of
coal of the finest quality have just been won under the
direction of Mr. Nixon at the colliery of Languiun,near
Nantes, belonging to the Languiun Iron and Coal Com-
pany, which was formed last year by Mr. Leunie Murray,
of London. The coal is said to be admirably suited for
making cast iron of superior quality, to which. use it is
to be exclusively devoted by the proprietors, abundance
of the richest ore being fonnd in the immediate neigh-
bourhood. The small quantity or coke-made iron pro-
duced in. France, and its very high price as compared
with ...-un
of national ;in
4611 free, renders the success of the undertaking
1--
--,lrtagce to this country.—Galignani's
Messenger.
The Day Mail from Southampton
will -
in future be despatched from Southampton, a quarter
befOre ten, a.m., instead of eleven._southampton Inde-
pendent. Lsindon