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    and account books * In this situ , ation the prosecutor begged very earnestly for his life . As he laid under the prisoner , he watched his countenance and saw that he was . much agitated ; he desisted ,

    rose , mounted his horse and rode away . It was then about 7 o ' clock in the evening ; but the yojung man was so much exhausted that he did not reach home till late at

    night . He immediately stated these circumstances ; but the improbability of his having been robbed in open day-light on a road , and of his having lost various memorandums which a robber would

    scarcely have taken , excited some suspicion respecting the truth of this statement . As the jury were leaving the box , the young man who had been robbed , begged to be heard . He was so much agitated that he could scarcely speak ; when he recovered himself , he said , * I stand here to plead for your mercy , towards a man who listened to . my voice , when I begged for mercy from him . If he

    could have been deaf to my cry , I should now be in my grave , and he in the bosom of a respectable family , with the wife who believed him virtuous , and the children who loved him . It has been

    proved to you that his connections , his character , his religious persuasion would have all united to shelter him from suspicion ; it has also been proved that I was lame from my birth ; that I am feeble ; that I had exasperated him by a blow which almost fractured his

    skull , and that he knew I could identify him , but the kindness of his nature preponderated ; it overcame the fear of disgrace , and he suffered me * to depart that I might be the cause of his death . If you do not

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    pity his momentary lapse , if you do not respect his return to Virtue , it would have been well for me that I had died . It is me that you will condemn ; I shall be the victim of the law , and he gave me my life in vain / He was

    frequently interrupted during this affecting appeal , by the tears of the jury and the general distress of the court ; the prisoner was found guilty , and was executed . The story is well known in the county of York . The name is suppressed from respect to his friends . " Montagu , on the Punishment of Death , i . 6 , 7 .

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    Capital Punishments . London , Sir , Dec . 27 , 1811 . I am glad that you have invited communications on the subject of Capital Punishments , and trust that your correspondents will not

    be backward in contributing , according to their means , to the caiise of justice and humanity . Allow me to throw in , as my mite , the following observation ; which . I very lately heard from a Chris * tian Teacher , in public . 4

    < The severity of our penal code is attended with this evil *; that the awful punishment of death being re . sorte ^ l to for crimes of comparatively small moment , noheavier punishment is left for crimes of the deepest die , with every accompaniment of

    atrocity . The several gradations of guilt are thus confounded in a dreadful equality of punishment ; and he that treads the first step in iniquity , on finding that he is subject to , the same fate as if he had proceeded to the last , rushes onwards in the career of violence with headlong desperation . —1 his whole metropolis is now agitated

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    3 O Capital Punishments .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1812, page 30, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1744/page/30/