In discussing this question, Mr. Wood* very justly observed, that it had been proved that mild punishments, which did not offend the natural feelings of mankind, were more certain in the execution, and by that certainty operated more efficiently in prevention, than punishments of a sanguinary character.' Several other speakers addressed the assembly on the same side; but we would particularly call attention to the sentiments delivered by Mr. HARMER,† whose great experience, as a criminal lawyer, gives peculiar value to his opinion upon this important question-a question involving the security of property, the interests of justice, and the life of man. This gentleman observed, he could state confidently that these punishments, which were upheld for the purpose of protecting property, tended to encourage crime, and render property insecure. He could declare that the cases prosecuted, or in which any proceedings whatever were taken, bore no proportion to the cases in which no prosecution took place. He could produce a thousand cases in which the prosecutors-the witnesses-the Jury-and not unfrequently the Judge, conspired to defeat the law, and save a culprit from the punishment which it was an outrage to their feelings to execute.' These are the sentiments, not of a theorist, indulging his benevolent speculations without any light, from experience, to inform and guide him, but of a practical man, who has had ample opportunity to observe the working of the system on which he animadverts, and to know, by the best of all evidence, that its excessive and revolting severity is less a terror to offenders than an indemnity to crime. Such must ever be the effect of laws framed upon vindictive notions of punishment, instead of the sound, reflecting, and dispassionate policy of rational justice. Under such laws witnesses will be reluctant to give evidence, Judges will often be disinclined to enforce the testi * Afterwards Alderman (Thomas) WOOD. † Afterwards Alderman, and one of the Sheriffs of London. mony that would lead to conviction, and juries will not unfrequently prefer to charge their consciences with "pious perjuries,” rather than take the stain of human blood upon their souls. This comes of investing Justice with the attributes of Vengeance, and thereby enlisting the sympathies of mankind on the side of the offender. Nothing can be more injurious to the interests of society than this. The odious character of crime is lessened in the eyes of the multitude in proportion as the reverence for the law is diminished ; and laws can never be popularly respected, that confound the degrees of moral guilt, and are more ferocious than just. Such is the character of the criminal laws of England. Men's feelings revolt at their cruelty; public opinion is arrayed against them. The conviction of their injustice and inefficiency is so general, that the resolution proposed in the Common Council was carried with only two dissentient votes; and petitions to the same effect were voted to both Houses of the Legislature.—Morning Herald, Saturday, May 29, 1830. Anticipated discussion on the Third Reading of the new Forgery Bill in the Commons, when the division was expected. The discussion on the third reading of the Forgery Bill is expected to take place to-night in the House of Commons. It will then be decided whether this portion of penal law, like the great mass of our criminal code, is to remain for some time longer the reproach and scandal of the country and of the age, or whether it is to come forth from the revision of the legislature purified from barbarism, and rendered conformable to the principles of enlightened justice. To those who look on such reform as an innovation upon our ancient laws we say, antiquity may render good principles the more venerable, but ought not to consecrate the errors of legislators, and the abuses of power. Yet the argument of antiquity does not avail this branch of our criminal code. Every statute by which death is inflicted for that species of circumvention known by the name of forgery, is comparatively of recent date. The COMMON or ancient Law of England punished the offence by fine and imprisonment.* * * Never will it be reconciled to the feelings of the people of a civilized country, that fraud and murder should be visited with equal punishment. The reformation of our criminal law has long been the object of the enlightened solicitude of the greatest and best of our lawyers, our jurists, and legislators. In this field, where so rich a harvest of moral glory is to be reaped, such men as ROMILLY and MACKINTOSH laboured in vain; not, indeed, for their own reputation-the laurels of humanity, unlike those of war, have a charm independent of the lustre of success: but they laboured in vain as to any immediate practical purpose which genius and public virtue ought to achieve. ***** We ask Sir Robert PEEL whether he can reconcile it to his conscience or his feelings, to perpetuate the revolting scenes of human sacrifice which it was once thought the idol Mammon imperatively required, when he is informed, on the best possible evidence, that the oblations of blood are not acceptable? Let him, when he strives for victory on a question in which human life is at stake, only reflect for an instant on the ensanguined laurels which a triumph in such a cause can produce. Let him figure to himself the apparatus of death; the dreadful solemnities which precede the judicial extermination of a fellow-creature; and the pale criminal brought forth to meet his fate amid the deep murmurs of the spectators-the object of the commiseration and sympathy of the multitude! Let him then think of the mourning widow, and the children made fatherless-no place, no opportunity, left to him, who has injured his fellow-creature by written fraud, for repentance, amendment, or restitution! Let him reflect on how many have fallen in this way, without any advantage accruing to society from the sanguinary and, spectacles resulting from a law which violates reason, in defiance of Christian sentiment, and judicial morality, inflicts upon the fraudulent imitator of a promissory-note the death of the murderer! Let him also imagine to himself the numbers that may yet perish in this way, should his Bill, at present before Parliament, pass into a law. Let him think on the doom of those future victims to an unjust law; a law which is part and parcel' of what he has himself called the most sanguinary code in Europe.' Let him think of these victims, we say, whom his law may exterminate in his lifetime, and when his ashes are reposing in the grave; and, if he ever again makes this a Government question, let him ask his heart if he is prepared to saytheir blood be upon me and my children!' We now leave this subject. We have enforced the sentiments for which we now contend, in times and seasons when the prospect of success was more remote than it appears to be at present. We have abided by them through evil report and through good report. We have had the satisfaction of seeing the impulse given to public opinion, which will yet clear away every obstacle opposed to the establishment of an enlightened system of justice; and, in retiring from this responsible situation, as we do this day, we quit a post from which the influence of opinion is carried to the utmost limits of the empire, with the confident anticipation of the eventual triumph of the principles which we invariably advocated, having had no object but what was identified with the public cause, and conducive to the interests of morality and civilization.*-Morning Herald, Monday, June 7, 1830. * Tuesday Morning, June 8.-Our readers will perceive in our report of the parliamentary proceedings, that the amendment proposed by Sir James MACKINTOSH, which (excepting wills) does away with the punishment of death for forgery, WAS CARRIED by a majority of 13, at a late hour last night. When it is considered that the Ministers, so far from being taken by surprise upon this Anticipated discussion on the Second Reading in the Lords. This evening is fixed for the second reading of the Forgery Bill in the House of Lords, when it is understood occasion, had received a pretty plain intimation, but a few nights before, of the great change which had taken place in the minds of men upon this subject, and had, in consequence, marshalled all their forces to meet the struggle of last night, (see list of Minority, p. 53), it is impossible to regard the result in any other sense than as a decisive triumph on the part of the friends of humanity.—Morning Herald. LIST of the MAJORITY of 151, who voted on Monday, the 7th of June, 1830, for abolishing the PUNISHMENT of DEATH in all cases of FORGERY, except the Forgery of Wills. Forbes, John Mackintosh, Right Hon. Sir James Marryatt, Joseph Monck, J. B. Sadler, Mich. Thos. |