252 On Capital Punishment. " [March, 



humane, and at the same time so little heeded by the callous and pro- 

 fane, whose conduct it is more particularly intended to influence and 

 correct. It is too notorious, with what anxiety the lower orders await 

 these horrible exhibitions, and the crowds which assemble to witness 

 the last struggles of a convicted felon ; the more detestable his offence 

 or atrocious his crime, in the same ratio increases the craving desire, 

 the disordered appetite of the multitude. Do they execrate, or do they 

 sympathize with, the culprit? The conduct of the criminal, and not the 

 crime, directs the balance ; the hardened, misnamed the brave — the reso- 

 lute and not the penitent — receives the shouts of the surrounding 

 throng, and thus the tribute due to valour is debased, and given to the 

 wretch careless of his God, his country, his fellow-creatures and him- 

 self; but this is only one of the numerous evils which have arisen to 

 society from the misapplication of the term coui'age, considered by 

 many as the only virtue man need possess, and a redeeming quality for 

 every other vice or failing of our nature. 



The records of the police will testify abundantly, that these public 

 executions, M'hich are to alarm the incipient culprit and terrify the old 

 and practised offender, fail greatly of their purpose, and afford ample 

 opportunity to the petty pilferer, who, beginning his career, undisturbed 

 either by conscience or example, on this grand era of some companion'& 

 fate, proceeds from one degi"ee of guilt to another, till, qualified by his 

 own prowess, he arrives at the same sad mockery of punishment, and 

 concludes his life with all the pageantry of guilt. 



Whilst the punishment of death is thus ineffectual upon the obdurate 

 and callous, it falls with disproportionate severity upon those who have 

 been betrayed into the commission of crime by weakness, by want, by 

 intemperance, or by extravagance : many a convict has perished upon 

 the scaffold, whose future life, if it had been spared, would have abun- 

 dantly atoned for his past offences. 



The good and feeling heart of the excellent Secretary for the Home 

 Department has already prompted him to direct his attention to the 

 unhappy state of untried prisoners, and under his auspices the winter 

 assize was established, tliat those who had been unjustly imprisoned 

 might be released from the horrors of confinement, and restored to 

 society and their friends. The principle was truly honourable and hu- 

 mane, though it has multiplied the daj^s of blood, and desecrated the 

 season of thankfulness and joy by the presence of the executioner. It is 

 to be hoped that the same spirit of humanity will again examine the 

 pages of our penal code, and directing its course upon a wider range, 

 expunge in many places, if it cannot altogether obliterate, the word death 

 from its enactments ; so that when it is our fate to witness the last dread 

 infliction of man's judgment, we may approach it, not with callousness 

 and indifference, but with undivided feelings of indignation at the crime 

 — of respect for the laws and awe for the punishment. 



I have written thus much, not with the idea that I have said one hun- 

 dredth part of what the subject will admit, but solely with the view of 

 directing the attention of the public to this important question, that it 

 may awaken their feelings, and induce them to exert their energies for 

 the abolition of this fatal blot from our records. We have seen how 

 triumphant have been their efforts upon other occasions, and the same 

 success will attend them upon this, if they persevere with industry and 

 resolution. 



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