and even operose; and although we cannot concur in this criticism, we think that there is occasionally something more of repetition than was necessary in printed lectures. This fault, if it be one, has arisen, no doubt, from the author's practice of writing his lectures for delivery, and from his having published them very much in the form in which they were delivered. There is an austerity of manner about our author, and an intrepidity of judgment, conscious of its own strength, that we exceedingly admire; and which make us readily overlook the slight expressions of contempt for the opinions of others in which he occasionally (though we must say rarely) indulges; a tone which, however natural, and almost necessary to sincerity, and however admissible in the warmth of oral delivery, is, in a work deliberately prepared for the press, better subdued. On the whole, we think, the subject considered, the style of these lectures approaches more nearly to perfection than anything of the kind which has, in recent times, fallen under our observation. And we cannot better express our opinion of its character than by saying that the author has gone far to realise that which, in his lectures, he points out as the style to be aimed at by writers upon ethics.

"The writers" (in the circumstances he is supposing) "would attend to the suggestions of Hobbes and of Locke, and would imitate the method so successfully pursued by geometers: though such is the variety of the premises which some of their inquiries involve, and such are the complexity and ambiguity of some of the terms, that they would often fall short of the perfect exactness and coherency, which the fewness of his premises, and the simplicity and definiteness of his expressions, enable` the geometer to reach. But, though they would often fall short of geometrical exactness and coherency, they might always approach, and would often attain to them. They would acquire the art and the habit of defining their leading terms; of steadily adhering to the meanings announced by the definitions; of carefully examining and distinctly stating their premises; and of deducing the consequences of their premises with logical rigour. Without rejecting embellishments which might happen to fall in their way, the only excellencies of style for which they would seek, are precision, clearness, and conciseness: the first being absolutely requisite to the successful prosecution of inquiry; whilst the others enable the reader to seize the meaning with certainty, and spare him unnecessary fatigue." pp. 82, 83.

ART. VIII.-FACTS relating to the Punishment of Death in the Metropolis. By Edward Gibbon Wakefield. Second Edition, with an Appendix, concerning Murder for the Sale of the Dead Body. 8vo. London, E. Wilson, 1832.

There is no task in legislation more difficult than that of ascertaining the effect of penal laws upon the minds of those against

whom they are intended to operate. Rank, wealth, education, intelligence, sensibility of feeling, and a nice regard to honour, all unfit the high-born and accomplished legislator for the calculation. He cannot appreciate the motives which govern the ignorant, the unfeeling, and the depraved portion of society, from which proceeds the great mass of crime. Himself in the enjoyment of freedom from restraint, he imagines that confinement of the person must necessarily operate to deter the poor from crime; forgetting that to thousands and tens of thousands of those for whom he is legislating, the restraint of a gaol is little more irksome than their daily imprisonment in the unwholesome atmosphere of our great manufactories. But the most grievous miscalculation is that which is made with regard to the effect produced by the denunciation of capital punishment. "The temptation is great, the injury to society is great, and persons can only be deterred by the punishment of death," has long been the language of those from whom our laws have proceeded. The motive to refrain from crime, which the fear of death affords, must vary in every individual; and not a single session at the Old Bailey passes without proving how light and slender the causes sometimes are by which it is counterbalanced. Upon a man in the possession of all that fortune and character can confer, bound to life by the ties of affection and of friendship, the idea of a disgraceful death may operate with resistless force; but to one divested of all that can make existence acceptable, to a wretch bankrupt in fortune and in reputation, to the outcast, the miserable, and the vicious, what does life present that can render it dear? A long training to vice, a familiarity with danger, and that habitual disregard of consequences, which a long continued course of crime engenders, all contribute to strip the highest penal denunciation of its terrors. That such is the case, the number of capital offences, daily committed, leads us to conclude; but, facts are still wanting to show the immediate operation of the penal laws upon the minds of those who are disposed to crime. Unfortunately, opportunities of collecting such facts rarely occur; the history of guilt is with difficulty traced; and the communications between criminals and those who are either interested in, or capable of ascertaining the motives by which they are governed, are few and seldom.

During a well-merited imprisonment of three years in the gaol of Newgate, Mr. Edward Gibbon Wakefield enjoyed an opportunity of making himself acquainted with the habits and feelings of his fellow prisoners. With an activity of mind which prompted him to employ the leisure the law had afforded him, with a laudable - curiosity to study the singular specimens of human nature around him, and with manners which enabled him to attract the confidence of those whose history he was desirous of learning, he succeeded in acquiring an insight into the characters and mo

tives of his companions, such as few persons in his rank of life have ever obtained. The result of his inquiries, so far as they regard the punishment of death upon the minds of criminals, he has embodied in the volume before us, which, where its correctness can be relied upon, is certainly a work very deserving of attention. With regard to its accuracy, all who are acquainted with the history of its author, must naturally feel considerable doubts, which are not removed by the style of the work itself. An evident attempt at effect, a desire to relate striking and startling facts, an endeavour to make a good picture by heightening the colours, a smart and dogmatical tone, and occasionally a confident display of ignorance, are sufficient to inspire the reader with distrust. On the other hand, the majority of the facts related are, in substance, undoubtedly well founded; and in the opinion of those who are acquainted with the gaol of Newgate, the representation of its inmates given by Mr. Wakefield is said not to be inaccurate. Much of the information contained in the volume has reference to the general state of crime in the metropolis, and to means which exist for its prevention or suppression; but the most important part of the work is that which relates to the effect produced by capital punishments. A law, the severity of which excites public sympathy in favour of the offender, must be injurious in its operation; and how frequently does it happen that the condemned criminal at the moment of his execution is surrounded by a sorrowful and commiserating crowd? Where can we discover the beneficial effect of a scene like that described by Mr. Wakefield in the following passage?

6

"One case of an attempt either at suicide or escape, which of the two was never precisely ascertained, I ought to mention, as illustrative of the effects of the punishment of death;-John Williams, an active young fellow, twenty-three years old, was convicted of stealing in a dwelling-house,' and, his sentence not being reversed, was, on the 13th of December, 1827, ordered to be executed on the 19th. On the morning of execution, he managed to elude the watchfulness of the turnkeys, and to climb up the pipe of a cistern in the press-yard, as some supposed with the intention of drowning himself in the cistern, but more probably with the wild hope of escaping. Be this as it may, he fell into the pavement of the yard, and seriously injured his legs. Though every one knew that he would be hanged presently, he was attended by a surgeon, who dressed his wounds with the same care as if surgical skill could have preserved the use of those limbs for years. He was carried from the press-yard to the scaffold, and in the struggle of death, blood flowed from his wounds, which became visible to the crowd. This shocking scene was known and commented upon by a great part of the population of London. What were its effects on the minds of those who made our laws, I cannot guess; but I know that it produced, on two classes of people in London, feelings highly prejudicial to the object of all punishment-the repression of crime. Respectable

shopkeepers in the neighbourhood of the scene of execution were heard to say, that worse than a murder had been committed, and that they should like to see the Home Secretary treated in the same way; and I am acquainted with one person who was robbed to a large amount in the following year, but who was deterred from endeavouring. to detect the thieves, merely by the impression left on his mind by this circum

stance.

"Within Newgate, amongst the mass of prisoners awaiting their trials, a sentiment of ferocious anger and desperate recklessness was created, such as, if frequently aroused and generally prevalent, would be the cause of innumerable and horrid crimes."

The striking example afforded by a public execution is insisted upon by the advocates of capital punishment, as most beneficial. Let them peruse the following facts:

Having taken great pains to ascertain the feeling of the mass of spectators at each execution, during the three years to which these pages relate, I am able to assert positively, that, in every case but one (executions for murder inclusive) the assembled crowd sympathised with the criminal, and expressed feelings of compassion towards the dying person, and of hatred towards the law and its principal executioner, the judge of the fourth and fifth trials. The case of exception was that of Esther Hibner, hanged for destroying a parish apprentice by repeated acts of cruelty. On that occasion the assembled crowd shouted bravoes, and clapped their hands as the woman was launched into eternity.'* On every other occasion the sympathy and anger of the crowd were expressed by such cries as God bless you!' · Shame, shame!'

If the late Under Secretary of State for the Home Department. assisted at a condemned sermon in Newgate for the purpose of instructing himself, it were to be wished that, with a similar view, he would attend a few executions in front of the gaol. Whoever will undergo the pain of witnessing the public destruction of a fellow-creature's life in London, must be perfectly satisfied, that, in the great mass of spectators, the effect of the punishment is to excite sympathy for the criminal, and hatred of the law.

"From the reports of thieves and other criminals, whom I questioned on this point, not occasionally, but whenever an opportunity occurred during three years, I feel assured that a considerable portion of the crowds which assemble to witness executions in London, consists of thieves. From all I could learn, I am inclined to believe, that the criminals of London, spoken of as a class, and allowing for exceptions, take the same sort of delight in witnessing executions as the sportsman

A similar spectacle occurred at the execution of Bishop and Williams, in December, 1831, for burking an Italian boy. The populace received the prisoners with shouts of exultation, and at the moment of their death gave "three cheers." It is difficult to conceive a scene more dreadful or more disgusting. To feast upon the last agonies of a fellow-creature, however guilty, to enjoy his despair, to add bitterness to the dregs of the fatal cup of which he is about to drink, and to spurn all feelings of mercy, because he has himself shown none-these are the results of such exhibitions, even in their most justifiable shape. What value can the rude and ignorant set upon human blood, when they see it daily poured out like water, and when they behold thousands regarding with satisfaction, nay with delight, the extinction of human life?.

One would

and soldier find in the dangers of hunting and war. suppose that the practice of crime, as a trade, furnishes, by itself, sufficient excitement; but, perhaps, the state of constant alarm in which criminals live, renders them callous to ordinary excitements, and creates in them an appetite for some excitement, which would be painful, instead of agreeable, to people in general. Be this as it may, nothing can be more sure than that the sight of an execution is considered a treat by most habitual criminals of the metropolis; and that there is hardly a regular thief in London who has not frequently gone out of his way to be present at executions. This statement may be abundantly confirmed by examining the officers of the city police.

"From inquiries made of the boys confined in the school-yard of Newgate; or rather, I ought to say, from having overheard the conversation of the boys amongst themselves, I am satisfied that every public execution creates some criminals. Every execution in front of Newgate is attended by some boys not yet criminals, apprentices, errand-boys, and children on their way to and from school; and though, unfortunately, I neglected to keep an account of the number of cases ascertained by myself, I am confident that few Old Bailey Sessions pass without the trial of a boy, whose first thought of crime occurred whilst he was witnessing an execution. Not less, I venture to say, than a dozen boys have assured me that they were led to become thieves by attending executions.

To some of them the idea occurred simply through witnessing the struggles of a dying thief; to others it was suggested by thieves, with whom they were led to form acquaintance by the excitement of the occasion, and who took advantage of that excitement, to speak, with success, of the enjoyments of a thief, and his many chances of impunity. And one grown man, of great mental powers and superior education, who was acquitted of a charge of forgery, assured me that the first idea of committing a forgery occurred to him at the moment when he was accidentally witnessing the execution of Fauntleroy."

It is sometimes urged, as an argument in favour of retaining the punishment of death, that although it may be true that the denunciation of it may have little effect upon the hardened criminal, it can never be known how many of those who are subject to temptation may have been restrained from crime by the wholesome terrors of the halter

What's done, we partly may compute,

But know not what's resisted.

It would, perhaps, be allowable to answer an argument like this, which is based upon simple assertion, by a simple denial; and to reply, that as it is not proved that the fear of death has operated to deter from crime, in any particular case, we may presume that it is productive of no such effect; while, on the other hand, in the case of every capital conviction, its inefficacy is apparent. But that inefficacy is capable of being shown by much more satisfactory reasoning. Every day's observation must convince us how ready men are to place themselves in situations