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cannot conceal our opinion, that a subject so delicate had better not have been adverted to. Upon whom "rests the weight of "human blood ?"

It is true, when the oppressor who has long exercised a cruel tyranny over his wretched subjects is cut off by death, the event cannot And when an aged sovebut be hailed as a national deliverance.

But when

reign, the father of his people, gently descends into the vale of death, closing in peace and honour a long and prosperous reign; this, too, being a looked-for event, which takes place according to the ordinary course of nature, can scarcely be deemed calamitous. death makes an unexpected irruption into our palaces, bearing thence their richest spoil, plucking up and destroying the fairest and the loveliest flower, in the midst of all its fruitfulness and beauty-this is assuredly not to be accounted amongst ordinary causes of regret. My friends, my hearers, my fellow-countrymen, when I contemplate this stroke, in connection with the previous calamity with which it has pleased God to visit the royal house; I cannot but consider them These many as forming a series of divine judgments, and as strongly marked indications of the wrath of God against a guilty nation. years, a dark cloud has overshadowed the mind of our venerable Sovereign. It has pleased the Supreme Disposer of crowns and empires, virtually to remove him from that high station which he had long occupied, by rendering him incapable of performing the functions of royalty; and thus to visit both him and us, with the most dreadful malady that can befall human nature. But when to this are added, the extinction of that light, which beamed so auspiciously on our island, in the person of the illustrious Princess, now no morethe snapping asunder at once of two most important links in the chain of succession to the throne-and especially, the affecting circumstances under which this mournful event has taken place, surely we cannot but consider these successive afflictions as judgments of the Most High, poured out on a people laden with iniquity-a kingdorn on which rests heavily the weight of human blood!' pp. 19-20. Art. VIII. A Memoir of the Unfortunate John Vartie, a Youth only Nineteen Years of Age, who was executed on Thursday, December 11, 1817, for the Crime of Forgery; To which are added, Some Letters addressed to the Rev. James Rudge, M. A. of Limehouse. Third Edition. Written by Himself, a short Time previous to his Execution. 24mo. pp. 24. Price 1s. 1818.

A

VERY strong feeling, is, we believe, becoming increasingly prevalent throughout the nation, in favour of the expediency The sentiments of some of some revision of our criminal code. of the very first lawyers, and writers on jurisprudence, both in this country and in other kingdoms, are, it is well-known, in decided opposition to the sanguinary policy of attaching to such a multiplicity of offences, the extreme penalty of death, their objections being founded not so much on the inhumanity, as the inexpediency of such laws. Our criminal code inflicts the

punishment of death on upwards of two hundred offences; but of the number of capital offenders cast for death, a very small proportion are actually permitted to suffer; the humanity of the nation, the humanity of its rulers, forbids it; and hence an uncertainty is introduced into the operation of the laws, which very materially interferes with the efficacy of the sanction, as a means of preventing crime. What is it better than a solemn mockery, to hear a Judge, placing on his head the awful symbol of doom, pronounce the solemn sentence of the law upon an assembly of convicts, who know at the time, that that sentence will not be executed, and is not intended to be carried into effect, upon the larger part of their number? And yet, who that retains the feelings as well as the shape of a man, would propose as a remedy, that the sentence should, as the laws now stand, be with unmitigated severity, uniformly put in execution?

To the crime of forgery, however, the punishment of death has, with very rare and distant exceptions, been awarded with a rigour which no circumstances have been thought sufficient to relax. The only uncertainty, therefore, has respected the chance of discovery. Its consequences, especially in a commercial country, are so destructive of that confidence which is the basis of all mercantile transactions, that we cannot wonder that it should seem to rank almost pre-eminent in the catalogue of delinquencies. And if any degree of punishment might be effectual to deter from the commission of it, this consideration might seem to justify a disregard of that rule of proportion between the penalty and the moral heinousness of the offence, which claims to be considered as the dictate of natural justice. When, however, the consequences of crime, as respects the bearings of the offence upon the interests of society, rather than the hopeless depravity of the culprit, are made the reason of the severity of the penalty, when to the vindictive claims of justice it is thus considered as necessary to sacrifice that primary end of punitive discipline, the reformation of the offender, it is obvious that the justification of this disproportionate severity, must entirely rest upon its ascertained and demonstrated efficacy in deterring others from the commission of crime. The plea of the general good, can otherwise afford no warrant for such a disregard of the claims of the individual, from whom are cut off, in that case unnecessarily, and if unnecessarily wantonly, all opportunity of amendment, all space for repentance.

The efficacy of capital punishments in any case, appears to be, in this respect, extremely doubtful. It has never, we believe, been found, that the frequency of any particular crime has been lessened, in consequence of its being made a capital

offence..

Death itself is not by the ignorant, the depraved, and the des

perate, contemplated in the light of a punishment, so much as in that of a remaining alternative which, in some form or other, is inevitable, while the ignominy of a violent death, is not regarded as greater than the ignominy of any other punish

ment.

The attaching the penalty of death, moreover, to crimes of so very different a degree of enormity, takes away all distinctive and peculiar ignominy from that particular punishment; and as to the suffering, that is considered as in itself short, and, by the infidel, too often as final.

The frequency of public executions, has, there is reason to believe, a very injurious influence on the character of the population. By familiarizing them to the awful spectacle, it lessens their dread of a similar fate, and hardens them in crime. Nothing is more notorious than the commission of theft under the very gallows, and one very remarkable circumstance is on record,-our readers may depend upon the fact,-which shews that punishments of this description may, so far from deterring others, suggest the commission of crime. A young man who was capitally convicted of forgery in 1802, confessed, that the first thought of the crime was conceived at seeing a man executed for the same offence. He went home from the spectacle, and, on the same day, committed the forgery. Another fact scarcely less remarkable, has occurred at the recent sessions. Two young men, brothers under 25 years of age, were executed on the 25th of the present month, for stealing on the River Thames, their brother having been executed not fourteen months ago, for whom their agonized mother, when she took leave of them, was still in mourning!

But would any punishment, it may be said, prove more availing than the punishment of death? This is not the question. If the destruction of the offender is found not to avail in lessening the multiplication of offences, it is no longer necessary, and if not necessary, it ceases to be justifiable. There are some considerations, however, which tend to shew that a mitigated penalty, inflicted with certainty, would be likely to have a more beneficial influence upon society. In the first place, death is a punishment the outward array and terrors of which are, indeed, visible, and upon cultivated and religious minds these have a powerful effect, but what it is to the offender, is unknown, unrealized, unseen. The horrors of conscience which go before it, the waking pangs which succeed, form no part of the sentence of the law, and occupy no definite place in the mind of the spectator. All that acts upon his fears, is, what passes before him, and this he gazes upon with stupid curiosity, and comes away determined, by eluding detection, rather than by refraining from crime, to live as long as he can. Corporal punishment, solitary imprisonment, hard fare and hard

labour-these are sensible, tangible consequences, which can be realized by the most grossly stupid and obdurate, and the idea of permanent endurance is one which comes in more direct contradiction to their love of idleness and ease. It is as much more substantially the object of dread, as a Bow-street officer is more an object of alarm than a church-yard spectre. Death itself would often be the object of their deliberate though madly ignorant preference; the dread of death is not therefore likely to be the most efficacious consideration to deter them from setting the laws of their country at defiance.

Besides, although the execution of a malefactor may fail to awaken any salutary fear, it is sure to excite commiseration for his fate;-unless, indeed, some circumstances quite unconnected with his deserving to suffer in the eye of the law,the unnatural heinousness of his crimes, or the atrocity of his character,-change that commiseration into a brutal sort of vindictive satisfaction. In any other case, guilty as he may be, and unpitied as would in all probability be his sufferings, were the penalty any thing short of death, were he consigned to labour or imprisonment, when he is brought out to die, poor fellow,' is the general sentiment of the mob. An undue, an immoral sympathy, which drowns all abhorrence of his offence, and which amounts, in many cases, to a dissatisfaction with the administrators of the laws, as if they were guilty of injustice, takes place in the minds of the spectators. The very end of the punishment, the only end when the reformation of the culprit is for ever precluded, is thus counteracted by the sanguinary severity of the sentence. malefactor is perhaps applauded for his heroism, or his resignation, or his penitence at the fatal drop, and many think rather of emulating his behaviour, should they ever be called to suffer, than of taking warning by his fate. These are not speculations, but notorious facts; facts not of accidental occurrence, but arising out of the constitution of our nature.

The

It furnishes another very powerful argument against the policy of capital punishments, especially in the case of forgery and other crimes, the penalty of which is regulated by other considerations than their intrinsic atrocity,-that in a very large proportion of cases, persons are deterred from the prosecution of the criminal, who is suffered to escape with absolute impunity, in consequence of their reluctance, not to punish, but to destroy, to destroy soul and body, the individual who has injured them. This acknowledged fact is entirely subversive of the plea that might be raised on the ground of the certainty which attends the infliction of death in cases of forgery, for the consequent preventive efficacy of the penalty. Very few private individuals will be found, who will take measures to bring the culprit who has wronged them, to justice.

In the case, however, of forgeries committed upon the Bank, detection, prosecution, and suffering, follow, it may be said, with unerring certainty. The Law Committee of the Bank, have it is believed, uniformly adhered to their determination never to interpose, in cases of conviction, on behalf of the offender. To a Committee of this kind, invested with no royal prerogative, and inaccessible to private feelings, who possess neither the power to pardon, nor the inclination to spare, justice comes in the shape of an absolute unmodified duty. But from this very circumstance arises a powerful argument against the indiscriminating severity of the law. The general plea for the retaining of the punishment of death as the penalty of so great a multiplicity of offences, is, that the laws cannot take cognizance of the different shades of the samė offence; that to deter from the crime, the maximum of punishment which may be due, is taken as the standard, but that the power of mitigation rests in the hands of the judge, while, as a last resource in any instance of doubtful criminality, the prerogative of remitting the penalty, remains with the Crown. In the case of forgery, when the Bank of England is the party, all this ingenuity of reasoning becomes null and void. The maximum of punishment is previously determined upon, and to any intercessions on behalf of the criminal for the mitigation of his penalty, the answer is, The Bank will not interfere. Under the present circumstances of the intimate connexion between the Government and the Bank, the understood will of the Bank, especially when opposed by the feeble representations of individuals, is a final rule of decision. How great soever may be the humanity of the Minister, or the repugnance of the Monarch to issue the fatal warrant, it is a Bank case, and there is no hope of mercy.

Does not such a statement as this imperiously call upon every friend of humanity to awake to the consideration of this interesting subject? When it is recollected, with how much ease, and at an expence far less than the annual cost of their prosecutions, this opulent body might render forgery a crime indefinitely difficult, by employing some skilful engraver to frame their notes,, or by introducing some vignette which every common journeyman artist might not be able to imitate,-an expedient which some of the country bankers have found an effectual check to their notes being forged,--when we think how the difficulty of passing forged notes would be increased by the facility of detecting them, which must be in inverse proportion to the ease with which the original is copied, how are we to explain this total indiffference of a body of respectable individuals in their corporate capacity, to every consideration but the certain punishment of crimes they are at no adequate pains to prevent?

By far the greater number of culprits, whose names appear on