158 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. 



prit is soon tutored in all the arts of fraud, decep 

 tion, and robbery, and prepared for acting a more 

 conspicuous and atrocious part on the theatre of 

 crime. &quot; I make no scruple to affirm,&quot; says 

 Mr. Howard, &quot; that if it were the aim and wish 

 of magistrates to effect the destruction, present 

 and future, of young delinquents, they could not 

 desire a more effectual method than to confine 

 them in our prisons.&quot; Of the truth of this po 

 sition, the reader will find an ample and impress 

 ive proof in the Honourable T. F. Buxton s 

 &quot; Inquiry wheiher crime and misery are produc 

 ed or prevented by our present system of Prison 

 Discipline.&quot; 



In the second place, the disproportion be 

 tween crimes and punishments, and the sangui 

 nary character of every civilized code of penal 

 statutes, are directly repugnant to every princi 

 ple of justice and benevolence. The punishment 

 assigned by the law to the man who steals a 

 sheep, or pilfers a petty article of merchandise, 

 is the same as that which it inflicts on the mis 

 creant who has imbrued his hands in his father s 

 blood. In France, prior to the revolution, the 

 punishment of robbery, either with or without 

 murder, was the same ; and hence it happened, 

 that robbery was seldom or never perpetrated 

 without murder. For, when men see no dis 

 tinction made in the nature and gradations of 

 punishment, they will be generally led to con 

 clude, that there is nodistinction in the guilt. In 

 our own country, it is a melancholy truth, that, 

 among the variety of actions which men are daily 

 liable to commit, no less than one hundred and 

 sixty have been declared, by act of parliament, 

 to be felonies, without benefit of clergy ; or, in 

 other words, to be worthy of instant death.* It 

 is an indelible disgrace to an age which boasts of 

 its being enlightened with the beams of science 

 and of religion, that laws, framed in an ignorant 

 and barbarous age, and intended to apply to tem 

 porary or fortuitous occurrences, should still be 

 acted upon, and stand unrepealed in the criminal 

 codes of the nations of Europe, in the 19th cen 

 tury of the Christian era, when so many distin 

 guished writers have demonstrated their futility, 

 their injustice, and their inadequacy for the pre 

 vention of crime. For, instead of diminishing 

 the number of offenders,, experience proves, that 

 crimes are almost uniformly increased by an un 

 due severity of punishment. This was striking 

 ly exemplified in the reign of Henry VIII. re 

 markable for the abundance of its crimes, which 

 certainly did not arise from the mildness of pu 

 nishment. In that reign alone, says his historian, 

 seventy-two thousand executions took place, for 

 robberies alone, exclusive of the religious mur 

 ders which are known to have been numerous, 

 amounting, on an average, to six executions a 

 aay, Sundays included, during the whole reign of 

 that monarch. 



* Ency Brit. Art. Crime 



In the next place, the shocking and ii-nnecessc, 4 

 cruelties which are frequently inflicted upon cri 

 minals, are inconsistent with every principle of 

 reason and of justice, and revolting to every feel 

 ing of humanity. If the forfeiture of life ought, 

 in any case, to be resorted to as the punishment 

 of certain crimes, humanity dictates, that it should 

 be accompanied with as little pain as possible to 

 the unfortunate criminal. But man, even civili 

 zed man, has glutted his savage disposition by 

 inventing tortures to agonize his fellow man, at 

 which humanity shudders. It is not enough 

 that a poor unfortunate wretch, in the prime of 

 life, whom depravity has hurried to the commis 

 sion of crime, should be deprived of his mortal 

 existence, his soul must be harrowed up at the 

 prospect of the prolonged torments which he 

 must endure, before his spirit is permitted to 

 take its flight to the world unknown. Instead of 

 simply strangling or beheading the unhappy cri 

 minal, his flesh must be torn with pincers, his 

 bones dislocated, his hands chopped off, or 

 his body left to pine away in exquisite torments, 

 amidst devouring flames. In Sweden, murder is 

 punished by beheading and quartering, after hav 

 ing previously chopped off the hand. In Ger 

 many, Poland, Italy, and other parts cf the con 

 tinent, it was customary, and, I believe, still is, 

 in some places, to put criminals to death, by 

 breaking them alive on the wheel. The follow 

 ing account is given, by a traveller, who was in 

 Berlin, in 1819, of the execution of a man for 

 murder, which shows that the execution of crimi 

 nals, in Prussia, is frequently distinguished by a 

 species of cruelty worthy of the worst days of 

 the inquisition. Amidst the parade of execu 

 tioners, officers of police, and other judicial au 

 thorities, the beating of drums, and the waving 

 of flags and colours, the criminal mounted the 

 scaffold. No ministers of religion appeared to 

 gild the the horrors of eternity, and to sooth the 

 agonies of the criminal ; and no repentant prayer 

 closed his quivering lips. &quot; Never,&quot; says the 

 narrator, &quot; shall I forget the one bitter look of 

 imploring agony that he threw around him, as im 

 mediately on stepping on the scaffold, his coat was 

 rudely torn from off his shoulders. He was then 

 thrown down, the cords fixed round his neck, which 

 were drawn until strangulation almost commen 

 ced. Another executioner then approached, bear 

 ing in his hands a heavy wheel, bound with iron, 

 with which he violently struck the legs, arms, 

 and chest, and lastly the head of the criminal. I 

 was unfortunately near enough to witness his 

 mangled and bleeding body still convulsed. It 

 was then carried down for interment, and, in less 

 than a quarter of an hour from the beginning o! 

 his torture, the corpse was completely covered 

 with earth. Several large stones, which were 

 thrown upon him, hastened his last gasp ; he was 

 mangled into eternity /&quot; 



In Russia, the severest punishments are fre- 



