Page:History of New South Wales from the records, Volume 1.djvu/344

 234 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT and revolting methods of punisliment then in existence; but at the same time it is equally clear that, for reasons we can only conjecture, he refrained from touching the work of reform. On one occasion during the year 1780, he was roused from his apparent indifference by an occurrence which had come under his notice '^ in the newspapers of Pilloried to that momiug/^ Two men had been put in the pillory the day before, and had been so cruelly ill-treated that one of them was killed outright, while the other was removed in a dying state. Burke's statement of the facts was prefaced by the following remarks : — In making criminal laws, it behoved them materially to consider Proportion how they proceeded, to take care wisely and nicely to proportion crime and ^^^ punishment so that it should not exceed the extent of the punishment crime, and to provide that it should be of that kind which was more calculated to operate as an example and prevent crimes than to oppress and torment the convicted criminal.* He did not give the House his opinion as to the actual proportion between crime and punishment, but rather left it to infer that, as a rule, one was "wisely and nicely " pro- portioned to the other. The case to which he referred might well have led him to look a little further than the mere facts connected with it. One of the victims being not only short but short-necked, could not reach the hole in the pillory made for the head, whereupon "the officers of justice" sus. per coll. forced his head through the hole, so that he hung rather than walked as the pillory went round. The result was that he soon grew black in the face, and the blood forced itself out of his nostrils, eyes, and ears. Knowing the treat- ment he would probably receive from the mob when he was exposed to their violence, he had begged hard for mercy before his punishment began ; but his plea was not listened stoned by ^o, and he was immediately attacked with so much fury t e mo. ^j^^^ ^YiQ officers, in order to save him, opened the machine, when he fell down dead. • Parliamentary History, vol. xxi, p. 387. Digitized by Google