for the other crime, remained the same as before. We point to this fact as a perfect, practical demonstration of the preventive power of capital punishment. Yet the abolitionists appeal to this very fact as being in their favor, showing, say they, that in proportion as you have restrained the application of capital punishment, murders have diminished. We trust there are few unprejudiced minds which cannot see the absurdity of such an appeal.

But, notwithstanding all à priori reasoning to the contrary, they insist upon it as a matter of fact, that, in England for example, where capital punishment has been abolished for most other crimes besides murder, the frequency of these very crimes has diminished as well as that of murder-that men have not only ceased to murder when they rob, but have also ceased to rob, now that there is no danger of being hung for it. Mr. Rantoul enters at length into the demonstration of this point; but as we have access to statistics of equal authority with his, and much more to our purpose, we shall not follow his lead any further.

We extract the following from the London Law Magazine for August, 1846; and we venture to say no higher English authority can be found; besides it will be seen the facts are from official

returns.

"We proved, say they, (in a former number,) by the extracts from the Home Office returns that the modern repeal of penal acts imposing capital punishments had, in each case, been followed by an enormous increase of the crimes previously punished by death; and, in order that there might be no sort of doubt left in rational minds on the subject, no peg whereon to hang cavil or criticism and escape the plain inference of the facts, we gave the annual amount of committals for these very crimes, through a period of no less than ten years, beginning in 1835, three years be fore the abolition took place and extending down to the then last published returns for 1844."

"The result of these tables was conclusive. In comparing the crimes committed before and after the abolition, we took care to avoid laying stress on the years immediately following the change in the law, for the obvious reason, that the real effects of such changes never immediately follow them. It takes some time for a new law to become known and to develop its results. We therefore compared the three last years preceding the change of the law in 1837 with the three last years of which the results were known. Thus compared the returns of committals showed an increase in attempts to murder, stabbing, etc. of 98 per cent.;

1847.]

Increase of Crime in England.

469

in burglaries, 115 per cent.; in robberies, 33 per cent.; in arsons, 124 per cent.; in rapes, 102 per cent.; comparing in this last instance the offences preceding 1841, when that law was altered."

"This precise classification was quite immaterial to the general fact of a large and fearful increase of these sanguinary and fiendish crimes."

The writer then gives a comparative table, including the year 1845, in which year it seems there was a marked diminution in England of crimes of all sorts and however punished-and this fact, by the way, is directly in the teeth of Mr. Rantoul's main argument in his 6th letter.

According to this table of the returns of the Home Office, comparing the period of five years ending 1840 with the period ending 1845, attempts to murder, stabbing, etc. had increased more than 37 per cent.; burglaries, more than 50 per cent.; robberies, more than 26 per cent.; setting fire to dwellings, etc., more than 119 per cent.; rape, etc., 81 per cent.

'Here is an increase of 45 per cent. at any rate in these crimes, of which nearly all ceased to be punished capitally during the five years ending in 1840. It is useless to struggle with these facts. Any blockhead or quibbler may distort or garble; but, fairly stated, the fact is, that the practical result of the abolition of capital punishment has been an immense increase of crime; and it is no sort of answer to say that in 1845 these crimes were less in number than in 1844. Granted that they were, but so were all other crimes. No one held or holds that crimes once punished capitally are incapable of the fluctuations incidental to crime at large. Besides, staticians and statesmen, if they deserve either designation, deal with periods of years and not with isolated years, which are obviously insufficient to mark the phases of social condition. As well may we measure the ebb or flow of the tide by the comparative height of successive waves."

"This result is not confined to any one single class of offences, but with slight variations extended to the whole number of those which ceased to be punished capitally; whilst the same increase did not take place in other classes of offence to which capital punishment still attached; as, for instance, in the case of murder, attempts to murder attended with dangerous injuries, both capitally punishable (in England) and some others; in which, though there has been some increase since 1837, it has been no more than proportioned to the general increase of crime, and bears no comparison to the enormous increase of those crimes which have

ceased to be capitally punished; thus bringing the effect home to at least one of its causes."

"No statistical chicanery, no legerdemain of partial and defec tive returns, no picking out of particular years by charlatan philanthropists, can gainsay the conclusive evidence of these great facts. Isolated offences and particular years may indeed be so packed in groups as to vary and possibly, in some instances, to change the result; but all statistics are susceptible of similar jug. glery, and the honest inquirer will have no difficulty in detecting the ruse, and ascertaining the real result of the entire facts. The annual tables published by the Home Office, and collected by Mr. Redgrave, ought always to be consulted by any one who really desires to fathom the subject. Any reference to picked figures which evades the evidence of the whole returns for the ten years is not trustworthy."

"We have already shown that no confidence is due to the sta tistics of the abolitionists, who have been sufficiently unwary to commit themselves to the absurd statements that the offences in question have diminished. However innocently many of them may have been duped, the imprudence of such an advocacy is fatal to its influence on the minds of all reflecting men."

We here close our argument. And we conclude this long Article with a simple allusion to one particular practical consideration, which properly has no bearing upon the general argument either of right or expediency-we mean as to what action may be required of a legislature in a given state of public opinion. If the moral sensé of the community; (however sound or perverted it matters not;)-if the moral sense of the community be, as a matter of fact, opposed to the infliction of capital punishment for murder; if juries can scarcely be found to try such cases, and judges to pronounce such sentences; then we say decidedly, let the legis lature abolish capital punishment. But let this state of facts be first fairly ascertained, and not assumed simply because the abo litionists make a great deal more noise about the matter than the approvers of the law as it is. We have felt bound to take our stand not against such legislative action in such a state of the premises; but against those influences which are so industriously at work to produce such a state of the premises. Our appeal is not to the legislature, but to the people themselves.

1847.]

Spirit of Prophecy in Relation to the Jews.

471

NOTE

TO THE ARTICLE ON MACHIAVELLI IN THE LAST VOLUME.

We beg leave here to correct a mistake which occurs on page 138, Vol. III. In a passage quoted from Machiavelli, he is made to say, "Upon a thorough examination of Borgia's conduct I see nothing worthy of political reprehension." The word "political," is not found in the original; and, though we thought, and still think, it manifestly implied by the context, yet it is but justice to ourselves to say that, in our original draught, we had placed the word in brackets. The brackets were accidentally omitted either in our copy for the press, or by a typographical oversight. We make this explanation because there is nothing in authorship of which we have a greater horror than of falsified or garbled quotations.

Bowdoin College, March, 1847.

ARTICLE III.

THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY IN RELATION TO THE FUTURE CONDITION OF THE JEWS.

By Rev. Luther F. Dimmick, Newburyport, Mass.-[Concluded from No. XIV. p. 369.]

EZEKIEL

Ezekiel was partly contemporaneous with Jeremiah, though a little later. He flourished, according to the usual reckoning, from B. C. 595-574, a period of twenty-one years. He perhaps lived beyond the latter date.

Ezekiel exercised his office in Chaldea, "among the captives by the river of Chebar," (1:1). He seems to have been carried away with the second company of captives, connected with Jeremiah, (Jer. 34: 1. comp. Ezek. 1: 2). Most of the people, therefore, remained at Jerusalem, and in Judea, several years longer, of whom he makes frequent mention.

Ezekiel began his ministry also by declaring the wickedness of the people, and denouncing still further judgments against them. "A rebellious nation," he called them; "impudent children;"

"most rebellious;" "impudent and hard-hearted," (2: 3, 4, 7. 3: 7). "Therefore thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I, am against thee, and will execute judgments in the midst of thee. I will make thee waste, and a reproach among the nations," (5:8, 14). "Destruction cometh; and they shall seek peace, and there shall be none,” (7: 25). “I will-deliver you into the hands of strangers, and will execute judgments among you," (22: 7).

What does Ezekiel say of the restoration? "Thus saith the Lord God, Although I have cast them far off among the heathen, and although I have scattered them among the countries, yet will I be to them as a little sanctuary in the countries where they shall come. Therefore thus saith the Lord God, I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where you have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel," (11: 16, 17). The literal restoration from Babylon is manifestly the thing here intended. Why should the interpreter look any further? The prophet is among the captives, asserting God's just prerogatives in chastening them, threatening further corrections, and then promising the return of prosperity.

In a later chapter, the prosperity is still further predicted: "Thus saith the Lord God, When I shall have gathered the house of Israel from the people among whom they are scattered, and shall be sanctified in them in the sight of the heathen, then shall they dwell in their land that I have given to my servant Jacob," (28: 25). Restoration from Babylon is evidently here also intended. The exigencies of the place require nothing more.

So again: "Thus saith the Lord God, Behold I, even I, will both search my sheep, and seek them out. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel, by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country," (34: 11, 13). Nothing seems plainer, than that here again is simply the restoration from Babylon. The language is also fulfilled by that event. Though in a passage following, reference is made to the higher subject, which that prefigured. "I will set up one Shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the Lord hath spoken it," (vs. 23, 24). By David here, is evidently meant the Son of David, the Messiah, the true Prince of Israel, and of the ransomed nations of the world.