The Sun.
London, England, 1856-06-10 00:00:00

PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.

Several petitions were presented against the 'punish-
ment of death.

Mr. EWART moved for a select committee to inquire
into the operation of the law imposing the punishment
of death. The objection to thi3 punishment was
based on many grounds, and one was the uncertainty
attending its being carried out after a jury had
returned a verdict of guilty. That uncertainty
had greatly increased of late years, and was in-
creasing daily. The public feeling was louder
now against capital punishments than heretofore.
Juries were less inclined to return verdicts of guilty,
and judges were less inclined to pass the sentence than
formerly. In fact, he believed there was a strong feeling
existing against convicting females for infanticide ; but
who should we protect but the innocentand the helpless?
In many foreign countries the punishment of death had
been abolished and with success, and he thought he was
not asking too much in calling on the house to institute
inquiry into this mode of punishment, because it did not
pledge the house to any particular principle or opinion.
Some persons objected to this mode of punishment on
religious grounds ; but that was an objection he
thought need not then be entered on, and he
was opposed to discussing theological subjects in that
house. Punishment, to be real, should be an affective
punishment both on the criminal and in the repression of
crime; It should be equal in its operation, not falling
severely on one criminal whilst another escaped, and
certainty which was the great principle of punishment
as much as publicity was that of justice. The hon.
gentleman then proceeded to illustrate the want of
three essentials in capital punishment in this
country, as referring to the cases of murder that
had been tried and the manner in which the
criminals had been treated after conviction. In
the Home Department the same uncertainty prevailed
with regard to the carrying out of capi al punishment
a, existed with juries and judger. The present Home
Secretary displayed on all occasions a kind and merciful
censideration to these unfortunate and unhappy
offenders which the house could but admire. (Hear.)
It was not his conduct he (Mr. Ewart) and the
public complained of, but the system that permitted that
uncertainty, which he illustrated by the respite of Celes-
tine Somers, who was as guilty of murder as any per-
son who had ever been executed for that crime. (Hear,
hear.) The uncertainty of the punishment, as re-
garded the Home Department, was apparent when
they considered that Secretaries of State for the Home
Department changed with political parties. They
might have this year a merciful Secretary, and next
year a severe one, who would let the law take its course
Then as to the remedy. One suggestion was that private
executions would get rid!of the evils at present attending
public executions ; but he doubted it, because the
members of the press would gain admission to the gaols,
and pander to the morbid tastes of the public by writing
and publishing minute details of every execution, which
would be greedily sought after and read by the public.
Another suggestion was occasional capital punishments—
executing a man now and then for example. That
be considered bad, and he looked upon it as a species of
gambling with human life. What the advocates of the
abolition of capital punishment recommended was the
substitution of a minor, though certain, punishment for
it, as had been adopted of late years in cases of forgery,
burglary, &c.

[LEFT SITTING.]

LONDON GAZETTE—(This Evening.)

LORD CHAMBERLAIN'S OFFICE, MAT 31.
Notice is hereby given, that her Majesty will hold a
Drawing-Room at St. James's Palace, on Friday, the 20th
of June next, at two o'clock.

N.B. The knights of the several Orders are to appear
in their Collars at the Drawing-Room, it being a Collar
day.

ADMIRALTY, JuNic 10.
A despatch, of which the following is a copy, has been
received from Admiral Sir Edmund Lyons, Bart., G.C.8.,
Commander-in-Chief of her Majesty's ships and vessels in
the Mediterranean and Black Sea :
Norfolk House, London, June 8, 1856.
Sir,—Referring to my letter of the 19th Juno, 1855 (No.
4521, in which I reported, for the information of the Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty the names of her Ma-
jesty's ships which had engaged the sea defences of Sebas-
topol during the nights of the 16th and 17th of that
month :

Be pleased to inform their Lordships that the name of
her Mejesty's steam frigate Leopard, commanded by Cap-
tain George Giffird, which performed a similar service on
the night of the 18th June, wns inadvertently ornittod.—l
am, &c., EDMUND LYONS,
Admiral and Commander-in-Chief.
The Secretary of the Admiralty.
* Gazetted on the 2d July, 1855.

ST. JAMES'S PALACE, JUNE 9.
The Queen has been pleased to appoint Lady Codring-
ton, wife of Lieutenant-General Sir William J. Codrington,
K.C.8., to be one of the Bedchamber Women in Ordinary
to her Majesty, in the room of Theresa, Lady Digby, re-
signed.