The Sun. — 1849-05-02 (London, England)

THE SECRETARY OF THE METROPOLITAN REFORM ASSOCIATION. Sir,—On Monday the 30th of April, the Poor Laws (Ireland) (Rate in Aid) Bill was read a third time and passed, with a majority of 129 to 55. On Tuesday the Ist of May, the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Ewart) made his motion for the abolition of the punishment of death. The subject was of increased interest from the circumstances of the times. It is plain that public opinion is gathering fast, and the subject must be set at rest; and the question is, how. A practical suggestion which seems capable of extension and improvement, is that a state of punishment should be prepared for criminals in whose cases circumstances may in the actual condition of things prevent the application of death, and see whether something cannot be produced to which the public, upon experience, shall be willing to entrust the repression of crime in its deepest dye. Experiment upon second-rate murderers as in corpora viii, and perhaps also upon the guilty, of crimes which have with great hesitation been taken out of the category of death punishment, such as violation and house- burning; and see what the promise is, with respect to the final repression of the whole black list. There needs no great delicacy with respect to crimes like these; especially the first, which is said to have doubled in frequency since the removal of capital punishment from it. Secretaries of State may boast; but the known truth is, that transportation though declared to be for life, has not the necessary terrors in the public eye. There is no doubt it may be made bad enough; but the badness is not trusted. There are indistinct ideas afloat of emancipists who keep their carriages abroad, or come home to brave those they have injured here. And though it is certain thees are the exceptions and not the rule, the effect is destructive upon salutary terror. It there must be murder, there must be punishment bearing some adequacy to its repression. Death has hitherto been tried, as the cheapest and most efficacious. If a substitute is to be found, it must have as many as possible of the attributes of death. There must be a punishment from which, as from the hangman's grasp, there shall be no return; save only the single chance of the future proof of innocence. Except far this chance, the criminal should as nearly as possible be annihilated. An island prison in the ocean, where the inmates should be confined to the regimen of something between a monastery and a poor-house, would seem to be the thing to start with. And there ought to be no remission or return but by an Act of Parliament. If the cry is raised of interference with the prerogative of the Crown, precedents may be found where the prerogative has been voluntarily deputed tor the public good. It the Crown had all the prerogative which could be exercised up to the moment which answers to the drawing of the hangman's bolt, it would have nothing to complain of. Either make a punishment which, with the single exception of innocence discovered, shall be as decisive and irremediable as Imaging, or else hang on. Public men will of course go halting between two opinions, till the accumulation of general feeling drives them to some practical decision. It has been heard urged, that the experiment of raising the scale of punishment in the way proposed, would be derogatory to the dignity of murder. Murder must have a bed for itself, and therefore you must not try to make another bed to fit it. This is certainly a wide departure from•the times, when the scaffold was a bed that fitted all crimes, down to starring woman's shoplifting; but it does not therefore follow that it is exact. To insist on it, seems to be refusing the practical step which gets over obstacles. The dread of the public at present is, that no punishment shortof death can be found suilliciently strong for murder. The dread of the objectors is, that murder should lose pre-eminence. Mr. Ewart's motion was lost by 75 against 51. A considerable improvement on the last, which was 192 against 66. _  I am, Sir, your obedient servant, AN