The Sun. — 1862-12-02 (London, England)

THE SUN.  LONDON, TUESDAY, DEC. 2, 1862.  If we are not much mistaken the Garotters not yet caught will think twice over their chances of capture before determining upon a perseverance in their profession. The punishments awarded at the close of last week to those who were caught in the act of brutally strangling or bludgeoning their fellow creatures will—we may be quite certain of this —be effectual to some extent in warning their comrades from the path leading so inevitably to those bitter doses of penal servitude. For four years—for five years —for ten years—for twenty years—for Life! It is enough to make the most daring ruffian of them all pause in his career of villany before tempting his destiny so rashly as a SYKES turned Thug and armed with a knuckle-cluster.  Effectually, however, though Baron BRAMWELL has brought these modern Stranglers to bay by his inexorable distribution of punishments—when the first shock produced by that earliest batch of 18 sentences has in some measure died away, we fear that the exploits of the Garotters still at large will be heard of again, a little later on, with terrible frequency. The more audacious among the gang will trust to their luck that they may escape detection. They will once more be lying in wait at the foggy street-corners—watching for one of their deadly opportunities. It has curiously so happened that in the instance of one of the moat atrocious cases tried in the Central Criminal Court, the effect produced by the punishment awarded to one of the convicted felons, the effect produced by that award upon a relative of the offender, a sister of the man LANE, appears to have been the reverse of either quieting or cautionary. The instance of Garotting we are here alluding to, was the very flagrant case in which four men were all but the murderers of a Mr. MICHAEL MURRAY, of Chelsea. Those who watched the trial of the various Garotters brought in succession before Baron BRAMWELL, cannot but remember how it was that the victim of those four garotters was cruelly maltreated : his jawbone being fractured—his teeth knocked out—he himself left by his assailants in a state of insensibility. Scarcely had the news got about London that a fittingly severe punishment had been awarded to the three out of this amiable parti carree of Garotters who were caught in the act of assaulting Mr. MURRAY or immediately afterwards—when the sister of one of them is proved to have had the consummate audacity to threaten the life of the unfortunate victim of those Garotters. Swearing that she would be revenged upon him, though it were forty years hence, for having been instrumental in bringing the offenders to justice. The incident is significant if only for inasmuch as it evidences the fact that, telling though the sentences of Baron BRAMWELL have proved to be oa the whole—they have not invariably, by any means, told the right way. No! we are brought back here again to the recognition of the truth that an especial and peculiar punishment is required for an especial and peculiar offence. And that punishment ? It has been recently suggested very fairly by Mr. ADDERLEY, and only this morning effectively enforced by the arguments of an intelligent correspondent (E.) of our chief morning contemporary. "The remedy," writes this correspondent, "is obvious. Furnish for violence an additional penalty that shall be short, sharp, and, above all, immediate. It has not escaped, nor is it condemned by so experienced an inquirer as Mr. ADDERLEY, but it has been regarded for some time in England with so almost superstitious a dislike that I will not name it at once. I will only say that it is a punishment well known and well defined, the very instrument by which it is inflicted subject to strict regulation ; that it is proved by an immense experience to be productive of no lasting injury, and that it supplies the very kind of motive most likely to be effective with the kind of villains who can maltreat their fellow-creatures for the sake of a few shillings. In our times the threat of it arrested at once a particular sort of crime which every 'leers put down by its agency, Every man of probably loyal subject viewed with dread. experience must have known mutineers well-educated m youth to its infliction ; and in grave c applied to our soldiers and sailors. B enough in their early days f . Most educated, en, have been liable in it ritecfEtai,tr among us, and is good enough, our pilot defilidors, is too bud, it Rooms, for our