Page:On death punishments (Haughton).pdf/6

6 a milder treatment of criminals than was the policy of our forefathers, is placed on a more secure foundation, so that it may be reasonably inferred that an application of the milder, in place of the sterner rule, even in the case of deliberate murder, would be attended by a like happy exemption from danger.

Lest any should say that the decrease of crime, as evidenced by the foregoing returns, has been caused by a better system of police deterring men from the commission of crime, I regret being obliged to disabuse their minds of that idea; for it appears to be distinctly shown in the official records—the Home Office Annual Returns—from which some of the foregoing statistics are procured, that crimes of all inferior grades were considerably increased in number, during the very periods when the crimes for which the capital penalty was repealed grew less frequent, after the mitigation of the punishment.

Some may doubt the force of my conclusions, and allege that it is contrary to common sense to suppose that men will be more effectually deterred from the commission of great crimes by milder than by severe punishments. They overlook, however, the consideration that the certainty of punishment has a greater effect than its severity in deterring from the commission of crime. Facts are in support of my argument, while false theory alone is the basis on which contrary views are founded.

I apprehend the true solution of this apparent anomaly will be found in the existence of a morbid feeling in many minds, which stimulates to the performance of acts that are punished in a manner that, though severe, makes their perpetrators objects of notoriety. At all events, whatever may be the cause, we find, from the history of man in all ages, and in different countries, that the infliction of death punishment, attended, as it has necessarily been, with the excitement of an interest in the criminal, has had a tendency to call into activity this morbid feeling, and to place the lives and property of men in jeopardy, instead of affording them adequate security.

The death penalty is still resorted to in these countries in cases of wilful murder; so that some may say that in this case my argument falls to the ground for want of proof—that, but for the severity of our law, we might have many horrible murders committed, accompanied with even more revolting circumstances than those which now occur.

It is difficult to meet such reasoners as these; indeed they would be more correctly designated opposers than reasoners. The analogy of other cases weighs nothing with them; they refuse to open their minds to the value of the evidence they afford; they even incline to doubt facts which are undeniable. The ameliorations of our criminal law, which have produced such blessed results, were opposed by similar reasoners, and exactly on similar grounds—the "safety of society;" and they yet contend against the relinquishment of the gallows, on the alleged, but, as I conceive,