CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS. 543 



decrease in the number of offences in cases in which the extreme 

 penalty has been dispensed with ? Some persons, we are aware, 

 hold that the circumstance is to be accounted for from the fact that the 

 country has, during the interval between 1833 and the present year, 

 undergone a considerable improvement. We admit the premises — 

 it is gratifying to be able to do so — but we deny the conclusion. If 

 this diminution were the consequence of the improved state of the 

 country, how happens it, let us ask, that that diminution has only 

 taken place in the case of the third class of offences, those, namely, 

 in which the punishment of death has been abolished? Were the 

 hypothesis we are combatting based on a sound philosophy, there 

 ought to have been a corresponding decrease in the number of the 

 first and second classes of offences, whereas the fact stares us in the 

 face that in both these instances there has been a considerable in- 

 crease. 



To our minds it appears as clear as any moral proposition can be, 

 that the cause of the decrease in the number of those offences which 

 were formerly punishable with death, but which are no longer so, 

 is the additional certainty of the conviction and consequent punish- 

 ment. Previously prosecutors felt reluctant to prosecute and juries to 

 convict, because they shuddered at the thought of being instrumental 

 in hurrying a human being into eternity for some comparatively 

 trifling offence. The con-equence was that persons weighed the 

 chances of escape in the event of detection, and committed or ab- 

 stained from a certain offence according to their estimate of the pro- 

 babilities either way. Now there is no room for speculation or cal- 

 culation in the matter. The person sinned against has no hesitation 

 in prosecuting, and juries are quite willing, on sufficient evidence, 

 to convict. Those likely to commit offences are well aware of this, 

 and hence, in many instances, are deterred from deeds of crimi- 

 nality. 



To show the much greater certainty that exists of convictions being 

 now obtained, let us appeal for a moment to the irresistible logic of 

 plain facts. Taking those offences in the aorffreg-ate to which the 

 extreme penalty is not attached, it has been found that, out of every 

 100 commitments which have lately taken place in England and 

 Wales, there have been seventy- four convictions. On the other 

 hand it is found, incredible as the fact may appear, that out of every 

 100 persons charged with crimes that are still capital, the convictions 

 are only forty-four. Here, then, we are furnished with the strongest 

 possible presumptive proof, that thirty persons out of every hundred 

 committed for capital offences escape the ends of justice by verdicts 

 of acquittal, because either the prosecutors, or juries, or both, con- 

 sider, in those particular cases, the punishment of death to be dispro- 

 portionate to the magnitude of the offence. 



These are undeniable facts. And ihey satisfactorily account for the 

 decrease of crimes to which the punishment of death has ceased to 

 be annexed, and for the increase in those in which that punishment 

 is still continued. Nor ought the important fact to be forgotten that 

 the convictions are by this means made certain in the case of minor 

 offences, while the acquittals are in the cases of the very worst 



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