80 Letter on Affairs in general. [JAN. 



And, even in our Executions our only public exhibitions of death 

 we cautiously avoid the infliction of any seeming torture upon the 

 victims, or the public shedding of blood, which is the custom in France. 

 I know that some objection has been taken to these spectacles, as they 

 exist ; and that it is said (with perfect truth, occasionally) that pockets 

 are picked even under the gallows. But I do not go quite this length 

 myself; and indeed I should rather say that a salutary impression is 

 produced by our public executions as they are arranged. An exe- 

 cution, of course like every other public spectacle-*-becomes a focus 

 of assemblage to the idle, the dissolute, and the unprincipled ; but they 

 look at it with a feeling of horror, of which they cannot divest themselves, 

 though they affect to do so. I do not think there is a thief but quails 

 in his in ward" heart, every time he passes a gibbet, and sees a man 

 hanging upon it. The sight does not prevent thieving ; but I think it 

 abates it. Pockets are picked under the gallows ; but it may be 

 observed that picking pockets is not an offence for which people are 

 brought to the gallows. Thieves are great calculators. 



But, in Paris, to return to my argument Death seems to be made 

 familiar to the people on purpose ; and devices are imagined by which 

 they shall be made accustomed to hold it in disregard, and as of no 

 weight. Dead bodies are openly sold, as " subjects" for dissection, in 

 the city any person may purchase the thing that ive shudder here to 

 look at, for the cost of a few shillings. Again murder, and obvious 

 murder excites no proceeding no emotion on the part of the criminal 

 law. Unless some individual applies to put the law in motion, it stirs 

 very little of itself. The late murder of the two poor people the Ake- 

 hursts at Fetcham, has, without the interference of any one interested, 

 excited the most formidable exertion all through England. Hand-bills 

 are circulated rewards offered officers travelling the country ma- 

 gistrates every where corresponding and on the alert. In Paris, a man 

 might be found dead in the streets, with his skull split ; and, unless some 

 private individual stirred in the affair, the body would be exposed for 

 two days, at the end of which it would be buried ; and the assassin (if 

 he pleased) might attend the funeral. 



And, even above all this as tending to weaken the surprise and 

 aversion the dislike of the nerve which humanity acknowledges at 

 scenes of blood and horror I object to that regular establishment in the 

 city the Morgue into which men, women, and children walk in and 

 out as they would in and out of a market in this country, and 

 which actually seems provided in order that the population of Paris 

 shall accustom itself, from childhood, to the contemplation of Murder 

 or Suicide from day to day. It is impossible that any people can look, 

 from day to day, at a succession of human bodies constantly with such 

 marks upon them as shew that they must have been assassinated, or self- 

 destroyed see the remains of MAN exposed, coarsely and slovenly, to 

 the gaze of all and the causes of his death though obvious to every one 

 treated, by AUTHORITY, as not worth inquiries or consideration no 

 human beings can receive impressions of this character from childhood, 

 and arrive at maturity with that as it were instinctive horror of the 

 thought of violent or bloody death, which makes many a needy wretch, 

 in England, who would rob and plunder, without remorse, recoil 

 though without understanding the impulses which withhold him from 

 shedding the blood of his fellow-creature. But I will speak of this again. 



