Star. — 1831-05-24 (London, England)

SPIRIT OF THE JOURNAL&  HER ALD.—Puniskinera qf Death.—ln adverting again to the cases of the two convicts who are ordered for execution to-morrow morn. ing, we wish it distinctly to be understood that we did not and do not object to the infliction of death in these Instances on the ground of a partial or injudicious selection having been made out of a calendar of eighteen condemned persons, who might all have been swept from the face of the earth together, if the government so pleased, in accordance with the letter and the spirit of sanguinary laws—our objection is to any se/edioes for the scaffold being made, if these were the worst eases in the calendar--and we are well convinced that, if the sentences are carried into execution, it will be under circumstances that do not justify the shedding of blood either on moral grounds or those of public necessity. Au Evening Paper (the Courier ) says. Lt allusion to our remarks, " It would probably have been found that, abstracting the question as to the fitness of the law under which these men are wntenced,the selection was well made ; and we hope it will be admitted that, whilst capital punishments for other crimes titan murder shall be considered necessary, the Government will, in the selection of offenders to whom it is intended to extend the mercy of the Crown, have regard to the general character of the convicted." Here is a doctrine avowed which is nut more abhorrent to humanity ,han to every idea of sound and dispassionate policy. What ! if the crime for which a man has been tried and convicted does not in any view of it deserve death, is he to be hanged because on a secret investigation it does not appear to those who are the dispensers of his fate his character is that of an upright and virtuous man If men were to be hanged for bad characters we might dispense with the hulks, and transportation, and imprisonment, and the tread-mill, and secondary punishment altogether. Again, if it be inhuman and unjust to hang men for certain offences, of which they have been legally convicted according to the roles of evidence in open Court, and in a judicial manner, is it right or just to hang them for allegations of bud character not proved according to the rules of evidence in npm Court, not coating mite the cog- , nizance of the Jury who returned the verdict, and only inquired into by a mode of proceeding arbitrary, inquisitorial, and extra-judicial ? As to sheep-stealing, it no more deserves death, in either a moral or social I point of view, than stealing an ars or a pig, neither of which are capital offences by our law; sod yet asses and pigs are as well protected from depredation as, in the circumstances of things it is possible tbr such animals to be. But the man who is to surer has stolen a few sheep. True; but if he bad stolen twice as many asses, or three times as many pigs, his punishment, though severe would not cut him off in his sins, nor deprive him o; the chance of becoming afterwards a useful and industrious member of society. Our Contemporary speaks of the other man as a burglar. We understood he had been convicted under the act which makes it death to steal to the amount of five pounds in a dwelling. house. This is a very different offence from burglary—but if we were misinformed, and the man has been found guilty ass burglar, his offence must have been one of those eotutraetioe burglaries, in which no actual violence is committed, and to say that, "he only wanted the physical energies of the common burglar to become a murderer," is one of the strangest modes possible of constructing an imaginary foundation on which to build a sanguinary inference. Is the doctrine of constructive burglary or constructive murder a whit bettor than that of constructive treason, so justly exploded from our law ? Our Contemporary says, as a raison why sheep-stealing is not punished with death in France, that there is in that country a " horror of crime against unprotected property." What has created it ? is it sanguinary laws, or mild ones ? And what has demoralised the people of this country so as to make property an very insecure ? Our Contemporary will know bow to answer both questions when we tell him that the English criminal laws punished upwards of :120 offences with death, while under the Code Napoleon there were but six capital crimes. Whit.; argument then, of morals or policy, is there for the sanguinary spectacle of to-morrow morning ?