LAW BARBARISMS.
No injury is done to humanity when a creature like Giovanni Lani is erased from the list. Any argument against capital punishment cannot rest upon personal claims on behalf of such a man; but the doubt is, whether such exhibitions as the execution of capital sentence, with all its circumstances conduce in any way to morality, or do not, in fact, deaden the best, and stimulate the worst feelings. For the last few days the criminal is made a show, and the tragic associations; with the crime that he has committed give zest to the vulgarest forms of curiosity. A sympathy is even created with the lowest appetites of the man. The ordinary feel- ings of humanity suggest to those who are near him a certain considerateness ; the interest excited by his fate mingles with curiosity at the strange hunger and epicurism that distinguish him ; and the bystander is led into a trivial philosophizing upon the balance in the criminal's mind of fate and cookery, of a dark ihture and the merits of the butcher. A" confession "is paraded, Which casts a retrospective accusation upon the woman whom he has murdered as herself intending to be a thief. Now, there is no reason to believe the truth of any such story. Lani was convicted not only of murder, but of endless lying. That his object was merely to recover his own is discountenanced by thefact that he had actually stolen the woman's trinkets even
he had recovered his own. He was a liar and a thief as Well as a murderer ; self-gratification being the one religion to Which he was faithful. But there was an object that he had systematically in view throughout his imprisonment, it was to got off. He appears to have entertained an abiding hope that the ital punishment would not after all be carried into effect.
en the Sheriff asked, what he could do for him, he suggested zuni a reprieve ; and it was only when the attendants were pinio • his arms that his hopes gave way. Then he cried like a obil and shuddered at the sound of the bell ; and the poor fool's so had yielded. to mortal fear long before his muscular frame was dangling in convulsions to edify the street audience, and to gra- tify the sense of justice in the femmes gaiantes who viewed the performance from the private box of an open window. The cul- prit's conduct is very disgusting, but the most disgusting kart of
the whole performance falls to the share of the law. If °my
man's sympathies are aroused against the prisoner, still stronger feelings are called forth in his favour, and law makes itself more revolting than crime. This arises, not from the use of capital punishment, but from the method. The criminal was vile, cruel, and base ; the manner in which the law acts is brutal.
This brutality is still more objectionable when it is employed as the vindicator of morality. The historian who relates the case of a girl who destroyed herself a week or two back deals with the result very gently. Fanny Coxon was a servant in the house of a fanner at Carleton-le-Moorland in Nottinghamshire. In to letters, one addressed to her father, mother, and sister, another
to Edwin Key who was engaged to marry her, she explained the reason of her crime. The letters are written very plainly, and they are very. touching. She had. been "led astray," not by Edwin - "it is not him that has done me this dishonour, or I could have borne it better ; but it is one who is nothing to me, but
I shall not say who." She grieves for her "dearest Edwin," and bequeaths him her Bible ; she grieves for her sister to whom she ought to have been a guide "through the path of youth"; grieves for her parents • and. takes thought for all, even those to
whom she owed some trifles of money. And, full of penitence, regret, affection, she hides herself away in death. There is no
doubt about the facts. A coroner's jury returned a verdict that her death was caused. by herself, she being at that time of sane mind; and the coroner issues his warrant for her interment between the hours of nine and twelve o'clock. She was fele de se, and was borne to the grave with studied. indignity, though many women—mid.. titudes who have sinned and not repented, who have thought not of others but only of self, have been, and will be borne to the grave with every ceremony. In such cases as the present, a special service might and should be designed for the last offices of the church. But the distinction as it stands—the old hole in a cross road—is an obsolete brutality. In some eases the law, even in the highest resort, positively lends a passive sanction to immorality. The Anatomy Act con- ferred great benefits upon society, not only by facilitating the ac-
quisition of subjects for the student of anatomy, but by discon- tinuing the low and. criminal practices through which ana- tomical subjects were previously obtained. In placing the bodies
of persons who die in prisons and in workhouses at the disposal of the public authorities for hospital purposes, it provided a reser- vation of a-right to object on the part of relatives. Upon the
whole, perhaps' it is found that the relatives of paupers do not very often object. The pauper does not retain a very strong hold
upon the affections or even memory of the survivor ; the wish of the parish officer is a more powerful influence. But sometimes there are objections, and the Master of the Workhouse at St. Mary, Newington, appears to have employed a very ingenious con- trivance for obviating that assertion of interest in the defunct. The relatives were invited to attend the funeral ; they saw a coffin duly marked as containing the departed ; it was carried to the grave for the performance of the proper cere- mony; but the Master of the Workhouse had. caused. one body to be substituted for another, and the weeping friends actually wasted their grief over a stranger, while their friend was carried. away to the dissecting-room. The Master was indicted for a breach of the Anatomy Act, but the Court for the Consideration of Crown Cases Reserved has decided, on appeal, that, in the instance cited, - the relatives had not objected, and that although the Master acted a lie, his doing so was not an offence under the Anatomy Act, or under the Common Law as modified by that act. The Master must not defy the objection of relatives, but he may avoid it by deception. It is, perhaps, only the prejudice of ignorance which restrains us from permitting our bodies to be used for purposes of science ; but if the richest of us objects, why not the very poorest ? There is no reason why the body of the pauper should not be used by the student, if the pauper consents; but there is every reason why the act of Parlia- ment should not be broken, or why Masters of Workhouses should not be told that they may cheat the relatives in safety, if they perform the drama ingeniously enough.
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