The Sun.
London, England, 1832-07-18 00:00:00

LONDON,
WEDNESDAY EVENING, JULY 18, 1832.

The humanity of the present Government to-
wards the unfortunate persons convicted of
capital offences at the Old Bailey, forms a
pleasing contrast to the stern and unrelenting
severity of their predecessors. We believe there
was hardly a person who looked for the result of
the Recorder's report under the former Govern-
ment without painful anxiety, because, in almost
every instance, some two, three, and not unfre-
quently six, unhappy fellow creatures were
consigned to an ignominious death, for crimes,
which in most other civilized countries are
punished with banishment and imprisonment.
In former times mercy was the exception, and
severity the general rule, yet crimes went on in-
creasing beyond all former precedents. Now
severity is the exception, and the last sentence
of the law is seldom or never carried into
effect but in cases of murder or atrocious
offences. Another instance of this humane
principle of government was given yester-
day, when, on the RECORDER'S report
being made to his MAJESTY, some eighteen
or twenty persons were respited, and not
one left for execution. Such humane con-
duct on the part of his MAJESTY and Council
will do more to make the Government and laws
respected than a thousand examples of severity.
Another change of the system, however, is still
wanting—and that is, to pass sentence of death
only on those persons convicted of great crimes.
By that means the majesty of the law would not
be debased, as it now is, at the conclusion of
every Old Bailey Sessions, and the unfortunate
victim of crime would have time to prepare for
his inevitable fate.

The only Members who voted against Mr.
HARVEY'S reasonable motion, last evening,
were Sir C. WETHERELL, Mr. J. KNIGHT)
Mr. GOULBURN, and Mr. J. GORDON. Sir
HOBERT PEEL, and some other Anti-Reform
Members, left the House some time previous to
the division ; but these Hon. Members persisted
in dividing, though they saw they had not the
least chance of success, and the business of the
night, at this advanced period of the Session,
must be thrown back for several days. Reform-
phobia really produces strange exhibitions, when
it can make men of great learning (we do not
include all the four of course), and men who
one would expect to see imbued with some of
the liberal spirit that distinguished Athens and
Rome in their best clays, acting rather like Man-
darins than British Senators.

Though the days of religious crusades are
over, those of political crusades are still in full
vigour. The Emperor of AUSTRIA seem s
bent on putting himself at the head of the mo-
dern crusaders, of surpassing, in fact, the exploits
of " Peter the Hermit." In wrong-headed en-
thusiasm he already more than rivals that nota-
ble fanatic; but in tact and moral courage he
limps far behind him. His present crusade
against the political freedom of Germany, in
which be is assisted by the King of PRUS-
SIA, (both of whom we suspect are, after
all, nothing more than puppets in the hands of
the great showman of the North) will, at least,
have this good effect, that it will stir up a spirit
of constitutional resistance throughout Germany,
which will bring the great question of freedom
and slavery to a speedy and successful issue. The
determination to which Austria, as head of the