Capital Punishments. SIR, and account books. In this situ. pity his momentary lapse, if you ation the prosecutor begged very do not respect his return to virtue, earnestly for his life. As he laid it would have been well for me under the prisoner, he watched that I had died. It is me that his countenance and saw that he you will condemn; I shall be the was much agitated; he desisted, victim of the law, and he gave me rose, mounted his horse and rode my life in vain.' He was frequent. away. It was then about 7 o'clock ly interrupted during this affecting in the evening; but the young appeal, by the tears of the jury man was so much exhausted that and the general distress of the he did not reach home till late at court; the prisoner was found night. He immediately stated guilty, and was executed. The these circumstances; but the im- story is well known in the county probability of his having been of York. The name is suppressed robbed in open day-light on a road, from respect to his friends." and of his having lost various me- Montagu, on the Punishment of morandums which a robber would Death, i. 6, 7. scarcely have taken, excited some suspicion respecting the truth of this statement. As the jury were London, leaving the box, the young man Dec. 27, 1811. who had been robbed, begged to I am glad that you have invited be heard. He was so much agi- communications on the subject of tated that he could scarcely speak; Capital Punishments, and trust when he recovered himself, he that your correspondents will not said, I stand here to plead for be backward in contributing, acyour mercy, towards a man who cording to their means, to the listened to my voice, when I beg cause of justice and humanity. ged for mercy from him. If he Allow me to throw in, as my mite, could have been deaf to my cry, the following observation; which I should now be in my grave, and I very lately heard from a Chris he in the bosom of a respectable tian Teacher, in public. family, with the wife who believed "The severity of our penal code. him virtuous, and the children is attended with this evil; that the who loved him. It has been awful punishment of death being re proved to you that his connections, sorted to for crimes of comparative his character, his religious persua- ly small moment, noheavier punishsion would have all united to shel- ment is left for crimes of the deepest ter him from suspicion; it has die, with every accompaniment of also been proved that I was lame atrocity. The several gradations of from my birth; that I am feeble; guilt are thus confounded in a that I had exasperated him by a dreadful equality of punishment; blow which almost fractured his and he that treads the first step in skull, and that he knew I could iniquity, on finding that he is identify him, but the kindness of his subject to the same fate as if he nature preponderated; it overcame had proceeded to the last, rushes the fear of disgrace, and he suffered onwards in the career of violence me to depart that I might be the with headlong desperation.-This cause of his death. If you do not whole metropolis is now agitated with horror at some recent bar- only the judge and two witnesses. barities; every one wishes that the This punishment is allotted also perpetrators of these deeds of to other trifling offences, when the blood may be brought to condign poverty of the persons convicted punishment:-but it shocks one's makes it impossible for them to sense of justice to reflect that on pay a pecuniary fine. In cases the same day on which the authors where petty thefts have been a of such monstrous wickedness are second time coinmitted, the criobliged to pay the deserved forfeit minal is usually sent to Copenhaof their lives, there may be put to gen; in the workhouse of which death, under the sanction of the city he is confined for the term of law, some inexperienced youth three or five years, according to for writing down a false name, or the degree of his guilt. Thefts of some wretched female for coining a more serious nature, as the the least valuable piece of our money!" If these sentences strike you on reading, as they did me on hear ing, you will I doubt not give them to the public. ADJUTOR. Criminal Law of Iceland. [From Travels in Iceland. By Sir G. S. breaking into churches or houses, or the stealing of horses, are punished either by public whipping, or by a sentence of perpetual confinement in the Copenhagen workhouse. Where such thefts have been committed for the fourth time, or still more frequently, the punishment is confinement for life in the public prisons of Denmark. The operation of these more severe laws is, however, very seldom required: crimes of this description being by no means frequent among the natives of Iceland. Mackenzie. 4to. pp. 318-321.] The study of their own laws, as well as of the principles of law in general, has ever been a favour ite pursuit among the Icelanders; The only public prison in the is and both in ancient and modern land is that of Reikiavik, which times, a great number of writings was erected about fifty years ago. connected with this subject, have By a mistake, not unnatural in appeared in the island. In con, such a country as Iceland, this sequence of this minute attention, building has been rendered greatly all the laws of the country, both more comfortable than the com civil and criminal, are very dis- mon habitations of the natives; tinctly defined; and even among so that, were it not for the privatithe inferior magistrates, are so well on of liberty, the Icelander might understood, that their execution well be content to exchange his is every where conducted with own abode for one where his actufidelity and exactness. The punishments for theft, prescribed in the criminal law, are varied by the degree of the offence. In cases where the theft is of little importance, or the crime commit. ted for the first time, the offender is whipped, in the presence of dangerous to the health. In the workhouse at Copenhagen there are different sections, allotted to different classes of criminals. The men condemned to confinement there, are kept in a part of it called the Rasp-huus, where they are employed in rasping dyewoods; an occupation considered very al comforts are little inferior, and for life, shall be kept in confine. where he is exempted from many ment before the time of his trial. of the evils incident to his usual When an individual is accused of mode of life. Sheep-stealing is any inferior crime, he is admo the most commca offence, for nished by the Hreppstiore, in the which imprisonment here is ad- presence of witnesses, not to leave judged; the term of confinement the parish, in which he resides. extending from two to five years, If he infringes upon this obligation, and a certain portion of daily la- and is afterwards apprehended, he bour being appointed for each pri- remains under strict confinement, soner. The crime of adultery, until judgment upon his case has committed for the third time, is been pronounced. punished by a confinement of two years. At the time we visited Iceland, there were six people im- On a Passage in the "Edinburgh prisoned in this place; but this is probably rather below the usual number. Review." The Edinburgh Review, the most powerful of all our periodical Capital punishment, though publications, has at length taken strictly provided for by the laws up the cause of the Protestant Disin cases of murder, &c. is scarcely senters. In an essay, in the numever required among a people, ber [xxxvii, from p. 149 to 164] gentle in all their dispositions, and just published, an able writer gives possessing moral qualities of the a slight historical sketch of the most excellent description. Ex. penal laws to which Protestant amples of this kind have been so Dissenters are subjected, specifies very rare, that a few years ago, the present state of those laws, and when a peasant was condemned then examines their utility for the to die for the murder of his wife, preservation of the Established no one in the island could be in. Church. The account of the peduced to perform the office of ex- nal laws is far from being comecutioner, and it was necessary to plete; but it is sufficient to expose send the criminal over to Norway, the absurdity and iniquity of into that the sentence of the law might lerance in general, and the ingrabe carried into effect. The method titude of refusing full religious li prescribed for inflicting death, is berty to Protestant Dissenters in that of taking off the head with an particular. Many excellent remarks In all cases where capital are interspersed, on the inexpedi punishment or perpetual imprison- ency of persecution; whether by ment have (has) been adjudged by the actual infliction of corporal the courts, the ratification of the pain, by imprisonment, by pecuKing of Denmark is required, be- niary penalties, or by the depri fore the sentence can be acted vation of honours. There is one upon. passage, however, so inconsistent By a law enacted a few years with the spirit of the writer, and it is provided that no Iceland. so fatal to his argument, that we er, unless under an accusation cannot refrain from hazarding which might subject him to capital some animadversions upon it: in. punishment, or to imprisonment making them, we wish not to les axe. ago, sen the authority of the writer, thirstiness; but, for the most part, but to remove what appears to us by a regard to truth, according to a blemish in a piece of reasoning, otherwise very masterly. The passage to which we refer is as follows: - "We begin with a perfect admission of the right of the legisla ture to exclude any description of men from civil offices in consequence of their religious opinions -provided they are satisfied that such an exclusion is essential to the general well-being of the com. munity. The government has a right to do any thing that is for the good of the governed; and it is possible that a particular religious sect may be so notorious for dangerous political opinions, that their faith may be taken as a test, or mark, of their doctrines upon government. In the changes and chances of the world, Socinian doctrines may be firmly united to republican habits, as dependence on the See of Rome may be combined with the love of despotism; and then it does not seem very unreasonable, that religious creeds, in themselves innocent and not the subject of punishment, should become so, from their ac. cidental alliance with dangerous opinions upon subjects purely se. cular. Cases might be put, where it would be insanity in any govern. ment not to distinguish its ene. mies by any mark, religious, physical or moral, that chanced to present itself. It is quite idle, then, to argue this question as a question of general right." p. 154. Now upon this we remark, first, that the broad admission with which the paragraph sets out, will justify any religious tyranny what ever. Persecutors have never perhaps been actuated by mere blood VOL. VII. their own conceptions of it; on the prevalence of which they have placed, in their imaginations, the welfare of the community. Allow governors to persecute only in the mildest way, i. e. by exclusion from civil offices, at the call of expediency, and the perpetuati on of intolerance is secured: for a man must have more philosophy than is the usual lot of such as sit in the seat of government, not to believe that the opinions which he himself rejects are pernicious to society, and ought, by all possible means, to be discountenanced and repressed. We object, secondly, to the unqualified doctrine of government having "a right to do any thing that is for the good of the governed:" it would, as appears to us, be nearer to the truth and more congenial to the spirit of the English constitution, to say that governors have a right to do any thing which the people, by whom they are made, have constituted and appointed them to do: though this latter proposition would still require some abatement, in order to its being strictly true; for there are powers which no sovereign authority can possess or confer, and amongst them we reckon first c all, that of hindering the mighty from receiving the worship of his creatures. Government has not a right to waste the strength of the community upon the impracticable attempt to change the religious opinions of a part of it by force: in a word, no individual and no mass of individuals has a right to do what is morally wrong; which is undeniably done, in punishing a man for that to which he F is necessitated by his Creator, civil offices, (as is the case with namely, following in his faith the both Catholic and Protestant Dis. convictions of his understanding. senters,) and with what propriety "The good of the community," can the mere inclination of the and the like terms, express only legislature or of the government fallacious conditions: who is to be urged as proof of a right to opjudge of the common-weal? The press a people with whom they legislature, the government, the have no sympathies and whom they magistrate; i. e. the very indivi- have already deprived of a voice dual, or body whose right is under in the councils of the state and discussion. Provided the indivi- of all part in the execution of the dual or body is satisfied that the laws; we say mere inclination, proscription of a sect, obnoxious because, in fact, the doctrine we to such individual or body, is for are combating amounts to the general good, a right to persecute right of government to do with is thence at once acquired; which religious sects what they please. is a right to persecute in all cases, Thirdly, We complain of the without exception-because, igno- use of unphilosophical, illiberal rant and intolerant men, such as language, when opinions are denohave for the most part flourished minated dangerous. We know in the high places of the state, but of one case, in which they are have always been satisfied, or, attended with danger; and that which is the same thing to our is, when they are prescribed and argument, have always professed persecuted. A variety of opinions themselves satisfied, that the exclu. is no more prejudicial to a state sion of some religious sect from than a variety of faces; though if civil rights was essential to the an act of Parliament were to pass, public safety. There must, sure- forbidding the appearance in publy, be a flaw in the doctrine which lic of long faces or round faces, pronounces the will of government disaffection and perhaps a rebellito be the sole measure of right; on might be the consequence. especially in matters of religious preference and distinction, where the passions are usually up and in action. And there is the less 39 articles of faith, or chance of the will of government whether Y. Z. thinks the Divine being in this case a just standard Essence is better described by sayof the public weal; because go- ing that it consists of three persons vernment is so constituted, in con- or of one only? A, B. may have sequence of religious distinctions, held each number of articles, at as, in fact, to represent, as far as different periods of his life, withrelates to religion, only a part of out being at all altered in his relathe community. There is plausi. tions to society: Y. Z. may have bility in the argument that the been formerly an advocate for will of the community, fairly ex- three persons, and may now repressed, is an authority for a nati. tain only one, in his creed, onal establishment of religion: without being a whit different as a but suppose any sect excluded fellow citizen and a subject. from the legislature, (as is the Would Howard have been a greater case with the Catholics,) or from philanthropist, if he had said his What, in the name of common sense, is the community benefited or injured, whether A. B. believes 38; |