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» * Justice came from God's wisdom , but mercy from his love : therefore as thou hast not his wisdom , be pitiful ( o merit his affection . ' ?
The most important ends of human punishments are , first , the prevention of crime , and 2 dly , the reformation of the criminal ; and each of these ' ends' would seern to be contemplated in the penal inflictions usually allotted to the perpetrators of the lighter grades of crime . Now it is evident that if the attainment of the latter object be desirable in trivial cases , it must be infinitely more
so in those of a serious description , —in fact , that the necessit y for the reformation of the criminal must increase in an equal ratio to the enormity of the offence of which he may have been guilty . But self-evident and momentous as this proposition may seem to my readers , it is notorious that our legislators have hitherto either
overlooked or disregarded it : and that our criminal code has been framed in direct opposition to it . Thus we see speedy death inflicted upon murderers , whilst solitude and the various other resources of prison discipline are invoked to lend their aid to promote the conversions of pickpockets ! Criminals of the latter class are allowed both time and opportunities for repentance ,
whilst those of the former description , are effectually debarred from both . Absurd and cruel , however , as this anomaly is , it is not without its defenders , both in the reli g ious and in the political world . There are yet to be found politicians who believe , or affect to believe , the infliction of death upon criminals of a certain class to be perfectly consistent with the dictates of sound policy ; whilst there are also religionists to be met with , who , looking rather at the 'letter' than at the f spirit * of the Divine law , attempt to justify the continuance of the horrid practice by appealing to
Scripture in its defence ! And although the arguments of neither party are founded upon truth , yet from the pertinacity with which they have been urged , and the frequency with which they have been repeated , aided , no doubt , by that moral vis inertias which seems to enter so largely into the composition of our national character , the wished-for effect has been produced , and the frequent commission of legal murder still continues the striking and disgraceful characteristic of the domestic policy of humane and enhqhtened England !
With the sincere desire of assisting in the removal of thin national stigma , I shall endeavour to show that Death-punishment' is no less opposed to the dictates of policy and religion , than it is to those of humanity : — One of the ' Famous Sayings of Gcmiheed / narrated in James * Siring of Pearls /
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332
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ON THE PROPRIETY OF TOTALLY ABOLISHING ' DEATH-PUNISHMENT . '
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1834, page 332, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2633/page/20/
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