The Sun.
London, England, 1848-03-15 00:00:00

:Vo prevent crime; but he should go at once to fresh
distinguished contained in reports, of some of the most
I.nguished practical lawyers in this country. He
would take the second report of the Lords' Committee
rsCriminal Law. It did appear strange, that ,ehilat
thigreat question had made progress in two of the
b'sets of America, was acted upon in the Grand
Prussia
of Tuscany and in Baden, was in balance in
"sin, and almost adopted in Bavaria and, be be•
ljel, in Belgium, and in Sweden was under discussion
with a view to the abolition of the punishment of
death, it should have been treated of so shortly, so suc-
cinctly, and so lightly, as in four lines of this report.
B:t what did those four lines say? " Respecting the
Pediency of abolishing capital punishments we have
loUnd scarcely any difference of opinion ; almost all the
witnesses agree in opinion that, for offences of the
(treat kind, the
punishment of death ought to be re.
mined." In that second report he found only four wit-
„ifs_ses out of a larger number to whom the t question had
1711 Suggested. Mr. Baron Platt and Mr. Sergeant
t. °llea' were of that opinion ; but the Lord Chief Jus•
_Le° of the Common Pleas said, " This question involves
rsiieretions much too grave to warrant a hasty opinion,
;Your great may be the objections to the punishment
death, and, in my opinion, they are very great." He
fr
~.‘ord Nugent) was aware of the difficulty and delicacy
of Putting a question as to the abolition of the punish•
went of death to a witness about to take his scat upon
lune bench. A judge could not be fairly asked his orautou
sash a eibject when he might be called immediately
afterwards to act in opposition to it. But, in the first
e
.?Port, judges had given their opinions, and much
er trea-
opinions. Justice Coltman said he was
disposed to think that imprisonment for life, without any
for capital
of a remission of the sentence, might be substituted
capital punishment. The Learned Judge further
said, that he did not think the apprehension et' the punish-
Meat of death operated much upon the minds of men who
e°lteuiplated the commission of the crime. Lord Chief
`Tuni c* Denman said, "I have not sufficiently considered
The question to be able to offer any opinion upon it." This
answer showed the discretion, straightforwardness, and
honesty of the Lord Chief Justice ; he felt the question
to be an important one, and he declined to give an
°Pioion upon it. The opinion of Mr. Justice Wightman
was also one which ho might cite—it was not so stroug
had
the punishment of death as those to which he
°ad previously referred; but it nevertheless was clear
and decisive. In the evidence appended to the first
report there was the evidence of eight persons holding
high judicial offices, and yet, disregarding the opinions
°I those eight eminent persons, the Committee ventured
to tell the House they had scarcely any difficulty in
declaring that the punishment of death could not be re-
!axed. Looking then at the known humanity of the
Judges—looking at the mercy of the Crown, acting under
Ms advice of his Right Hon. Friend opposite—looking
at the mitigated severity which the influence of public
°Pinion had effected, he still could not help observing
that the best position in which the law could stand
Would be that of bearing a character for certainty and
sternness, marked however by mildness, and occasioning
to the offender as little suffering as possible. Further he
Would say, that the character of those ho administered
th, • law ought to be one of severe andw inexorable obe-
'
,lance to that law. At present the law was sanguinary, but
the judge and the Crown were most merciful in its ad-
ministration. It was a trite and ordinary remark, very
often made, that there must be something wrong in a
system of legislation, when those whose daty it was to
administer it :performed that duty with feelings of dis-
gust and horror. Judges were always in this country
looked up to with the utmost reverence. The sheriff,
Whose duty it was to carry out the judgment of the
court, was also a person of worship and of high autho•
Pity; but the wretched hangman, the finisher of the law,
Will a being with whom the veriest outcasts of society
Would be ashamed to associate. So great was the shame
attaching to the sentence of the law, that a cap was
always pulled over the face of the culprit—the public
were allowed to see one half of the punishment, but the
lawgivers of the land were ashamed to let them see the
other half. They even murdered the language for the
Purpose of killing their victims. They talked of exe-
eutiag a man when they should have said killing him—
they might execute the law, but they killed the man.
sae would repeat, that the general feeling of mankind
l'as opposed to the punishment of death. When a
culprit ap p eared upon the scaffold his crime was almost
forgotten; and it could not be denied that the legislators,
the judges, and the executive authorities of this country
had never taken any pains to render the criminal law
either certain or uniform. Not a moment ought to
he lost in at least rendering it certain. The principle of
gambling ought at once to be taken out of it; and those
who were really guilty ought no longer to be sustained
bY the influence of public sympathy. His Right Hen.
Friend opposite seemed to attach seine importance to
she manner in which the punishment of death operated
as an example; but then the supporters of the punish.
meet very frankly admitted that it produced no good
effect upon those who were the actual spectators of the
dreadful scene called an execution; but that it had an
indirect effect upon the population at large through the
Publicity which newspapers gave to the history of such
' events. He confessed that he thought, if Hon. Members
could offer no better reason than that in favour of this
barbarous practice, they might surrender it without fur-
ther hesitation. He understood there was a penny thea-
tre—he believed in York—but, if misinformed respect-
ing the locality, he begged pardon of that splendid city—
there could, however, be no doubt of the fact that there
was a penny theatre in which the likeness of a man
Was hanged, clad in the clothes—warranted to be really
the clothes—worn by a person who had been
hanged ; and, for the purposes of that drama-
tic execution, a man was employed to hang
the --
effigy of the supposed culprit, warranted
to be the same man who had hanged the original offender.
The most awful consideration connected with this sub-
jset yet remained to be noticed, and he purposely re-
served it for the last; it was the irrevocable nature of
• the punishment. No truth could be more evident or
mere practically important than this, that an irrevocable
Punishment was incompatible with the notion of a fallible
tribunal. This was no fanciful hypothesis. It was a
grim truth from which they could not escape. It ap-
' Peered from the evidence taken by the Committee whose
report he held in his hand, that recently one person in
every three years had suffered capital punishment whose
innocence had been subsequently proved; and that during
the last fifty years as many as forty-one persons had
been executed whose innocence had been discovered too
late. It appeared that the lives of as many as five inno-
cent persons had been saved through the exertions of Mr.
Sheriff Wilde (as we understood). Attention had re-
cently been called to the case of Michael Howard, in Lime-
rick, who had escaped by mere accident. Upon the Le-
gislature of England a deep and heavy responsibility
rested,—a cry of innocent blood rose up against them. It
was no forced gloss en the words " vengeance belongeth
Unto God," to say that they formed a phrase of high im-
Pontiac* in the present discussion. Vengeance belonged
Alone to that tribunal whose decision could neither be
questioned nor withstood. He well remembered that
Members of that House bad often said murder could not
be stopped without the aid of capital punishment ; but
such Hon. Members were bound to show that no other
punishment would be efficacious,—the onus probandi
rested upon them. He conjured them to remember that
"the responsibility (rested upon their votes,—that with
them rested the great blood-guiltiness of delay. In the
present age we looked back with horror and wonder at
the severities practised by our ancestors, and the
next generation would regard with equal astonishment
the legislators of these times. He hoped, however,
that the period was not distant when the punishment
of death would be abolished, and he doubted not that,
is five years from that time, the world would look back
with infinite surprise at the present state of the law. He
. Doped that the vote of that night would give the country
as assurance that capital punishments would be speedily
abolished.—(Hear, hear.)
Sir R. H. INGLIS, though he rejoiced, at the re-
appearance in that House of the Noble Lord who spoke
last, yet differed from him oh many points. Their
attention bad been called to the opinions delivered by
more than one judge respecting the punishment of death.
He did not inquire who put these questions; he did not
ask whether any one put them being himself a judge ;
hut he thought that such interrogatories must have pro-
eeeded from one who had not well considered the respon-
sibility of the judicial character. It was to be remem-
bered that Scottish and Irish judges had given evidence
on the subject, and their opinions were certainly in favour
of retaining capital punishment in certain cases. They
certainly were opposed to statutory changes in the law.
Amongst the observations which fell from the Noble
Lord, there was a complaint against lawyers for multi-
lating the English language. He was surprised to hear
I scholar like the Noble Lord say that " kill" and " exe-
cute" might not be used as synonyms. The highest
authorities bad so used them. Dryden had said—
" Ohl Tyburn, could thou reason and dispute,
Then couldst thou judge a well as execute."
There were some, but he was not one of those, who
sought popularity by saying that the punishment of
death ought to be maintained for the sake of example.
He believed that neither his Hon. Friend the Member
for Dumfries, nor his Right Hon. Friend the Secretary
of State for the Home Department, who deprecated the
discussion of the theological branch of the question in
that assembly, would shrink from the application of the
argument in private life. Why, then, should they throw
aside the argument which the Word of God would supply
In legislation? His Hon. Friend said last year that
the rigours of the Levitical law had been softened by
the humanizing influences of Christianity. He (Sir
• R. Inglis) contended, however, that God had not re-
• pealed that law which he gave to his own peculiar
people, " Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall
his blood be shed ;" the reason assigned being, " for
in the image of God created he him." It was not laid
down that the end aimed at was the peace of society,
the prevention of crime, or the reformation of the
criminal, but the Seiiptures said that the shedding
of man's blood required the blood of man, " for in the
image of God created he him." He was aware that
these were solemn and sacred subjects, but they only
became improper for discussion when they were either
referred to in an improper manner, or were received,
which was certainly not the case in the present instance,
in an improper spirit. From the earliest times our le-
gislation had been built upon the Scriptures. Refe-
rence had been made tc the horrible scenes which
sometimes took place at public executions, but these
scenes had no more to do with the punishment of death
than the punishment of petty larceny. The punishment
of death might be continued, though deprived of those
characteristics of horror and incitements to vice which
had been referred :to; by:the Honourable Member for
Stafford. Of late years the infliction of the punishment
had been much less frequent than formerly. He re-
collected the time when twenty-five persons were put to
death, in one week. He did not desire to see so sun-
guinary a system perpetrated ; but, trusting that
the law would be mercifully administered, as he knew
it would be, he still believed that the sword had not been
committed to the magistrate in vain. When the extreme
penalty of death was nut required, lie was by no means