casual or professional agents to carry them into ex

ecution."

This absurd prejudice against the office of constable, and the small encouragement which the major part receive, is one of the chief reasons why unworthy characters have filled such situations; and why the public interest has suffered by the increase of crimes.

The office of constable is as old as the monarchy of England; and certainly existed in the time of the Saxons. The law requires that he should be idoneus homo: or, in other words, to have honesty to execute the office without malice, affection, or partiality; knowledge to understand what he ought to do; and ability, as well in substance or estate, as in body, to enable him to conduct himself with utility to the public. Colquhoun. See ARRESTS.

CONVICTS. See BOTANY BAY.

CORD, PUNISHMENT OF THE, IN CHINA.

The usual capital punishments in China are strangling and beheading, (which see.) The former is more common, and is decreed against those who are found guilty of crimes, which however capital, are only held in the second rank of atrocity. -For instance, all acts of homicide, whether intentional or accidental; every species of fraud, committed upon government; the seduction of a wỏman, whether married or single; giving abusive language to a parent, (See CHINESE LAWS;) plundering or defacing a burying place; robbing

with

with destructive weapons; and for wearing pearls. *

DEATH, THE PUNISHMENT OF, CONSIDERED.

The terrors of death make so slight an impres sion, that it has not force enough to withstand that forgetfulness natural to mankind, even in the most essential things, especially when assisted by the passions. Violent impressions surprise us, but their effect is momentary; they are fit to produce those revolutions which instantly transform a commou man into a Lacedemonian or a Persian, but in a free and quiet government they ought to be rather frequent than strong.

The execution of a criminal is to the multitude a spectacle which, in some, excites compassion mixed with indignation. These sentiments occupy the mind more than that salutary terror which the Jaws endeavour to inspire; but, in the contemplation of continued suffering, terror is the only, or at least the predominant sensation. The severity of a punishment should be just sufficient to excite com

This extraordinary law against wearing pearls must have been formed for the sake of preventing robberies. Editor.

Criminals are sometimes strangled with a bowstring, but on general occasions a cord is made use of, which fastens the person to a cross, and one turn being taken round his neck, it is drawn tight by an athletic executioner.

Men of distinction are usually strangled, as the more honourable death; and where the emperor is inclined to show an extraordinary mark of attention towards a mandarin condemned to die, he sends him a silken cord, with permission to be his own executioner. Punishments of China.

13

passion

passion in the spectators, as it is intended more for them than for the criminal.

A punishment, to be just, should have only that degree of severity which is sufficient to deter others. Now there is no man who, upon the least reflection, would put in competition the total and perpetual loss of his liberty, with the greatest advantages he could possibly obtain in consequence of a crime. Perpetual slavery, then, has in it all that is necessary to deter the most hardened and determined, as much as the punishment of death. There are many who can look upon death with intrepidity and firmBess, some through fanaticism, and others through vanity, which attends us even to the grave; others from a desperate resolution, either to get rid of their misery, or cease to live: but fanaticism and vanity forsake the criminal in slavery, in chains and fetters, in an iron cage, and despair seems rather the beginning than the end of their misery. The mind, by collecting itself and uniting all its force, can, for a moment, repel assailing grief; but its most vigorous efforts are insufficient to resist perpetual wretchedness.

In all nations, where death is used as a punishment, every example supposes a new crime committed; whereas, in perpetual slavery, every criminal affords a frequent and lasting example; and and if it be necessary that men should often be witnesses of the power of the laws, criminals should often be put to death: but this supposes a frequency of crimes; and from hence this punishment will cease to have its effect, so that it must be useful and useless at the same time.

Let us, for a moment, attend to the reasoning of a robber or assassin, who is deterred from violating

the