CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
[To THE EDITOR OF TEN " SPECTAT011."1 SIR.—When reading your extremely interesting article on this subject in last week's Spectator I was reminded of Carlyle's remarks in "Model Prisons" thereon :— " I take the liberty of asserting that there is one valid reason and only one, for either punishing a man or rewarding him in this world ; one reason which ancient piety could well define. That you may do the will and commandment of God with regard to him. Aim thitherward and not elsewhere at all? And so you take criminal caitiffs, murderers and the like and hang them on gibbets for an example to deter others.' Whereupon arise friends of humanity and object. With very great reason, as I consider, if your hypothesis be correct. What right have you to hang any poor creature 'for an example'? He can turn round upon you, and say : 'Why make an example of me, a merely ill- situated pitiable man ! Have you no more respect for misfortune ? Misfortune I have been told is sacred. And yet you bang me now I am fallen into your hands ; choke the life out of me for an example. Again I ask, Why make an example of me, for your own convenience alone ? ' All revenge' being out of the question, it seems to me the caitiff is unanswerable, and he and the philanthropic platforms have the logic all on their side. The one answer to him is : 'Caitiff, we hate thee, and discern for some 6,000 years now that we are called upon by the whole universe to do it. Not with a diabolic, but with a divine hatred and will in the name of God, not with joy and exultation, but with sorrow stern as thy own, hang thee on Wednesday next and so end."
Now Carlyle bases his whole argument on God's eternal law ; it does not concern him whether capital punishment be for retributive or deterrent purposes. Personally, Sir, I think revenge, "the wild kind of justice," is out of the question ; it cannot be pleaded. And whether it deters men is arguable; the man who commits murder in mad rioting passion is obviously too uncontrolled to be pulled up with such a flash- thought, and the cold-blooded calculating murderer is always to himself the one man not to be found out. The State and Church believe it is God's eternal law to take life for life; but when men think that to hang a murderer is to commit a
double murder, then capital punishment will cease. That time is not yet. Mr. Benson is merely sentimental.—I am Sir, &c.,
C. T. A. SIDD.
Previous page
