TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE LEADER OF THE " REFORMED" HOUSE OF COMMONS ON " REFORM" OF THE CRIMINAL LAW,
LORD JOHN RussELL's speech on the state of the Criminal Law was much cheered in the House of Commons, and has been greatly lauded by some of our contemporaries. For what, we cannot dis- cover. The whole of the improvement proposed by the Home Secretary, consists of the formal abolition of the punishment of death in certain cases as to which public opinion has rendered that punishment almost nominal. Last year five hundred persons were sentenced to death, but only seventeen were executed. Although, since 1832, many hundred persons have been sentenced to death for burglary, only one has been executed. Since the abolition of the punishment of death for forgery in general, not one persoa guilty of forging a will or power of attorney has been executed, In 1835, out of many hundred persons guilty of rick-burning. only ten were so much as convicted ; because, says Lord Joitu RUSSELL, " even where the perpetrators were known in the neigh. honchoed, such was the feeling as to the severity of the punish- ment, that parties could not be got to come forward to give evi- dence against them." During the last four years, not more thaft four or five persons, we believe, have been executed at the Old Bailey : the names of the great number of persons sentenced to death at the Old Bailey during that term, have appeared periodi. cally in the Court circular ; "all of whom," according to the Court newsman, " his Majesty was graciously pleased to respite." In a word, except for crimes attended with great violence to the person, the punishment of death has been practically abolished for some years past. Lord Jour'. RUSSELL proposes that the now. established practice shall be sanctioned by Parliament. This is the sum of his reform in the Criminal Law.
Lord Jour; supports his proposal by a single argument ; and a curious one it is. Many offences, says he, which the law visits with death, are so seldom punished by death, that the punish- ment is "extremely uncertain ;" an uncertain punishment is bad; therefore abolish it. But the fact is, as to the offences in question, that the legal punishment is no longer uncertain; it is practically abolished. As to those offences, it is now almost certain that the convict will not be put to death. The argument of "uncertainty" was very potent indeed some years ago, when PEEL was Home Secretary, when the bench abounded with banging Judges, when a considerable proportion of capital convicts were executed, and when this argument against the punishment of death was urged in vain. That old argument is not applicable to present circum- stances; but Lord JOHN may be excused for employing it, since the House of Commons, if not himself, must have wanted some other reason than the true one, for this tardy concession of a re- form which has been practically effected by public opinion in spite of barbarous and backward legislation. Thus it is that tithes have been practically abolished in Ireland ; that Mr. RICE was forced, by a practical defeat of the law, to abolish three-fourths of the stamp-duty on newspapers; and that Church-rates in England will probably be abolished. If it were necessary, other cases might be adduced to show that the " final measure" of Tories and Whigs has given us a Legislature which, instead of guiding and leading public opinion in matters of practical improvement, lags far behind the most intelligent classes, or rather is seriously occupied only in a struggle between aristocratic parties. Besides promising some bills for giving a legislative sanction to the practical abolition of the punishment of death in certain cases, Lord JOHN RUSSELL theorized at length on the subject of criminal law. Or rather, let us say, for fear he should share in the vulgar- minded aristocratic dislike to the word theory, that his crude, dis- jointed, and inconsistent opinions, little merit that laudatory term. We have not room, nor would our readers care, for a parti. cular account of his speech ; but here is enough, we hope, to jus- tify the terms in which we are reluctantly compelled to speak of him as a Criminal-Law-Reformer. " The undoubted object of capital pa. "Although, no doubt, it might he said
nishment;as was now universally admitted, that a person who had at tacked another. was not to satisfy the purposes of divine mall intent to commit murder, and had jitstice, Cr to inflict human vengeance, tut to altogether failed and lout done no Nary.
prevenl crime." as in the case, for instance, f shunting at,' was as guilty as if Sc had itjlicted injery; vet he (Lord John Russell) thought that, tails° into acemot the public fi.cting, theca sat a very great difference, and that whets it had pleased Providence that the attempt should fail, no capital punishment should take place."
That is to say, eschewing cant, that a good shot should be hanged, but a bad one spared. The crime of "shooting at " re- quires prevention, the sole object of punishment, quite as muck as the crime of " shooting : " the guilt, says Lord Ram is the same in both cases ; but the punishment should be different., because in the case of an intending murderer "the public feeling does not call for capital punishment, though it does in the case of a murderer. What means this difference of "public feeling ?,, — it means, that when a person has been shot, there are a corpse, and an inquest, and bloody circumstances, which produce a feeling of "human vengeance ; " whereas, in the other case, when the person shot at has escaped, there is no such feeling. Vi. here there is no " public feeling of human vengeance," there is. no occasion for a cruel punishment ; when there is such a feeling, then gratify it by an execution. Or, to put the ease in another shape, the sole object of punishment being to prevent crime, and
the means of attaining that object being by the creation of a stronger motive for abstaining from a crime than any motive for committing it; this being the philosophy of your jurisprudence, then, Intween two cases of equal guilt—two cases in which the intention is precisely same—make the great distinction of life or death, punishing with death the successful murderer, but sparing the would-be murderer who has accidentally failed in his purpose. prevent shooting by the strongest means, but not shooting at. And why ?—bccause in the one case, there is a feeling of human vengeance, in the other, not ; and this although " the undoubted object of punishment is not to inflict human vengeance, but to pievent crime." Such is the applauded logic of a noble leader of ti e Reformed House of Commons.
thought there was very great reason to doubt whether transportation ought COW to be coutintted to the extent to which it hail of late years been carried. Ile ad- mitted that in theory there W3/11111101 to be stud in favour of the sty stem or removing to a very great distance persons standing convicted of high i ffences, there to allow them to utak rgo a certain degree of ponisitment, nod then to afford them in a new country the opportunity of becoming reclaimed, awl of earning by holiest industry the meant of independent support ; and he still thought that with regard to many offences punish- ment by transport ution was the best that could be resorted to. Ile proposed there. fore, in accordance with the opin on of a late Governor of Van Diemett's Laud, and also uf tint Chief Justice of New South Wales. that no person should henceforth be trait-ported for a IVS4 term than ten years. It appeared from all the infortnal ion which had been received, that prisoners sent out fur seven years were Si) extremely unruly, insolent. and insubordinate, that in a very short space of time, the colunien nimbi have suffered very serious and alarming mischiefs. The next term of transportation he pro- posed to fix at fifteen years ; and the greatest term would, of coutse, be for bin. If this plan should be adopted, it would. he thonght.he necessary before long to diminish very considerably the number of persons who should be transported. Ile conceived that the accounts which had been given by various high atithot tiles of the manner in wh'ela that punishment was now carried into effect in the colonies, would be most un- satisMctury to those who wished to see punishment properly and effectually applied, The error of the present system existed. as he believed, in the verv great number, amounting to between 4 000 unit 5.000 convicts. sent out a Ily to the colonies. These numbers were not absorbed in a population of decent chataeters, but became part of a considerable population of convicts. Crime and vice of all kinds were on the increase to a most lamentable extent ; and after a short time those prisoners instead if un- dergoing punishment. beeame possessed and were admitted to the enfidiment of great indul- gences, and committed worse crimes than they would hare committed had they remained at home. The letter addressed to the Commissionets by the Chief Justice of Australia. and the evidence of Colonel Arthur, both neat to slams the very unsatisfactory mode in which the system was now carried On. The practice was, that on a number of con- victs being sent out. they were, on arrival, immediately assigned to bulb ideals ; that moment the couviet becanse, to a certain degree. the skeet., his master. It' that master chanced to be of an indulgent. kindly disposition, the convict suffered but slight punishment ; while, on the contrary, if he were assigned to an intlivithinl of a different temperament, the punishment would be perhaps severe to a degree. The Chief Justice said, also, that alt1 ough a saving of expense was effected, still the inequality if treat- ment made transport■tion a mot uncertain mode of punishment; fur, by chance in the as- signment. greater criminals might escape, and the lesser iffeniee suffer most severe/y. lie proposed to amend this uncertainty, by pruvuling that the liatlite of the transportation, the extent of labour, or the condition that the patty should not receive indulgences until after he had served for a certain period, sinedd be delisted by the Court by w Welt the sentence was pronounced. Ile believed that if this was adopted, an alteration or the law would be necessary. for be believed when the noble lord the Member for North Laneashire, presided over the Colonial Office, he issued orders to the colonies to that effect, but that w Wilma an alteration or the law it mos found that they could nut legally be acted upon. Ile (Lord Joint Russell) could not avoid quoting also the Lair of Colonel Arthur to Lord lioderich. in answer to Archbishop Whateley's views on the subject of punishment by transportation. Colonel Arthur was well acquainted with the trot king of the sy sten' in Villa Diemen's Land, and stated. that though the country might be traversed with perfect safety by day or night, —though some convict,' became reformeci.—yet that such was the peculation. insolence, disobedience, and
drunkenness of others, that the tnasters to whom they were assigned moult rather forego their punishments. through the intervention of the Supreme Court, than incur the expense of the proseentions. Now it could not be denied. that this was an ex.
tremely unfavourable picture of the state or poisons resident in these colonies. If the system of transportation was only applied to a small number of convicts, he conlil
easily conceive that such a system of oiscipline could be established us would over- come the evils now existing ; but when, to a colony consisting of only about 100.000 free settlers, this country sent out annually 3.000 SAO, and perhaps 5000 convicts. it
colthl not be effected ; and, on the contrary, the result in t me would be to concert the v hole colony int. the residence and territory of the must depraved community that ever ex • istcd in the world."
" The most depraved community that ever existed in the world !" This, no doubt, is a true description of society in the penal colonies. One should have expected thereupon, that Lord JOHN RUSSELL would propose to abolish the horrid system by which this " most depraved community in the world" has been called into existence, and is new made to grow in numbers as it grows in habits of depravity. But no; he " does not go that length with Archbishop WHsesse." Then what length does he go? Why, all that he proposes is, to render the criminal slaves of New South Wales more completely " slaves to their masters," by extending the term of slavery from seven years to fifteen, by more precisely defining the nature of slavery in the penal colonies, and by confining the transportation of slaves to such a number as may be more easily kept in a state of slavery. This is all. Of the great and manifold evils of the punishment of transportation—of the vast distance between the place of offence and the place of punishment—of the disproportion be- tween the sexes amongst these slaves, which has established habits of unmentionable "depravity "—of the corruption of the slava-masters through the possession of slaves—of the corrup- tion of all society in these penal colonies by the continual in. pooling of a stream of the greatest " depravity "—of the itnmense patronage for political corruption at home, which the system of transportation places at the disposal of the Colonial Ciilice—of the absurdity of' placing in the Colonial department the adminis- tration of a most important branch of the criminal law (an ab- surdity of which there is some proof in Lord JoHN's statement that his late colleague Lord STANLEY, when Colonial Minister, gave orders on the subject contrary to law)—on none of these essential points has Lout JOHN Russess a word to say. If Ile bad become at all acquainted with the subject, the goodness of his disposition would surely lead him to " go that length" with Archbishop WHATELY. But the littleness of his disposition on the other hand, would make him afraid of King STEPHEN; who is the real Minister for transpurtation,—some of whose relatives, if we mistake not, fatten on the patronage of the system, and who will never agree to its abolition except perforce of a Cabinet with a will of their own. It may be asked, however, what "length" Archbishop WHATELy intends "to go?" A fair and full account of the "most depraved community that ever existed in the world," taken by a Committee of the House of Lords. and for which there are ample materials in England, would at once put an end to the system. The Archbishop sits in Parliament this year : he cannot be afraid of King STEPHEN: would that he might think this hint from a newspaper not unworthy of his notice.
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