THE LATE ME. BARKY. 
31 
friend Dr. Wollaston. He was beautifully neat and exact in his chemical ex¬ 
periments, habitually operating on very small quantities of material; thus closely 
following Dr. Wollaston, who appears to have initiated this important improve¬ 
ment in the method of chemical research. Throughout life it was his practice to 
try a reaction for himself rather than to refer to a book. Thus his knowledge be¬ 
came remarkably sound; and he accepted the results of his experiments with 
unhesitating confidence. 
His reliance on scientific principles was amusingly illustrated only a year or 
two since. One Sunday morning, volumes of smoke were noticed to issue from 
a cupboard in his dwelling-house. Remembering that he had put away there 
some signal-lights, he at once suspected spontaneous combustion, but instead of 
looking in and endeavouring to extinguish the fire with buckets of water, he 
closed the keyhole and pasted strips of paper along the crevices, and then, 
having thus blockaded the enemy, quietly sat down to read his Bible. All 
signs of activity within soon ceased; and when eventually the cupboard was 
examined the damage done was found to be very limited. 
In 1838 Mr. Barry was elected as a foreign member by the College of Phar¬ 
macy of Philadelphia. 
But whilst he was still in early life Mr. Barry’s energies were devoted to an 
object of more general interest than the organization of a business, or the appli¬ 
cation of the sciences associated with it. His revered friend Mr. Allen was ac¬ 
tively co-operating in almost every philanthropic undertaking of the day ; and 
there can be no doubt that such an example had its natural influence upon Mr. 
Barry. We do not know the circumstances which gave the special direction 
to his labours. But it is not surprising that a sensitive and very thoughtful 
mind should have been roused to action in contemplating the horrible frequency of 
executions under the criminal law as it existed during the earlier part of this 
century. That this national disgrace has been so nearly removed is we believe 
more largely due to the labours of Mr. Barry than to those of any other individual. 
From natural temperament and from adopted principles he shrank from pub¬ 
licity, and never allowed himself to be made prominent in committees or socie¬ 
ties. Self-reliant, and wonderfully energetic, he never sought to operate through 
organizations. 
So early as the year 1808 a committee was formed which styled itself a 
“ Society for Diffusing Information on the Subject of Punishment by Death.’’ 
Among the leading members were William Allen, Luke Howard, Joseph Gurney 
Bevan, Richard Phillips, and Basil Montagu. They at once put themselves in 
communication with Sir Samuel Romilly, who was delighted to find himself thus 
supported in his humane endeavours to ameliorate the criminal code. Their 
meetings were held at Plough Court; but Mr. Barry, who at this date was only 
nineteen years of age, does not appear to have taken any prominent part in 
their proceedings for many years subsequently. 
We cannot give a better idea of the part he eventually took in this great ques¬ 
tion than by extracting some portions of the notice of his labours which appeared 
in the ‘ Morning Star ’ of the 4th April. Alluding to the year 1828, when a 
new Anti-capital Punishment Society was formed, the writer says :— 
“ Circumstances had drawn public attention to the cruel impolicy of retaining 
the capital laws against forgery; and to their repeal the Society at first appears to 
have more especially directed its attention. The gallows at this period flourished in 
great vigour, for, in 1829, no less than twenty-four persons were hanged in London 
alone, and amongst these there was not one murderer. In 1830, Sir Robert Peel 
brought in his Bill to consolidate the Acts relating to forgery. Sir James Macintosh 
moved an amendment on the third reading of the Bill, the effect of which was to 
abolish the capital punishment, except in so far as it related to the forging of wills 
and powers of attorney. At this critical moment Barry put forth all his marvellous 
