On this page

• Text (2)

  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.

  • 

    Untitled Article

  • 

    Untitled Article

• 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

    deliberately put to death in the course 6 f text cjays ! Monstrous 1 And of these fourteen , victims , fpur of them for forgery and ^ jthe . lesser offence of uttering forged r notes i What , Mr . Editor , is become of the " Committee appointed , to consider pf f so \ much of the Criminal Laws as rejiates to Capital Punishments for Felonies" ? I believe

    they have recommended ; the substitution of some other penalty in the place of the uliimum supplicium in cases of forgery , or at least of the uttering of forged notes . If so , why is it not attended to ? If our rulers will persist in hanging up , by the dozen and the score , their fellow-ereatures . upontheir

    heads let the blood light . / The people ? have no hand in it ; they disclaim such an infernal system ; they are no less hostile to the Draconian code , that condemns to an equal punishment the stripling who passes a forged bill for 20 s . and the midnight assassin who bathes himself in the blood of his

    victim , than those great and good men of the past and present century , Beccaria , Montesquieu , Blackstone , Johnson , Goldsmith , Romilly , Mackintosh , Buxton , &c . What can induce those in whose hands rests the dread but

    unenvied power of life and death , thus pertinaciously to adhere to a practice so revolting to the Creator and the creature , and , as is proved by the multiplicity of examples , ineffectual as a preventive of crime—the great , the sole object of punishment ? And why is it inefficacious ? Why does it fail of its aim ? Let us hear what that able

    writer and distinguished philanthropist above quoted says . on this , subject : " In proportion as punishments become more cruel , the human mind , which , like fluids , rises to a level with

    the surrounding objects , becomes hardened ; and , the force of the passions still y continuing , after a century of cruel punishments , the igheel terrifies no more than formerly did the prison "

    I shall give no opinion on the subject of crimes accompanied with violence , tfiough 1 am disposed to think that offenders of this sort might be prevented from inmrmg society in

    future , Nbe made ^ s ^ uljtp the ^ tate , and eve ^ eventua ^ y ^ eclajuned , if , we were i ^ s rea ^ y j ^' - ' ^ Kri ^^ , w # aye to launch thezp , into ete , rn % 5 mv business is , at present , as \ ye \\ yvxih the crimen JTalsi as with what may be

    Untitled Article

    broadl y termed theft . That good man ami \ distinguished moralist , Johnson , in the CXIVth Number of the Rambler , ( a paper which I earnestly recommend : to the , perusal of those who advocate the cause of justiceV and humanity , but more particularly to the attentive considerati 6 n of such persons as , from ah erroneous idea of the

    necessity of sanguinary inflictions , have hitherto opposed all amendment of our criminal code , ) thus speaks of the confusion of crime : " The frequency of capital punishments , therefore , rarely hinders the commission of a cr ime , but naturally and commonly

    prevents ltls detection , and is , if we proceed only upon prudential principles , chiefly for that reason to be avoided . Whatever may be urged by casuists or politicians , tne greater part of mankind , as they can never think that to pick the pocket and to pierce

    the heart is equally criminal , will scarcely believe that two malefactors so different in guilt can be justly doomed to the same punishment ; nor is the necessity of submitting the conscience to human laws so plainly evinced , so clearly stated , or so

    generally allowed , but that the pious , the tender and the just will always scruple to concur with the community in an act which their private judgment cannot approve . " When the Dr . wrote

    the above , the absurdity , the wickedness of the doctrine of equal penalties for unequal offences , was not go generally admitted , nor had the public sympathy for poor wretches , the victims of a code " the reproach of

    neighbouring states , " been so generally excited as it has of late years . It is not so now . Englishmen , Sir , I repeat , renounce a code that is at once an outrage on their feelings and their

    judgment ; a code that condemns to an equal penalty a Maddon and a Nesbitt . If the arguments of those celebrated p hilosophers and philanthropists betore mentioned , and others on this side of the question , are

    unsound ; if either their premises are false . or their deductions erroneous , let them be refuted , let the "" Mighty Mother" in Threadneedle Street , and her mammon-worshiping children , sit down and subvert the reasoning : of ' their opponents ,, which , indeed , they must do , by arguments it priori , since they cannot appeal to experience , in favour

    Untitled Article

    VOL . XVI . f ?

    Untitled Article

    Capital Punishments . 9

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1821, page 9, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2496/page/9/