The Sun.
London, England, 1846-04-30 00:00:00

PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.

A great public meeting was held on Wednesday evening in
the large room at Exeter Hall, to consider what means ought
to be used for the abolition of the punishment of death. The
hall was crowded in every corner long before the hour for
the commencement of business.

W. EAVAET, Esq., M.P., who was unanimously called to
the chair, introduced the subject to the meeting which had
called them together. It was unnecessary, he felt, to detain
them long. Their adversaries on the question had been
driven from point to point and from crime to crime in this
kind of award, and now death was inflicted only for one
crime—the crime of murder.—(Hear, hear.) He remem-
bered at the time when it was attempted to abolish death as the
punishment for sheep-stealing and burglary, that one rose
up and said the consequence of that would be, that they
I could nottrust their domestic servants ; when it was moved to
abrogate it as the penalty of forgery, another said commercial
credit would be at an end. Was the punishment of death,
he asked, retained on the principle of the lex talionis, like for
like, death for death ? He believed no man did so. Or was it
then retained for the sake of example? Why, on the part
of their adversaries, a motion had lately been made that
this sentence of the law should be executed in private, so
that for them the argument from example went for nothing.
But if they supported the present system on the ground of
exarhple let them send their children to the spectrae
(Cheers)—and the more especially if this was mortr,!„..
part of a national system of education.--( )t oi e b—: ef
spirit and the precepts of Christi.anty
tiny did maintain it on religious grounds, hree bdeilrieecielyd tohpaptost
elide
fence taken up by parties on its behalf. ..
to it. There was one remarkable ditl e rweHrei cee
(i
ivit
IV]
Ee linew e
r to)fai
.1 e d-
w 'eh had been got up from year to year. These
his friends depended on the Parliamentary Statistical Returns
Milled a diminution of executions, and with that a diminu-
tion of crime ; and what was also worthy of observation, they
exhibited an increase of convictions, thus showing with what
crrtainty criminals can be detected when juries were un-
trammelled by a perverse sentence. He begged the meeting
to bear in mind the result which had been drawn from these
statistics by Mr. Wrightson, which was, that with the dimi-
nution of executions there was a diminution of crime. They
felt themselves secured and well established on these figures
in their efforts against this systematised evil, at the same
time they were encouraged and strengthened in their oppo-
sition by the scene which he saw around him, as well as by
the general movement which he knew was proceeding in
Liverpool, and Southampton, and other places. It had been
said, however, that they desired the abolition of this sentence
from false sentiment and from false delicaey of mind,
He said that was far flora him. If any false sentiment
existed in the community in connexion with this question,
it had been produced not by the crime, but by the punish-
ment of the crime—(Hear, hear)—for he believed that the
criminal was exalted into a species of hero, not by the crime
he had committed, but by the punishment inflicted upon
him—it .was the awful punishment of death which enlisted
false feeling. If crime had produced this false feeling, then
it would have continued while they viewed those crimes in
reference to which death had been- abolished, but that false
feeling continued to exist only towards that one crime which
was still punished capitally.
now towards the sheep-stealer or the burg
No one had
burglar,
for
rcthh
efeel mgocca-
sion had been taken away. They had been
other side, w'hether they were
punishment, instead of that which it was sought
elative scale
not there to find out the cerr
prepared
Now, they were 'tc'aasked
kteoodffae offer
by
abolish.
adapted to crimi-
nalsvinced that there was a punishment more .
ment for life;
and character of punishment and crime, yet they were con-
for what could be more awful to
dn .
s the companion of tsognreater torment
guilty of murder, and that Ilvaans—nnwphrat
—than.to be for the rest of his
at 3 would carry with it more
soli-
tude and his sin? Such a prospect
of existence ; and if this solitary
a moment out-
the criminal, and repent-
ance, weight than the punishment which swept a
and reflection produced sorrow in .
accordance with the
spirit and end of religion. -
livingb
imprisonmentei in
then it became a sentence moarse
The lion. Gentleman's speech w
was received by the
audience with 1 mg-continued cheering.
heehairman to move the
trance of John Bright,. Mr., who
Lord NUGENT was called on by j
Lord did by adverting to
interrupted by the
in .
statutes, and the history of
moderate this particular
first resolution, which the Noble
sanguinary
He said the Roman laws werer whose bloody edicts, said
laws in other nations.
The Tuscan code, which
an example to the nations in cle-
mency,
Seneca, untilth et a
ut igmhets
existed for 23 years,
ren'asch revolution that code was abolished,
tohfuthpeeuLpru peeriomMe.
like beasts to
and the assassins
of the British Isles, for 30
The statistics
the
Freturned among the people
years
but at
their prey.t cy•cles, showed that the diminution of crime kept
with toile abolition of capital punishments, and that too
pagedwi hveidn edl
there was an increase of population. They showed also
that the number of convictions had increased-in every de-
scription of crime except murder. In the crime of murder
this kingdom steod next to Spain, and was eight times worse
than Prussia. In Belgium, between the years 1831 and 1837,