The Sun.
London, England, 1828-07-07 00:00:00

SUNDAY PAPERS.

(Yu Piz
CAPITAL ruNiSlibiEN73.,--nANCINCI.
" First Envy, eldest born of Hell, embrned
tier hands in blood ; and taught the sons of men,
To make a death which nature never made,
Pod abhored : with violence rude to break
The thread Wife, ere half its length was run,
And molt a wretched 4rother of his being.
To *rest from God's own hand the sword of justice,
And be your own avengers."—Dr. PORTEUZ.
" Su e 'tis a serious thing to die ! my soul !
What.* strange moment must it be, when near
Thyjounkty's epd, thou bast the gulph in view !
That awful ghlpth 46 pan eie repass'd
To telt what's doing opt,e 4q4er side."—BLArß.

What bast thou dope ? the voice ni Thy h;.2,tker's blood
et ieth unto rtrA from the ground :
And now art thou cursed from the earth, which bath
opened, her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from
thy hand.
.‘ Wiwi; ,tk,ois idlest the ground, shall not henceforth
yield unto th 4,2 hsfr strength. A fugitive and a
,vaga-
bend shalt thou be ;a tke gaj#,"—,Genesie, chap. iv.

There have been a great pertist; or mankind, in
all ages, who have never concurred in the justica pr
in the necessity of capital punishments. If we go
baeti to Ate origin of society, and the first case of
mi7der (a e-.4;r4er of the most unnatural kind) we
shall finui:h4 "" ci;il ThQt I.ose even his
tiz vaR and :"
liberty; he
,p
was simply denounced a " fogitife 414
and here, Cain name,: 1115 Punishinuclit e/r;g
" greater than he could bear:" "14 among the
causes of his grief he held that " an/ ' one that
Indeth me shall slay toe;" the reply to this by ":'!'
Creator 'is, " 'Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance
shall be taken on him- sevenfold." The ‘f mark"
was set upon him in order that he might be distin-
guished: and " lest any finding him should slay
him." Cain's great grandson Lamech, murdered or
slew two persons, and claimed to be avenged in pro-.
portion if he were slain ; and thus did the crime of
murder commence with the infant state of human
society, without the example of death as a punish-
ment. During. the two thousand years prereding
the deluge, as far as our records go, we have no :
instance of death. as a punishment; but, after the
Flood, we have a Law proposed in the spirit of the
Le.r Talionis, which became so common in suc-
ceeding ages, viz., " Whosoever sheddeth man's
blood, by man shall his blood be shed," It is the
custom of the Christian world, not so much to re-
ga4 the Laws of the Ancients as an example for the
Motiepis, As the maxims and precepts of Christ : the
ante and p 04,1, diluvian worlds (to. the birth
of our Saviour) arr- thus . both put aside in
this respect ; but, if we appealed to them;
their authorities were only of a- ecnilicting nature.
We see in the death of Christ himself, an ewample
of the capite/prmishnicat of the Roman Empire. But
the great rule of thp life of the divine founder of our
faith Was to set forth Ole Pue province of his doctrine,
as not 'interfering or conflictin- with temporal af-
fairs. The basis of his pure rode was t,ct
".ovefgpme evil wi.th good."
If there be any Christian prisept ordained ,to he like
guide and maxim of , all times, It is thisr—the great
substratum of our Creed. The Laws anti Customs
of the world have continually varied through ad
, stages of history, from the days of Adam to the pre-
Sea boar; the change has been continual; and
. there is no ;pjunction, moral or divine, to the con-
trary.- Indeed itoi:hi,g, were more obvious than that
the character of the times 04140 for, and gave birth
to, laws ,adapted to their ends. Ex.. Opt, in Eng-
! land, capital punishments have fallen into disuse, iiiir
less pm very particular occasions ; and imprisonments
of long ti.e,!.:!s are substituted.. But how does this
sanguinary coda af ours operate, in respect to the
prevention of crime? (fur zl,l, views beyond preven-
tion are absurd and irrational.) liwr. are to judge
by the public records, there is more crime it; gng-,
land thaii. there is in the whole remaining portion of
Europe. There tippeara, in Great Britain, to be an
average at the present ps:i.o,i of about 5,600 criminal
riiarges to every million or peopig.
,in the year ; OF,
in the ..Ai hole population of the empire, neatii asjuarler
of a million ! The 'great mass of these cases, in
any other country at,: the world, would - neverbe
made an Object of judicial prof.Teding's. They are
solely a sort of business to Lawyers and 4agistrates ;-
and
.40,0)
.o. tolerable proof that under the jimid4 of
Law there js 4nitely more injustice inflicted than
redressed. Capital senlez:pc, are in the same pro-
portion ; but the disgusting dect;,; pf hanging men
kitilif nt-,cla, on a public scaffold, is a citota;aqh indi-
genous wail inbred English ignonomy.# There Li
the Priest, with ti. 4 Qospel of the meek and mild
rend beneficent Saviour of thp human race is his
hatah-Vollowing up the Judge, 'who tags his victim
that he must ,loots for pardon to God, f?r thak. As'
cannot receive it 14.-re) pursuing the criminal to the
* The dreadful Ale* of ,Captain Nontgornery, one of
the *tilos appointed on• Friday last to expiate, by ''liang-
inr; by the neck until he was dead," the crime of isolgipg
Purged bank- cotes, proyes the ;goo-minims sense enteqaine4
lay inen of any feeling, of tioia diTratlink,mode of passing
out of life.

verge of eternity, with singing holy ballads ; and
intreating him to feel comfortable and happy; until
amid the mental weakness of despair• and
horror, men are worried into a sort of con-
fession that they would rather die than live. • All
parties appear then to be satisfied ; and the hugging
and shaking of hands, and singing, and kind .fare-
wells,—give such a picture of strange and monstrous
inconsistency, with the sying-up,rd throttling of the
poor victim in the next minute,—as makes the heart
and the imagination sick ! •
" What a piece of work is man!"
" So I atn hanged for sheep-Stealing," said .a cri-
minal to his counsels. "-No !" retorted the man of
Law, " you are hanged in order that ,men may not
steal sheep.'.' Here . there is no mortal injury dune
to society to be repaired; but a mere fraud is com-
mitted, which we would prevent in future. Now the
injury done to society by the violent and voluntary
death of one of its members, is much greater than
that sufferedin the •fraud,—which involves an ab-
surdity. Spartan justice would consist of an adapta-
tion of punishment to the offence; but what moral
metre have we by which' this quantum of punish-
ment can be mearnred out ? none; and therefore
punishments have grown up. regulated by the most
absurd pretences. • Breaking into a village cottager's
house in the day time,—the owners being out ern,
ployed on husbaudry work, is held to be an aggra-
vated crime, because
Me parties are under Me neces-
sity of leaving their property comparatively unpro.
tected ; and sheep stealing, because it may be almo4
committed with impunity, is another class of the
same kind of offence; and all ate punishable with
dssth,. But upon what consideration is the (fence
to be greats,-, because the istimpity is apparently
greater ? "I his we never could .Understand 7 nor
can all the casuistry of the Lawyers make .the
case out. The temptation to crime is 'increased
with the apparent impunity; and the greater
tie temptation the LESS Me moral
his e.,e'iair.s to be undisputed and indisputable. In
..„
this class at' there iY ne plausible defenee for
the punishment of death that can be OfferA, worthy
of our country or of the age.; for we adapt the expe-
diency of such a violence to the capricious, fluctuat-
ins', and uncertain aspect of human affairs; instead
,of being governed by the principles of equity which
are co-stiesna; truth. The offence of Forgery
is in the seine sitnataiti, sti7g iirPr i:hr;?l"qrSs to the
marked, and widelY-separated crime of nnaer the
greatest in the catalogue of human . wrongs. If the
object be by a disgraceful „and most ignominious
death to prevent the crime, how lamentably short
44 its !,44.a;tiippRt is this signal and horrible punish-
ment, If we 44 oiir.seiye; prejudices of
education, and of the fancied authurittes.-61.`;iicriii.
tare, we shall find on how narrow a ground we have
placed the authority to take away life. We will
put aside all the gratuitous ignominy with which the
tirScOpitnied. in this country; and of which
nations inf,nitN-lessi civilized he, t ourselves are
ashamed. Why was it accounted rela4 MO
to destroy himself? .Because the first laws of the
human compact regard man, as not made for him-
self but for society. When, therefore, one member
or twists" is destroyed by another, the question is,
how we shill b 4. repitif eone. Can that
be effected by voluntarily desirayini 4otherneiii,
ber, and thus making the injury double, This is a
species of suicide, committed by society on itself;
assd issmother kind of Felony, perpetrated with the
less exelisei th,;;Q;4l iu the absence of all the passions.
We have before Ntiaea; t;l6r. ii}Wh- chillG :7,4P
we have no truce of death as a punishtriee4-wrieh
the world was so rife of the principle of population;
and when the average ages of men ranged from six
to eight hundred years ; mankind then slew one
another; wpro left to the punishments of their
own consciences; ai..d ;gal oF.tl:e dp.testation and
abhorrence•of their species. In our d4stheredre'ss
for the wring of murder would- naturally present
itself in imprisonment and hard labour for life ; here
the injury might in some measure be compensated,
the strongest possible terror - would operate to
deter others. ri.i.;m the crime, in the wasting strength
and living example of slavery and toil, witheiss otbsr
end than the grave ! Such a punishment would, we
I conceive, be more influential ; and were defensible
on the. soundest principles; because such an abuse
of liberty as the murder of man by his fellow, war-
ranted the -prieation of it, in the clearest light of rea-
son. jive
Ppvernment of qv country shall
hive liberty, .in the lepoSiOl nations, so direst is
attentions to the Criminal Code, the lightond know-
ledge of the age will lead to a revision of the prin-
ciples by which the punishments of men are award-
ed. At present the whole Babel of Law is one of
the glptpSt OflV4pCp3 of the Empire; not avail-
able to the ptior;and pOy piuiuiesing the
amid all.this Stygian rlurhi,ess, there n, sorxietli ng in
the ri"niShille;it of death avrr repugnant to the suind
and irreconcilable with its natural sense of justice
of right. This right alone were enough to call for
144 wasrsgt inquiry.. On a future opportunity, we
shall ta,;:e sow notice of the present forms of the
sent euee of death, and of the ptherattaudinv customs
at the scaffold. They presenr an 44av0ur01,.... en-
nest to the French manner of putting their criminals
out of the world.

(FROM THE "SIJNDAY HERALD.)
jjoteßeepers' Bill passed the House of
Lords on iFriday 1,4 q, twt without having received
any of those emendate:lU • which we deemed to be
essentially necessary for the protection and .s.'eguT4y
of the .Licensed Victualler. •The Retail Brewers'
Bill, is likely, we think, to prove exceedingly mis-
chievous. We allude, in particular, to the last
vlause4 pf the Bill, in.which it is.prorided that " all
pentillks shall 4o aired fgr, and recovered only by the
Commissioners the': ilcartt of Excise, or 71 one
of their officers,"—that is, according IR opre-
hension of the matter, they will not be prosecuted
at all. Now it does seem somewhat hard, that while
the Licensed Victuallers are liable to informations
from ali qua,,tters, and on the most frivolous grounds,
the Retail Brewers f.lold be screened fiom similar
annoyance, and placed under due siieciel protection
of the Commissioners of Excise. It would be idle,
however, to expect consistency in St. Stephen's,
thoiligh we do hope that before the Bill passes into a
law, this HO unjust distinction will be (alone
4way with, as wA) as eyerai other amendments
nr)4(te in it.

(yule ti2tp.s.v.7.p,tg.)
Of all the aetiona which have been commenced
for libel, we think the one tried in the Court of
King's Bench, on Tuesday, brought by a Mr. Her-
nett, who has been called " the celebrated attor-
ney,' is decidedly that which is most distinguished
by tngeanity and original genius. An account Was
give': ..bi.4p„ 41urping Herald of a cause in the
Court of Requests, in Ni-P.,•h the following line oc-
curred :—" Verdict for the eelebrateci 44-,terpey Mr.
Harnett ;" and this Mr. Harnett thought it right to
prosecute as
a libel.- We have been surprised at the
exhibitions of barristers, attorneys' clerks, bailiffs,
bip4tri6ts: &e. in this way, on former occasions, but
we buve itit;t, 9,41; er,thing,enual to iVlr. Harnetel4
affair. In other ease 4, ate edinpi4ininb !). P2jtt: es have
been able to show that something had been done
the Judges and Juries
which must irritate their feelings, however little those
(‘filetiej
itloiie7i,c,sseatti mightxt, wise
bse;e I:alSnit:<.'t
r;Clit:t.
jegdchbtoey,otriti
su
undressed.
d dischargeres s
e d of u
theirll
we cannot reaily Gee any thing
thatA'lr. Hcoaurlidte
most. sensitive
so itAg tie boast of England, should not
4,,,„,,,
iit7)the:e
jixiubperilt expected t
anxiouso r ruffle
stHthat
t htt e .
~
sustained, ►,es
ill-informedadben persons have
the Presie freedom of
be wholly trampled under toot, instead of giving a
wfarrotheing,ibnuj
tu r y
heretofore tit;ar- took the manly course of returning
a verdict for the defenda•?;;., That decision, which
leav„:wk, Harnett to pay his own c‘islsoval pro,
well-meaning whereno
pably ^ teach . future attorneys to endure the oblo-
quy or bi;ing " celebrated" with more fortitude
than i, has..evineed, ,r. ;For that term of reproach
should be broitght ..in contact with their modest
names. }fad this gentleman succeeded in getping as
demagog the smallest sainple of the coin of the
retain, it would Pave had the effect of taltingtseveral
bur:tired pounds out of the docket of a defendant,

who was declared to have done but one farthing's
worth of mischief; and the costs, Mr. Harnett being
his own attorney, would have made - the whole- affair
an exceedingly snug, comfortable thing for him.
Hence springs.our exultation. It is by such ver-
dicts only that, the freedom of the Press can be vin-
dicated and defended, and parties who have done
no wrong protected against professional speculators.
in litigation.

SECOND EDITION.
SUN OFFICE, Seven o' Clod

IM TRIAL PARLIAMENT

(THIS EVENING.)

HOUSE OF LORDS.

The Alehouse Licensing Bill was read a third
time.

Lord IJELVILLE presented a petition from the
College of Surgeons in Edinburgh,. praying for the
removal of the ditlicnities in the way of dissection.
Lord
.GWYDYR presented petitions from Horn-
castle, Market Raiser), and Boston, against the im-
portation of Foreign Wool.
Mr. DENT presented a return from the Northern
Circuit of Wales, of the number of causes left
rentanets in the Court of Great Sessions, from $23
IMO JEW/.

The House went into a Committee upon the
Cities and Boroughs Parliamentary Poll Bill, and
received the Report,
_ _ _

Sir A. GRANT,. and others, brought up the
Longitudinal Piseoyery the Regent's Fork
ment Bill, the New South Wales and Van Dieman's
Land Justice Bill, and several. private Bills.
The Marquis of LONDONDERRY presented a
petition from the Merchants and Traders of Dublin
against the Bill now in progress to compel the
bankers of Ireland to pay their notes at the -placed.
w.hpre they ipqo,
Lord NVIIARNdLIFFE gave notice that be
should bring in a standing order on Friday, to be
primed, and remain over till the next Session for
their Lordships' consideration, upon the question,
whether a person subscribing to a given work was
bound by the acts of a majority ofa catnproly with
• •••. •..,.•
rtspeet to sonsegoent worit',. •
The Earl of ORMOND wished to know from
the Noble Duke at the head of his Majesty's Go-
vernment, whether it was his intention to bring in
any measure to regulate the butter trade in Ireland.

The. Duke of WELLINGTON said there was a
.roet-4nfea AtOy jli i'ij-iogtrl 9.04 f douse foX
settling this question. it. Was a subject of great
difficulty in consequence of the various interests it
Involved. There were interests under charters,
Weigh Masters, Tasters, and so on, the rights of all
whom were to be ascertained before any measure
could pe.wssA.
•Thetaii4 LIMERICK thought this a subject
of vital importance to Ireland.
The Marquis of LANSDOWNE had had his at-
tention called to the subject last sessions, and consi-
dered that free trade might be at once allowed, re.:
. ,
serving tiff sppixtitrptiy taj 4sFplaipifig in cne
of next session, the amount of compensation that
ought to be awarded to those persons whose private
interests might suffer from such a measure.
The Duke of WELLINGTON said, no one
could be more desirous than himself for a refprm of
i 4 laW nn titat all ;;;linuitl 1)t
by his Majesty's Government, with as little delay as
possible, to accomplish an end so desirable.
The Duke of WELLINGTON moved the third
reading of the Irish and Scotch Promissory Note
NIL "

.The Earl of CARNARVON opposed the Bills
but declared that he would not divide the House
upon it.

Lord ELLENBOROUGH, and the Earl of
ROSSLYN; defended the Bill. •
The Duke of WELLINGTON said, he intended,
411P1- Op shp-old b rg44. n ;NO tijag, to propose
an additionaL clause by way of rider, which would
allow parties either in Scotland or Ireland to draw
drafts on their bankers in this county for sums under 5/.
Lord. CALTHORPE opposed the Bill, and was
left speaking.