Sentence Of Death.
The Times, 1824-12-11T00:00:00

Perhaps there are few points that more deserve attention than the present mode of passing sentence of death upon prisoners capitally convicted at the Old Bailey Sessions. Every thinking person who has witneesed thia,cemrrtony, and is acquainted with.all he cimrean stances connected with the subject, cannot fail to be struck Vith the manifest violation of consistency, and even trath, generally disco. vered in this proceeding. Sometimes 200r 30 miserable beings,who have been found guilty of crimes as various in degree as can well be conceived, froni the assassin who hlt stabbed with intent to mur. der his victim, the mnidnight robber, or the forger, who has mtade in- roads upon his neighbour's property to the amount of hundreds of thousands, dowvn to the petty pilferer, who has stolen 40s. in a dwelling.house, or has broken a window and taken a loaf of bread, are, at the-same time, brought up and placed at the bar, for the pur- pose of having judgment of death pronounced upontbhen, and are all admonished with nmuch solemnity to prepare for another world; when the learned judge, from his long experience, muat be consci. ously certain, that the very great majority of the number whom he has heen thur formally conctemning and piously exhorting. are not in the least danger of'sufrering the extreme pumeishment of the law: of this, also, the atudience and the prisoners themselves are well aware , and thus a proceeding that should be the most awful and im. pressive that any human instdtution is capable of being ren- dered, is divested of proper effect, and the address of the Recorder, which is usually the same in substauce and in words, comes with little snore weight than the harangue of the crier vho opens or adjourns the court. It is supposed it was in order to obviate the difflculty in which those who preside in cri- minal courts found themselves, that an act ol Parliament was pass- ea about eighteen mfonths back, which empowers Judges to abstain from pronouneing szetence of death upon yersonscapitsaly convicted the cha.aeter of whose crimes tnight be comparativelp' venial, ant authorizes that judgment of death may be recorded in such cases. This is ncted upon universally by the Judges on the circuits ; but unhappily for those who try capital indictments at the Old Bailey sessions, it has been decided by the legal advisers of the Crown, that the aforesaid act does not apply tO. London and Mliddlesex, al. though persons gifted merely with coxtmon sense areimuch at a loss howv to account for such an interpretation. It is bigh Utie. however, that me:sutres shoaild be adopted for prdenting a grave' 3udicial formn from appearing in the light of a eo. senn farce, which was really the case eu Wednesday last, whten amneng the number upon wons sentence of death was passed, were two littl children, girls of the ager of tvwelve and thirteen years, who htad pilfered somec money, amounlting to above forty snillings,an a house at Westmiunster. At the Septemrber and October sessions thirty-eight prisoners were cepitally convicted, and. only two were ordered for execation. Surely the greater part of these cases might have been determined upon by the Judge at the time qf trial, withoat the parties Ivinic for vweeks under the sentence of deaths1 awaiting the deeisi oft& Privy Coutcil., SRNTENCE OF DEATH.