324 Monlhly Review of' Literature, ^Sept, 



Facts relating to the Punishment of Death in the Metropolis, by 

 Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Esq. 



Mr. Gibbon Wakefield is the gentleman who was imprisoned three years for 

 forcibly carrying off Miss Turner ; and the hook before us is the result of obser- 

 vations while in durance vile within the walls of Newgate. His opportunities 

 were great of becoming intimately acquainted with the sentiments of thieves and 

 convicts in every gradation of turpitude, and of every age ; and he has appa- 

 rently let none of them slip by him. The study was his main occupation, and 

 beguiled the tedium and monotony of such an existence. If the imprisonment 

 has done himself no good, it will be productive finally of much good to society ; 

 but it has done him good — it has made a man of him, and a thinking man. On 

 the entire want of a preventive police — on the effect of the severity of punish- 

 ment upon prosecutors, judges, juries, and criminals — on that of the uncertainty 

 of punishment — though exhibiting fresh evidence on all, he has little that is 

 new ; it is almost wholly confirmative, but then it is confirmative from the very 

 best testimony. The portion which presents novelty is the chapter entitled the 

 Appeal to the King in Council, i. e. the supposed consideration of the Recorder's 

 Report. The circumstances attending this appeal are scarcely credible ; and 

 they are now brought forward for the first time distinctly in their full absurdity 

 before the public. It is obvious, at the first glance, there must be an end, and 

 a speedy one, to these recorder's reports. It is a piece of sheer mummery, and 

 an anomaly in criminal jurisdiction. In every other part of England, execu- 

 tion is left to the fiat of the judge who tries the criminal. In London only is the 

 appeal made to the king in council — grand words, indeed, but itself a mere and 

 a melancholy farce. It is, in fact, a new trial — so far as it is any trial at all — in 

 the absence of the prisoner, and of all personal evidence. Nobody is present who 

 knows any thing of the cases but the recorder, who himself knows nothing of one 

 half of them. He, however, is supposed to state the cases to the king and 

 council ; but that he does not make a full or adequate report is certain, since, on 

 the average, twenty cases are decided on at a sitting often of not a single hour. 

 That justice cannot he fairly administered is attested by the surprise which Mr. 

 Wakefield says he experienced, as loell as the officers of the prison, whenever the 

 decision of the council was announced at Newgate, at the selection which was 

 made for execution. But the truth is, that after this farce thus played before 

 the council, the whole matter rests with the home-secretary ; and Mr. Wake- 

 field expresses his conviction — no light opinion, but one supported by abundant 

 evidence — that half the reversals take place from false impressions made on the 

 mind of that individual. Those, of course, whose friends are the most active, 

 and the least scrupulous, have the best chance of escape ! The language of the 

 officers of the prison is — " those whom we know to be the most guilty escape, 

 while those whom we know to be least so often suffer — it is all a lottery." And 

 how should it be otherwise — the matter is taken out of the hands of those who 

 best know tlie facts — and placed in those of persons who know notliiny of them 

 but from imperfect reports. Is it not amazing that there should have been such 

 a succession of home secretaries, and not one of them to make an attempt to 

 shake off such a burden from his own shoulders ? Surely no man can consider 

 such a responsibility desirable. The matter must undergo full consideration ; 

 and one more anomaly be removed from our criminal courts. Mr. Wakefield 

 has done a good work, and admirably redeemed the injury inflicted by him in 

 the folly of youth upon the security of society. We recommend the details 

 earnestly to our readers. 



Tales of a Physician, by W. H. Harrison. Second Series. 



These little taks consist of incidents, which, though independent of each 

 other, string together as falling within the experience of a physician in the course 

 of his countrj' practice. They might be told by any body — physician or no 

 physician, as they are in fact by one who is none ; but though they have no 

 professional peculiarities, they have a character of another kind, which distin- 

 guishes them favourably from those of their cast. They are uniformly expres- 



