The Sun. — 1856-06-10 (London, England)

PUNISHMENT OF DEATH.  Several petitions were presented against the 'punishment of death.  Mr. EWART moved for a select committee to inquire into the operation of the law imposing the punishment of death. The objection to thi3 punishment was based on many grounds, and one was the uncertainty attending its being carried out after a jury had returned a verdict of guilty. That uncertainty had greatly increased of late years, and was increasing daily. The public feeling was louder now against capital punishments than heretofore. Juries were less inclined to return verdicts of guilty, and judges were less inclined to pass the sentence than formerly. In fact, he believed there was a strong feeling existing against convicting females for infanticide ; but who should we protect but the innocentand the helpless? In many foreign countries the punishment of death had been abolished and with success, and he thought he was not asking too much in calling on the house to institute inquiry into this mode of punishment, because it did not pledge the house to any particular principle or opinion. Some persons objected to this mode of punishment on religious grounds ; but that was an objection he thought need not then be entered on, and he was opposed to discussing theological subjects in that house. Punishment, to be real, should be an affective punishment both on the criminal and in the repression of crime; It should be equal in its operation, not falling severely on one criminal whilst another escaped, and certainty which was the great principle of punishment as much as publicity was that of justice. The hon. gentleman then proceeded to illustrate the want of three essentials in capital punishment in this country, as referring to the cases of murder that had been tried and the manner in which the criminals had been treated after conviction. In the Home Department the same uncertainty prevailed with regard to the carrying out of capi al punishment a, existed with juries and judger. The present Home Secretary displayed on all occasions a kind and merciful censideration to these unfortunate and unhappy offenders which the house could but admire. (Hear.) It was not his conduct he (Mr. Ewart) and the public complained of, but the system that permitted that uncertainty, which he illustrated by the respite of Celestine Somers, who was as guilty of murder as any person who had ever been executed for that crime. (Hear, hear.) The uncertainty of the punishment, as regarded the Home Department, was apparent when they considered that Secretaries of State for the Home Department changed with political parties. They might have this year a merciful Secretary, and next year a severe one, who would let the law take its course Then as to the remedy. One suggestion was that private executions would get rid!of the evils at present attending public executions ; but he doubted it, because the members of the press would gain admission to the gaols, and pander to the morbid tastes of the public by writing and publishing minute details of every execution, which would be greedily sought after and read by the public. Another suggestion was occasional capital punishments— executing a man now and then for example. That be considered bad, and he looked upon it as a species of gambling with human life. What the advocates of the abolition of capital punishment recommended was the substitution of a minor, though certain, punishment for it, as had been adopted of late years in cases of forgery, burglary, &c.  [