The Sun.
London, England, 1832-06-22 00:00:00

arts and graces of a more simple oratory.—Morn
ing chronicle.
The postponed motion of the Attorney-Ge-
neral relative to the forgery law stands for dis-
cussion this evening. Whether it is to be
further postponed we know not, but we trus
that those Members of Parliament who are
friendly to the Reform of a sanguinary and bar-
barous system of criminal law will give as full
an attendance in their places in Parliament as
they did when last the Attorney-General so un-
expectedly put off this measure of his own,
which had been already but too long delayed.
Certainly no adequate reason was given for the
delay—none that would have prevented the
pressing on of a Tax Bill, or a Vote of Supply,
involving millions of the public money, with,
perhaps, not one-tenth the number of persons in
the House ; but it is a pleasanter task—a task
more sincerely undertaken by official persons,
and, therefore, more strenuously persevered in—
to make laws to transfer the money from the
pockets of the people to the coffers of the Go-
vernment than to legislate for the improvement
of the institutions of society. This first notice
of this motion for leave to bring in a Bill to re-
peal the punishment of death in cases of for-
gery was given during that short Ministerial
interregnum when it was supposed the Duke of
Wellington was engaged in forming a new Ad-
ministration. Sir Thomas Denman then said
that he would move for leave to bring in the
Bill as soon as the new Ministry should have
been formed. We have no doubt he would, in
that case, have kept his word. The attempt to
form a new Ministry was not successful, and the
Bill, which was to be one of the first acts of a
Whig Opposition, has not yet been brought in
by the NI hig Government. It is a melancholy
reflection that, in this respect, the cause of
rational justice, of civilization, anti humanity,
has been delayed, not because a Tory Adminis-
tration came into power, but because a Wnig
Ministry retained their places. We only state
the fact—let others account for it. It is quite
certain that those legislators who overloaded
our Statute-book with laws inflicting death for
offences not subject to that penalty by the ancient
common law of England, among which this of
forgery is one, did not evince any want of zeal
or activity in pressing on their atrocious enact-
ments. It is easy, nay pleasant, if we may judge
from the facility with which it is often done, to
disseminate immoral and barbarous principles
through the medium of vicious laws, and to
blunt the feelings and brutalise the habits of a
people; but to perform the beneficent duty of
restoring the authority of reason, and correcting
the evils of bad legislation—this is the difficulty
which appals a certain class of patriots, who are
bold enough in assailing bad laws, and in sug.
gesting improvements, until they happen to get
possession of that power which would enable
them to realize their own principles ; then such
persons falter, and swerve in their course, more
than others in the career of criminal enterprizes.
If the Whigs connected with the Government
display any longer the timidity and the wavering
which they have manifested with respect to the
criminal laws in general, and the law of forgery
in particular, and if no independent Member can
be found in the present House of Commons to
take up the subject, and pursue it with the firm-
ness and intelligence and energy which it de-
mands, we must only wait for a Reformed Par-
liatnet.t to repair the consequences of their de-
sertion of a great duty, and brand their insin-
cerity or moral cowardice as it deserves.
Why is it that the Whig Attorney-General
does not show the same energy and persever-
ance in endeavouring to obtain the repeal of
the sanguinary law of forgery which Sir Robert
Peel evinced in obtaining its enactment ? Is
not the Session of Parliament now drawing
to a close, and is it to be supposed that any time
is to be lost if it be really intended that any
thing effectual shall be done in both Houses o:

the Legislature during the present Session ?
Why is England behind all the civilized nations
of the earth on the question of criminal law ?
Why should this otherwise enlightened country
be the last refuge of barbarous laws ? Why
should human life be cheaper in England than
in France or Holland, or even than in America?
Even in the midst of the political troubles that
France has been involved in, ever since her last
revolution, the Chambers found time to make
considerable improvements and ameliorations in
the criminal law. One improvement was to
abolish the penalty of death in all cases of for-
gery. The British House of Commons had
decided against capital punishment for this of-
fence under a Tory Administration. We then
gave all the assistance in our power to the battle
which the Whi,s and the friends of humanity
fought against legislative barbarism. Little did
we think that the time would come when we
should find it almost as difficult to induce those
Whigs to make a single movement in support of
their own principles of criminal law, though in
the full enjoyment of power, as we formerly did
to extort a decision of the House of Commons
against the sanguinary prejudices of their poli-
tical rivals. The capital law of forgery is in
practice at an end. Who will dare to execute
what public opinion has so completely abo-
lished ? Why then not at once erase from the
Statute-book a law which is impracticable, arid
a punishment which is a mockery Why not
give an effective protection to commercial pro-
perty against forgers by a law that, not
being repugnant to reason, to morality, and
the best feelings of our nature, can be
' executed uniformly ; for well does Beccaria ob-
serve that the efficacy of law consisted not in the
severity, but the certainty, of punishment.
America has abolished the sanguinary laws which
she derived from this country—she has effective
secondary punishments in imprisonment, fine,
hard labour, and occasional solitary confine-
ment. So admirably is her penitentiary sys-
tem conducted in some of the States of that
great union, that the crime of forgery, which,
while it was a capital offence, was very frequent,
is now scarcely ever known. We have men-
tioned Holland—one of the most commercial
countries of Europe. Is forgery punished there
with death ? No. The Dutch have been ac-
cused of being great worshippers of Mammon--,
but they do not propitiate that idol with the
sacrifices of human blood which are offered on
his altars in England. The proof of this will be
found in ‘, Van der Linden's Institutes of Hol-
land," translated by Sabey Henry, Esq., Barris-
ter. tinder the head of forgery we find a note
of the learned translator, of which we quote, as
most applicable to our argument, the following
words :—" It may be further observed, as a proof
that those penal Statutes which grossly of-
fend, by their severity, the natural ideas of
proportion in criminal justice, virtually repeal
themselves ; and that the two ordinances of the
Emperor Charles V., affixing the punishment of
death in cases of bankruptcy and forgery, al-
though passed as early as the years 1540 and
1545, have never yet been acted upon 111 a single