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Your Committee have sought for evidence on these subjects from those classes of taen Who are sufferers from larcenies , who must be prosecutors where these larcenies are brought to trial , who are the witnesses , by whom such chargee must be substantiated , and who are the jurors , by whose verdicts only effect can
jbe given to the , laws . On this class of persons * where the crimes are most frequent , and where long and extensive experience allows little room * for error and none for misrepresentation , or in other words , on the traders of the cities of London and Westminster , your Committee jiave principally relied for information . To the clerks at the offices of
magistrates , and to the officers of criminal courts , who receive informations and prepare indictments , to experienced magistrates themselves , and to the gaolers and others , who , in the performance of their duties , have constant opportunities of observing the feelings of offenders , the Committee have also directed their
inquiries ; their testimony has been perfectly uniform . Mr . Shelton , who has been near forty years clerk of arraigns at the Old Bailey , states , that juries are anxious to reduce the value of property below its real
amount , in those larcenies where the capital punishment depends on value ; t ^ at they are desirous of omitting those circumstances on which the capital puluahment depends in constructive burglaries ; and that a reluctance to convict is
perceptible m forgery . Sir Archibald Macdonald bears testimony to the reluctance of prosecutors , witnesses and juries , in forgeries , in shop-lifting , and offences of a like nature . He belie ? es that the chances of escape are greatly increased by the severity of
the punishments . " Against treason , murder , arson , rape , and crimes against the dwelling-house or person , and some others , " he thinks , " the punishment of death should be directed / 9 < 5 P « W . Carr > Esq ; solicitor of Excise , a very intelligent -public officer , gave an important testimony , directly applicable indeed only to offences against the
revenue , Jm $ throwing great light . on > the general tendency of severity m penal laws jk > defeat 4 ^ -jwn purpose . From this extensire expe ^ aaee * it appewre , that severe punwJiment h * a rendered the l *\ v <> n that *** # Q « # I iii # 88 qa # Na » Prosecutions and eonvictiws were eftePf when fereaj ^ hes of ? be law twere su d ^^ itawp pena ^ tiea ; <« ve »< mu g * mk peetimany WQtmYnft 6 T * QWffound >« o'fovoumble 40
wNWW& <*^ ¦ WiMtoitntTtrad ^ re spv&fer fi ^ Na ^^ * iimnm T * 0 r ooun teif tkto « /* ** ropin twtnin «*«* ,
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withh * the laws of excise , was , before the year 1806 , Subject only to a penalty of five hundred pounds ; but in that year it was * made a transportable offence , of whiih the consequence was , that the convictions , which , from 1794 to 1806 , had been nineteen out of twenty-one prosecutions , were reduced in the succeeding years , from 1806 to 1818 , to three out of
nme prosecutions * . Mr . Newman , solicitor for the city of London , speaking from thirty years' experience , of the course of criminal prosecutions in that city , informed the , Committee , that he had frequently observed a reluctance to prosecute and convict , in capital offences not directed against the lives , persons or dwellings of men .
The Reverend Mr . Cotton , ordinary of Newgate , has described in strong terms , the repugnance of the public to capital execution in offences unattended with violence , and the acquiescence even of the most depraved classes in their infliction in atrocious crimes .
Mr . Cotquhoun , for twenty-seven years a police magistrate in this capital , and well known by his publications on these subjects , declares his firm conviction that capital punishments in the minor offences operate powerfully in preventing convictions ; and that there is a great reluctance to prosecute in forgery , shop-lifting ,
larceny in the dwelling-house , burglary without actual entry , horse stealing , sheep stealing , cattle stealing , framebreaking , housebreaking in the day time , robbery without acts of violence , and other minor offences , now subject to the punishment of death . According to the testimony of this intelligent observer , the public mind revolts at capital . punishment
in cases not atrociousu Mr . Newman , late keeper of Newgate , and connected with the administration of justice in London for forty years , gave testimony tOvthe same effect . Mr . Basil Montague stated a fact of a most striking nature , immediately apto offence
pucable only one , put shewing those dispositions in the minds of the . public which must . produce similar effects wherever the general , feeling is at variance wth the prpvi ^ ionp of cJiniinal Imr . From the year J 730 , wh ^ nen > bez zlemmt of property by ^ bankrupt was n > ade a capital offence ,, ^ 1 ^ ftav <; been pyob ^ y - Mm , t ^ ii ^ nd , , bankri * ptcfes ; in that period tbf re Jiave not t ? j ^ n nwi « than ten , proa ^ eut ^ n ^ , f * ml ffltm . t ?* wutfonm Jmaitm < mW mnm ^ iff' ^ fraudulent ; lplimi | k # 9 fi
^ xxmmon mMm& < ; * 9 o $ # < 0 mmm " - * ° ¦ ^' ' ^ 'W' ^ ^ W ^ ^ ¦!* & U ; 3 ^'> 'j % •) H ^ llfejf ^^ l ^^^ W ^ l ^ lfi -
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124 Register of Public Documents ' .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Feb. 2, 1820, page 124, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2485/page/60/
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