S42 CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS. 



Though it is prejudicial to our case, we will include the crime of 

 burglary among capital offences, and then deal with the facts as we 

 find them. 



We divide crimes into three classes. The first class includes lar- 

 cenies and those other minor offences the commission of which oc- 

 casion the great bulk of commitments. The second comprehends 

 those crimes which are still punished by death. The third class consists 

 of those in which death-punishments have been abolished. 



Let us now, in order to ascertain the effects which capital punish- 

 ments have on the increase or diminution of crime, take certain pe- 

 riods of considerable duration — say three years — and see what has 

 been the comparative frequency of the commission of those crimes 

 ranged under each of the above heads in the intervals in question. 

 The results will be found to establish our position, that the punish- 

 ment of death, however strange it may seem, actually tends to in- 

 crease instead of diminishing crime. 



To make our view of the case still more clear, we shall select two 

 periods rather remote. Let us then take the three years ending in 

 1829, and the three years ending in 1835, thus leaving an interval of 

 three years, during which the progress of mitigation in punishments 

 was in practice gradual, though equally severe in theory. 



The committals for the first class of offences in England and Wales 

 in the years 1827, 1828, 1829, were 46,833. The number of persons 

 committed for the same class of offences in the years 1833, 1834, 

 1833, was 51,701, thus making an increase of 4668, or about ten 

 per cent. 



In the second class of crimes, those, namely, in which the punish- 

 ment of deadi is still continued, the number of persons committed in 

 England and Wales in the years 1827, 1828, 1829, was 1705. In the 

 years 1833, 1834, 1835, the commitments were 2236, making an 

 increase of 531, or about thirty one per cent; and thus, be it re- 

 membered, notwithstanding the fact that the executions continued to 

 be nearly the same, the numbers being in the first three years 108, 

 and in the last three years 102. 



We may here pause to enquire, how happens it that the offences 

 from which capital punishments had been remitted did not increase 

 in those periods in the same proportion? The fact can be accounted 

 for on no other principle than that we have already laid down, namely, 

 that mild and merciful punishments tend to diminish crimes, while 

 the effect of extreme punishments is to increase them. 



We come now to the third class of offences, we mean those for which 

 the punishment of death has been abolished. How stand the facts 

 here? In the years 1827, 1828, 1829, the number of commitments 

 for offences of this description were 4622 ; in the three years ending 

 in 1835, they were 4292, making a decrease of 330, or about seven 

 per cent. This diminution is the more remarkable when it is recol- 

 lected that In the first-mentioned period the number of executions in 

 the metropolitan county was ninety-six, while in the latter three years, 

 when the smaller number of commitments took place, the number of 

 persons who suffered death, was only two. 



The question then again recurs — To what are we to attribute this 



