THE PUNISHME^"T OF CRIMINALS. 545 



Hobbes, however, taught the doctrine now acted upon. He wrote 

 — " In revenges or punishments men ought not to look at the 

 greatness of the evil past, but for the greatness of the good to 

 follow, whereby we are forbidden to inflict pimishment with any 

 other design than for the correction of the offender and the 

 admonition of others." 



Not only was Beccaria's influence deeply felt in his own country 

 and the others named, but Mr. Farrar, the recent translator of his 

 work, claims for him the premier position in the improvement of 

 the penal laws of our mother land. He says there is no English 

 writer of that day who, in treating of the Criminal Law, does not 

 refer to Beccaria. Lord Mansfield is said to have had the highest 

 respect for him. and his work is referred to in appreciative terms 

 by Blackstone, Paley, and Bentham. The latter acknowledges that 

 Beccaria was the first that tiiight him to pronounce this sacred 

 truth, " That the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the 

 foundation of morals and happiness." 



It is manifestly impossible to bring under your notice the various 

 individual efforts to repeal the death penalty in England for trivial 

 oft'ences. Only one or two can be referred to, in order that some 

 idea may be gathered of the difficulty encountered. In 1770 Sir 

 William Meredith obtained a committee of inquiry into the state 

 of the law, and some slight modifications were made. Looking at 

 these laws from our present vantage ground, it makes one feel 

 ashamed that it was possible such could exist. How differently 

 they were esteemed at the time may be gathered from the fact 

 that when, towards the end of the last or in the beginning of the 

 present century. Lord Abinger advised Lord Bomilly to introduce 

 a Bill to repeal all statutes pvmishing mere theft with death, he 

 abandoned the idea as useless. Later (1808) he succeeded in 

 carrying, after great opposition, a Bill to abolish this dread penalty 

 for stealing a handkerchief or other articles from the person to the 

 the value of Is. All the leading lawyers in both Houses opposed 

 it, and Lord Ellenborough, one of England's most renowned 

 Judges, said, " If any change in punishment were necessary, it 

 should be transportation for life." One may almost exclaim that it 

 seems incredible ; and if many of the convicts of that time were sent 

 out of the mother country for such trivial oft'ences, they were really 

 more objects of compassion than contempt. Lord Ellenborough, 

 according to Mr. Farrar, enjoys the melancholy fame of having 

 been the inveterate and successful opponent of nearly every move- 

 ment made in his time in favor of the mitigation of our penal laws. 

 A singular result followed from Lord Romilly's success. After 

 the passing of his Bill stealing apparently became more frequent, 

 as was predicted by the opponents of abolishing the death jDcnalty. 

 It was no use to point out to them that people previously refrained 

 from prosecuting because they preferred to suffer loss rather than 

 be the means of sending a fellow-creature into eternity. Lord 

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