Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/91

Rh gating the Severity of Panishment in Certain Cases of Forgery, and Crimes connected therewith." Buxton, in advocating this measure, said truly:—

The people have made enormous strides in all that tends to civilise and soften mankind, while the laws have contracted a ferocity which did not belong to them in the most savage period of our history, and, to such extremes of distress have they proceededthat I do believe there never was a law so harsh as British law, or so merciful and humane a people as the British people. And yet to this mild and merciful people is left the execution of that rigid and cruel law.

This measure was defeated, but the numbers of votes were so nearly equal, that the defeat was actually a victory.

Time went on. In 1831 Sir Robert Peel took up the gauntlet against Capital Punishment, and endeavoured to induce Parliament to abolish the death-penalty for forgery; the House of Commons voted its abolition, but the Lords restored the clauses retaining the penalty. One thousand bankers signed a petition praying that the vote of the Commons might be sustained, but in vain; still, in deference to public opinion, after this the death-penalty was not inflicted upon a forger. Nevertheless, there remained plenty of food for the gallows. An incendiary, as well as a sheep-stealer, was liable to capital punishment; and so severely was the law strained upon these points, that he who set fire to a rick in a field, as well as he who found a half-dead sheep and carried it home, was condemned without mercy. But, the advocates of mercy continued their good work until, finally, the gallows became the penalty for only those offences which concerned human life and high treason.

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