628 Affairs in General. [ Dee. 
could have had no claim of satisfaction for the effect of their own care- 
lessness. The judge, indeed, in directing the jury, only noticed the 
security, to annihilate, if possible, the effect of it. There was no evi- 
dence, he said, to shew it was worth a farthing ; by which was mani- 
festly implied his conviction, that if it were of value it would go to 
negative the fraudulent intent, and, of course, the guilt of forgery ; and 
surely it was for him, with this feeling working in hin, if not from com- 
mon equity, yet as counsel for the prisoner (of which we hear so much, 
and see so little) to call for evidence to shew the value. Instead of 
which, when the fact of security was drawn out by the cross-examina- 
tion of the banker, the judge was perfectly silent, though then was the 
time for him, seeing the prisoner omitting it (he had no counsel to 
suggest to him), to ask the value, or nature, of this security. Had it 
been shewn to be probably sufficient to cover the amount of the forged 
bills, the jury would not even have gone out of court. In delivering 
their verdict, they gave it spectal—guilty, but without a fraudulent in- 
tent. “ No,” replies the judge, “ I must have a peremptory verdict— 
. guilty, or not guilty.’—«<Not guilty,” they were unwilling to pronounce, 
because the man, to their feelings, had evidently done wrong—morally ; 
and, therefore, and under the frown of the court, they consented to say 
guilty, coupling it with a recommendation for mercy. The under- 
standing of jurymen is perpetually bothered by the term guwilty, 
which is a technical word, and means an act done—done against 
law—done by design—and done with a fraudulent view. The popular 
notion—and no other is usually thought of—of guilt, isa wrong act, with 
very little definite, and scarcely any legal meaning connected with it. 
To hang this Hunton—especially after Savary’s commutation, seems 
to us impossible. Though condemning the man for a fool—for a man 
even who no longer deserves to be trusted—we can scarcely bring our- 
selves to contemplate him as committing an act which ought to have 
been brought into court at all. To hang him is horrible—to hang any 
man for forgery is offensive to the common feelings of justice and 
humanity. Murder—violence—these are the sole justifiable grounds for 
legal ‘executions ; anything short of these offences should have other 
punishments assigned them, and there are other punishments as likely 
to deter from forgery, as death. Deterring is the only justifiable ground 
of human infliction; and yet almost every body, and especially the 
wronged person, is always talking about satisfaction—about desert— 
about offended justice, and similar stuff—though thinking all the while, 
perhaps, upon revenge. These are principles with which courts of jus- 
tice have nothing to do; and we doubt not, if it were distinctly and 
habitually inculcated, that deterring is the only proper object of punish- 
ment, we should soon come to abandon “ death.” Many of our cotem- 
poraries, we observe, confine their vituperations against the law of for- 
gery, because the severity of it defeats its object, by preventing pro- 
secutions. We doubt, exceedingly, whether people are so prevented to 
any considerable extent ; we observe those who are exposed to losses by 
acts of forgery, pretty active in bringing the offenders to justice, as they 
phrase it ; but be the fact so or not, we prefer enforcing the common 
sense of the thing—the only justifiable ground of punishment; and, we. 
add, forgery is repressible by other means, and among them, by restilu- 
tion to the utmost extent, on conviction, and by liability to restitution to 
double the amount, to the end of life. 
