Page:The Pamphleteer (Volume 8).djvu/295

Rh reflected thoroughly or felt humanely. Even Blackstone, a man who perhaps has written the most clear and certainly a most beautiful exposition of a difficult subject, who in all things, whether simple or intricate, has shown judgment and learning, seems, in spite of his great veneration for so high an authority, to lean to the opinion of the injustice of this passage.

On an occasion like this, there is neither time, nor would it be allowable, to occupy too much space on the minuter parts of the subject; or else, if we chose to go into a minute examination of the relative proportions of crime and punishment in our crown pleas, we should find not one or two more instances like those here named, but should be astonished at every step by the visible injustice of our penal laws. But what need of more, for do we not see by what is above stated that depriving a cherry-tree and a man of life, are liable to the same punishment?

But as justice has got very little to do in this world, and as that fable of Astræa flying to heaven, is we fear but too true, we must also show not only the injustice, but also the impolicy of retaining, and the expediency of changing these laws.

To judge of the fitness of a punishment we should examine whether it fulfils all the uses intended in its adoption. The cause of our using punishment, says Blackstone, is as a precaution against future crimes, and this, punishment does in three ways, 1st, by amending the individual, 2dly, by deterring others from the commission of the same crime, and 3dly, by depriving the offender of the means of future mischief.

Examining the punishment of death, by the test of these uses, what is the result? Can we pretend that it improves the man? The question seems ridiculous, without some will pretend, that death improves the man, because from the form whose every motion, gesture, glance of the eye, seem to