To say that it is the shame and disgrace of a public execution which is the essence of its advantage as a punishment. is in effect to admit that the loss of life is not the most dreaded of consequences, and amounts to an abandonment of the argument in defence of Capital Punishment.

This erroneous estimate of the efficacy, as a measure of intimidation, of Capital Punishment, will be found to be made chiefly to men of calm and considerate minds, and of strict morals, who themselves entertaining that serious sense of the awful nature of death which is just, cannot be persuaded how lightly and carelessly it is by many regarded. Persons, however, who are thus impressed with the solemnity and fearful nature of a transition to eternity," must be content, only upon the clearest and most undoubted evidence of the necessity of the case, that for any purposes of legislation any considerable number of individuals should be hurried out of existence. It is therefore to be hoped, that when their confidence in the efficacy of such a system shall have been, as it ought and must, shaken by the representations, and arguments and deductions made on the other side of the question, they will relinquish their opposition; and thus evince that they are not less awake to the considerations of humanity and the suggestions of mercy, than to the importance of securing the protection of property and the ease and peace of society.

In page 224 of that work (Mr. Millar's) which has occasioned us to make these observations, the reader may find a fact mentioned, which it gives us great surprise the acute and sensible author should not have thought worthy of consideration, with reference to his grand dogma, that death is the most dreaded of human punishments. Mr. Millar states, that in September 1819 he himself saw a remarkable instance in Austria of the suffering which real solitary confinement for life is capable of creating. A labourer in that country was convicted in the year 1817, by the oath of one witness, confirmed by the strongest circumstantial evidence, of hav. ing murdered one of his neighbours. The criminal did not confess at the trial, and for want of such confession could only be condemned by the present law to perpetual solitary imprisonment. He bore it patiently for two years, but

found at last the horrors of his imprisonment so intolerable, that he made the necessary confession, and was executed; thus voluntarily drawing down on himself that punishment which, at least, in this instance, does not seem to have been the most dreaded of punishments, inasmuch as it was embraced in preference to imprisonment !

It may not be irrelevant to mention here, that when flogging was more frequently practised in the army, than, happily, in our day, frequent instances occurred of soldiers killing themselves, in order to evade the punishment. Nor is it possible for persons, who think with Mr. Millar, to make any satisfactory answer to the argument against their notion of the terrors of death which may be drawn from the practice of suicide. Unless it be held, as some have thought fit to assert, that this crime is never perpetrated except under the influence of mental derangement, we do not see how men can maintain that death is the most dreaded of consequences, when numerous instances occur where it is freely sought as a refuge from calamity, or as a relief from mere ennui. It is also to be considered, that when persons lay violent hands upon themselves, they not alone brave what Mr. Millar would represent to be the most terrible of evils, but incur the moral guilt which attaches to the act: death is in these cases embraced not simply as more desirable than the something from which it relieves the miserable, but as more desirable, notwithstanding the criminality of procuring it. Even this criminality is not the sole aggravation of self-murder. The conse

quences resulting to the family of the suicide, the odium, as well as the possible forfeiture of property, the indignities to which the corpse is liable, all co-operate with that dread of death which is itself represented to be all powerful, and yet with all it is set at nought.

It was an excellent observation made by a person examined by the Committee in 1819 (Sir R. Phillips), that he conceived the apprehension of capital punishment had no more effect upon the minds of offenders, than has the fear of death upon mankind generally. It seems certain that persons solicited by temptation to hazard their lives must be struck by some such reflections as these:-"We must all die

-I only risk dying a little sooner than I should in the course of nature. The mode of death, too, is an easy one. If I am detected and sentenced, I shall free myself of all the troubles and perils of my unhappy and anxious condition; if I escape, I improve that condition; at all events, I only hazard, for my objects, and to gain my livelihood, what thousands. do in the field of battle for the same." Such may be the ruminations of many a wavering wretch: 'tis true, when this death he has braved so carelessly, is at hand, when the hour of execution approaches, his spirit may sink under the sense of his crimes, and the apprehensions of futurity. The anguish of the convict's soul, during the few hours previous to execution, may be in truth more intense than the most ingenious refinements could make him feel in any scheme of secondary punishment; but it does not serve any purpose of legislation that it should be such. We know it has been argued, that the very exertions which, on the near approach of death, culprits find it necessary to make, in order to screw their courage to the sticking-place, are convincing evidence of their apprehension of an event which they pretend to regard with such perfect indifference. Those who advance such an argument seem to mistake the object of capital punishment: it is not, as in their reasoning must be assumed, to chastise, but to intimidate. The anguish which the culprit experiences is useful, only in so far as it may deter others from crime: "vengeance is not ours," and it is only to prevent offence that we are allowed to punish. If, then, capital punishment be in actual sufferance, attended with any portion of anguish beyond that attributed to it by anticipation, it is in so much objectionable. It may, however, be said, that the spectacle of a public execution has beneficial effects. It is to be feared they are very trifling. How little does the view of a funeral, or the loss of a friend or intimate acquaintance, affect any of us in the ordinary course of things! Why, then, should we expect the execution of a criminal to operate differently upon his associates? The precariousness of human life is itself so great, and the sense of our mortality so deep, whenever we think of the subject, that

it is impossible to make any considerable addition to them. The sole objects of punishment are, intimidation and reformation. The last is altogether abandoned in Capital Punishment; and though a degree of suffering is inflicted which only the attainment of the first could justify, it is not attained. Capital Punishment precludes reform; and though in actual endurance, perhaps the most terrible of punishments, it has little or no power of intimidation. No means can more effectually frustrate every object of legislation.

But, whatever might be the effects of a wide and general application, on the part of the legislature, of the punishment of death as a method of intimidation, it would yet fail of that prevention which its intrinsic terrors were calculated to produce, by reason of the repugnance which will prevail in the community to a sanguinary code. The reality and extent of this repugnance has been disputed by Mr. Millar and the gentlemen who think with him. The question, being one of fact, can only be decided by evidence. We have no hesitation in professing our belief that this repugnance to prosecute offenders to death is so strong and general, as to render entirely inexpedient a code in which that punishment is extensively applied, even were such a code recommended by all the advantages which the friends of Capital Punishment contend that it possesses. We think the difference of opinion upon this point arises from persons having failed to advert to the distinction between a belief in the efficacy of rigour, and a disposition to act upon that belief. When Mr. Millar and his friends collected the opinions of persons around them, upon the expediency of maintaining the present system of Capital Punishment in all its extent, and found them averse from change, they have, we venture to think, assumed their perfect alacrity and readiness to carry into effect that punishment which they deemed it right the legislature should adopt. If they did so, they committed a most material error. It is stated by Mr. Montague (we believe) in his evidence before the Criminal Law Committee, that a general impression prevails that severity of punishment has a beneficial effect; but that, notwithstanding, there is

a general indisposition to inflict the punishment. We should feel disposed to doubt the accuracy of this statement, as to the prevalence of a belief in the efficacy of Capital Punishment; but conceding that point, if the matter be considered, it will be found, we imagine, that the indisposition to prosecute must, from the nature of things, at all times, prevail,-and that widely.

For its own wise and beneficent purposes, Providence has impressed the mind of man with a deep horror of producing the death of a fellow-creature; and rather than have the blood of a criminal upon their hands, most men will be disposed to disappoint justice of her dues. Against the inclination to such a course of conduct, some persons of strong mind will set the sense of duty which they owe to society; and it will prevail. But this sense of duty cannot be expected to be often so operative. In every particular case, circumstances will arise on which the party who ought to prosecute will seek to raise a plea for his lenity, and they may frequently be colourable enough to satisfy his own scruples. Finally, it is to be observed, that a belief in the ultimate advantage of rigorous punishment cannot be impressed upon the mind without going through a long process of investigation, and must ever be mixed with that alloy of distrust which unavoidably attends results attained in such a way. On the other hand, the suggestions of mercy address themselves directly to the heart the impulse arising from them is plain and simple; no dark doubts or difficulties arise to thwart it. To refrain from prosecution, to bid the criminal" go and sin no more," is to attain a plain and palpable good; it relieves the mind from the anguish of prosecution, and it rescues the criminal from the pains and penalties of his transgression. But to drag him to the bar, to call down on his head the vengeance of the law, is to incur the certain and undoubted evil of the outrage it occasions to the feelings of him who adopts such a course, and of the chastisement which falls upon the offender; and this, for the attainment of a remote ultimate benefit to society, a benefit somewhat problematical at best.

Some such reasonings as these will at all times operate