On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
" The state of every king consists more assuredly in the love of the subject towards their prince , than in the dread of laws made « % ith rigorous pains ; and
laws made for the preservation of the commonwealth without great penalties are more often obeyed and kept , than laws made with extreme punishments /' ' i Mar . st . i . c . i .
C It is a melancholy truth , that among the variety of actions which men are daily liable to commit , no less than an hundred and sixty have been declared by act of Parliament to be felonies without benefit of clergy ; or , in other words , to be worthy of instant death . So dreadful a list , instead of diminishing , increases the number of offenders . Tiie
injured , through compassion , will often forbear to prosecute : juiies , through compassion , will sometimes forget their oaths , and either acquit the guilty or
mitigate the nature of the offence ; and judges , through compassion , will respite one half of the convicts , amd recommend them to the royal mercy . Among so many chances of escaping , the needy and hardened offender overlooks the
multitude that suffer ; he boldly engages in some desperate attempt , to relieve his wants or supply his vices ; and , if unexpectedly the h ; nd of justice overtakes him , he deems himself peculiarly unfortunate , in falling at last a sacrifice to those laws , which long impunity has taught him to contemn . " Blackstone , B . iv . ch . i .
There is no one subject on which wise and good men ar , e so generally agreed as on the propiiety of reducing the criminal law of a state to the standard of justice ;
and almost every writer on the subject has pronounced the criminal law of England to be singularly imperfect , and to stand in great need of melioration . We shall
therefore make no apology for bringing this topic into discussion : if indeed the facts we have to exhibit do not carry the reader ' s
convictions along with us , apologies would be useless : though we shall not perhaps be much blamed even by those , if any there be , that think we err , when it is recol-
Untitled Article
lected that we err with such men ( not to allude to a bright constellation of living philanthropists , ) as Sir Thomas More , Erasmus , Beccaria , Montesquieu , Johnson , Franklin , Blackstone , Palyy , Pitt and Fox ,
We ought , perhaps , to acknowledge that we were incited to enter upon this discussion by the perusal of Mr . Montagu ' s vblumes , " On the Punishment of Death ; ' * we shall be satisfied if we be reckoned amongst his feeblest coad - jutors , in his labours of charity and
mercy . Our plan is to lay down Pro - positions relating to criminal law , arid to adduce under each such authorized facts as prove , illustrate or enforce it . When any
additional facts occur to us , we shall return to propositions which may have been already gone over ; for this purpose the propositions * will be numbered . We need not add that we rely upon our correspondents for assistance in the prose * cution of our object . Proposition I .
The frequency and number of Capital Punishments in England 9 degrade the English character in the eyes of Foreigners . " When Mirabeau was in Enghind , he asked a friend of mine with whom he was dining , \ f it
were true that twenty young men had been hanged that morning , at Newgate ? Upon being answered , that if the daily papers asserted it , there was no reason to doubt the assertion ; he replied , with
gre&t warmth and surprize , * The English are the most merciless people I ever heard or read of in my life / . 46 It appears that Mirabeau was in England in 17 S 5 * In February
Untitled Article
Facts relating to Criminal Law . 27
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1812, page 27, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1744/page/27/
-