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from experience, to prepare themselves for the mortification of seeing their labour and exertions in a great measure lost to the Community: the major part of these criminals being returned upon Society, without any effectual steps adopted for their reformation, or any means used for the prevention of a repetition of their crimes. A considerable proportion of this wretched number may have suffered perhaps a slight punishment for their demerits; but which produces no effect that is not ultimately mischievous to the Community; since it serves merely to initiate them, in a greater degree, in the knowledge and means of committing new acts of fraud and villainy.

To establish a System calculated to prevent criminals from returning to their evil practices after punishment is the very essence of good Police; but notwithstanding its importance to the Community, no measures have ever yet been adopted, calculated to attain so desirable an object.-It is, however, ardently to be hoped, that the period is fast approaching, when this great desideratum will be in a certain degree obtained; and that the suggestions offered in the subsequent Chapters, may tend to accelerate the renovation of this forlorn and miserable class of outcasts, by means of an appropriate Penitentiary System.

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CHAP. XVI.

On Punishments.--The mode authorized by the ancient laws.-The period when Transportation commenced. -The principal crimes enumerated which are punishable by Death. Those punishable by Transportation and Imprisonment.-The courts appointed to try different degrees of crimes.-Capital punishments, ex ́tending to so many offences of an inferior nature, defeat the ends of justice.--The system of Pardons examined;-their amined; their evil tendency.-New regulations suggested with regard to Pardons and Executions.-An historical account of the rise and progress of Transportation. The expedients resorted to, after the American War put a stop to that mode of punishment. --The System of the Hulks then adopted.—Salutary Laws also made for the erection of Provincial and National Penitentiary Houses.-The nature and principle of these Laws briefly explained.—An account of the Convicts confined in the Hulks for twenty-two years.-The enormous expence of maintenance and inadequate produce of their labour.The impolicy of the system exposed by the Committee on Finance. The system of Transportation to New South Wales examined.-Great expence of this mode of punishment.-Improvements suggested, calculated to reduce the expence in future.-Erection of one or more National Penitentiary Houses recommended.— A general view of the Ceunty Penitentiary Houses

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and Prisons: their inefficacy in reforming Convicts. -The labour obtained uncertain, while the expence is enormous.-The National Penitentiary House (according to the proposal of Jeremy Bentham, Esq.) considered.-Its peculiar advantages over all others which have been suggested, with respect to health, productive labour, and reformation of Convicts.General reflections on the means of rendering im prisonment useful in reforming Convicts.-Concluding obsercutions.

IM

MPERFECT in many respects as the criminal Law appears, from what has been detailed and stated in the preceding Chapters, and much as the great increase of capital offences, created during the last and present Century, is to be lamented:--it cannot be denied that several changes have taken place in the progress of Society, favourable to the cause of humanity, and more consonant to reason and justice, in the appropriation and the mode of inflicting punish

ments.

The Benefit of Clergy, which for a long period exempted clerical people only, from the punishment of death in cases of felony, was by several statutes tended to peers, women, and all persons able to read;

*

1 Edward VI. cap. 12: 21 Jac. I. cap.6: 3 and 4 William and Mary, cap. 9: 4 and 5. William and Mary, cap. 24.

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who, pleading their Clergy, suffered only a corporal punishment, or a year's imprisonment; and those men who could not read, if under the degree of peerage, were hanged.*

This unaccountable distinction was actually not removed until the 5th of Queen Anne, cap. 6, which extended the benefit of clergy to all who were intitled to afk it, whether they could read or not.†

In the course of the present century, several of the old sanguinary modes of punishment have been either, very properly, abolished by acts of parliament, or allowed, to the honour of humanity, to fall into disuse-such as burning alive (particularly women) cutting off hands or ears, slitting nostrils, or branding in the hand or face; and among lesser punishments, fallen into disuse, may be mentioned the duckingstool.

The punishment of death for felony (as has already been observed) has existed since the reign of Henry I. nearly 700 years.-Transportation is commonly understood to have been first introduced, anno 1718, by the act of the 4th George I. cap. 11; and afterwards enlarged by the Act 6th of George I. c. 23, which allowed the court a discretionary power to

* Blackstone.

+ The benefit of Clergy originated in injustice and inhumanity, and can only be palliated by the rude state of society, when so disgraceful a privilege was legalized and interwoven in the criminal cod.-It partakes of the nature of a compromise with villainy.It perplexes the system of criminal jurisprudence; and since its sting is taken away it would be an improvement to discontinue it totally.

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order felons who were by law entitled to their clergy, to be transported to the American plantations for seven or fourteen years, according to circum

stances.*

Since that period the mode of punishment has undergone several other alterations; and many Crimes which were formerly considered of an inferior rank, have been rendered capital; which will be best elucidated by the following Catalogue of Offences divided into six classes according to the Laws now in force.

1. CRIMES punishable by the Deprivation of Life; and where upon the Conviction of the Offenders, the sentence of Death must be pronounced by the Judge.-Of these, it has been stated, the whole, on the authority of Sir William Blackstone, including all the various shades of the same offence, is about 160 in number. The principal are the following:

Treason, and Petty Treason; See page 88, &c. Under the former of these is included the Offence of Counterfeiting the Gold and Siver Coin, See page 191-211.

It is said that exile was first introduced as a punishment by the Legislature in the 39th year of Queen Elizabeth, when a statute (59 Eliz. c. 4.) enacted that such rogues as were dangerous to the inferior people should be banished the realm, Barr. Ant. Stat. 269; and that the first statute in which the word Transportation is used is the 18th of Charles II. c. 3. which gives power to Judges at their discretion either to execute or transport to America for life the. Moss-Troopers of Cumberland and Northumberland; a law which was made perpetual by the Act S1 Geo. II. c. 42. 2 WOOD. 498.

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