THE GOSPEL OF BLOOD.
THE Pall Mall Gazette is seized every now and then with a homicidal mania which cloaks itself in the garb of justice. A short time ago, our contemporary argued that all the habitual criminals who had been convicted over and over again, and were still unreclaimed, ought to be got rid of by hanging. This was a rather milder attack than usual. But on Monday last, the Report of the Lunacy Commissioners on the Broadmoor Asylum seriously aggravated the normal symptoms of the complaint. The Commissioners do not seem to have written with much judgment. They complain that the places in which dangerous criminal lunatics are confined are 'prison-like in their arrangements," as if the fact that a tender-hearted jury had been persuaded to acquit some mur- derer on the ground of insanity ought to ensure him every comfort, and an abode as unlike a gaol as possible. It is also pointed out by the Pall Mall Gazette that the insanity of some of these criminal lunatics wears a very suspicious aspect. A list is given us of seven of the worst characters who have repeatedly tried to murder their keepers, have made several attempts to escape, and have combined with others against authority. But we do not see that any of these facts, or others which might, perhaps, be brought forward of an even stronger nature, justify our contemporary's sweeping
assertion that it would be much wiser, much more humane, and much better for society, if all such criminal lunatics had
been hanged in the first instance, or were now removed by a
sort of general gaol delivery which would be synonymous with a "happy despatch." The Pall Mall Gazette adds, not un- necessarily, that it speaks in all seriousness and calmness.
It may be difficult for us to maintain either in meeting such a proposition. But we certainly wish to argue the question temperately, and, if possible, to convince the Pall Mall Gazette that while the line it takes in this matter does no good to the cause of law and order, it is extremely likely to throw doubt on the whole policy of capital punishment, and to strengthen the hands of those who are working for its abolition.
According to the usual theory, punishment may be viewed in two lights,—as it bears on the offender himself, and as it affects those who are moved by his example. With regard to the criminal, it acts, if it acts at all, by the reformation of his character ; in the case of others, it is simply deterrent. The vindictive theory, of course, leaves out of sight any im- proving effect on the criminal himself, but it has the same object in deterring others. If this is the ease with all minor punishments, it is much stronger as regards the punishment of death. Here the two theories meet on common ground. It has been said that the worst use you can make of a man is to hang him, and it is very clear that the process is not meant to improve his character. On the other hand, it is not adopted for the sole purpose of getting rid of him. If it was, there would be no reason for confining it to one offence. If the punishment of death meant nothing more than that human society was tired of trying to reform an offender, and in despair dismissed him altogether from its pale, it seems evident that murder would not be the only crime which would exhaust its patience. We might then listen to the Pall Mall's recommendation of habitual criminals to what it considers mercy. We might revert to the old practice of hanging for thefts above the value of five shillings. We might put an end to all criminal lanatics because they can have no rational hope in this world, and all the use they make of non-restraint is to try and kill their keepers. But what would be the de- terrent effect of such a practice ? As the Pall Mall Gazette has summed up its argument by quoting a French saying, we will answer with another. The result would be to demoralize the guillotine. The punishment of death would cease to be a terrible example, inflicted only for great crimes, salutary in its warnings, righteous in its severity. It would become a mere instrument of public convenience, applied capriciously and indiscriminately, teaching nothing except that one crime is the same as another, and that the man who has stolen may just as well murder. Hitherto punishment has implied responsi- bility, but if this cheek is to be taken away, what other can be substituted ? The criminal classes know very well where they can stop ; those who are tempted to commit grievous crime struggle long before they yield, unless they are seized by sudden passion. Under the new code of the Pall Mall Gazette, the habitual criminals would become desperate, and beginners would be hardened by the first plunge. Instead of peddling and calculating crime, we should have the old daring achievements, which made Jack Shep- pards and Dick Turpins the heroes of romance. Worse than all, we should see the pity for criminals of which the Pall Mall Gazette complains develop into sympathy with them, and the "senseless craze which well-meaning people exhibit, and weak-minded Home Secretaries encourage, for commuting the sentence of capital punishment into imprisonment for life," would become general and irresistible. As it is, the proposal to hang lunatics for an act which, if they had been in their senses, would have amounted to murder, clearly justifies every petition that has been thus presented. If all men who com- mit a certain act are to be hanged, whether they are mad or sane, the sane have just as much right as the mad to escape hanging. If hanging is only adopted for the sake of the "valu- able servants" who "have to be employed in prisons and asylums," the Home Secretary has merely to look to the balance of public convenience. When the labour market is glutted, a number of good and industrious men may be glad of employment as warders. It would sorely be a pity to deprive them of their material for no other motive than the abstract pleasure of tucking up mad and sane alike.
The question whether hanging would not be more humane to the sufferers themselves than life-long confinement in a prison or an asylum is one that hardly comes within the scope of the present inquiry. We don't generally ask pri- soners who are about to be sentenced what kind of punish- ment they would prefer. Men who are sent to penal servitude for seven years sometimes suggest affably that the judge should make it fourteen. But suppose that hanging was more humane than confinement to both criminals and lunatics, and supposing, too, that it was much better for society to get rid of both these classes for ever, we come back again to the old question of the meaning of punishment. We do not hang men for their own good, but for the good of others. Our object is to devise such a punishment as will have the greatest possible effect on those who might otherwise follow in the steps of the offender. We do not attempt to deter him from any repetition of his offence ; we put that out of his power. Whether the end we have in view is attained more effectually by the punishment of death or of perpetual seclusion under such conditions as to make release hopeless, further crime an impossibility, and life a burden, is a question for philosophers rather than politicians, and is hardly capable of a practical solution. In our judgment, the punishment of death is the more effectual. But the criminal's own feelings in the matter are wholly immaterial. If we thought that the public would be more wholesomely impressed by knowing that in an isolated cell, cut off from the rest of the prison, condemned for life to the same dreary monotony of scene and food, kept constantly in sight by warders, deprived of every occupation, hopeless, comfortless, abandoned to him- self and preying on his own evil heart, was one who had taken the life of his fellow-man, than it would be by simply reading in the paper that "The — murderer was hanged this morn- ing," we should not put the choice before the prisoner. It is our duty to make use of him as an example. Whether we do this more or less humanely is a minor question ; there can be no doubt that whatever we do to him must be attended with considerable suffering. It is a mere mockery to tell him, as the Pall Mall Gazette does, putting on the black cap, and speaking in its deepest tones, "You have committed murder, and your life is justly forfeited to an offended country. You have been tried by a jury of your own countrymen and by one of the ablest judges on the Bench, and have been sentenced to die ; but you have been tried again by the Daily Telegraph, and have been recommended to mercy ; a petition has been presented to a weak-minded Home Secretary, and he has recommended that your sentence be commuted. Sitting here as a Supreme Court of Appeal, I have taken those recom- mendations into account, and I shall take a merciful view of your case. I find that if your sentence was commuted, you would form a part of the sifted and assorted residuum of evil in the shape of a number of sullen, desperate murderers, whom society is condemned to watch over, feed, physic, and maintain in prison until death releases them. You would be without hope yourself, and no one would have any hope about you, except that you might never be let out again. On account of your hardened and ferocious character, you would have to be watched by valuable servants, who would be paid highly out of the earnings of industrious ratepayers, and whose lives would constantly be endangered in order to preserve you in health and strength and life-long misery. For all practical purposes you would be a wild beast. Under such circumstances, it is a false sentiment of mercy to persist in keeping you alive when society is forced in self- defence to deprive you of everything which makes life endur- able. The best course I can adopt in the interests of society, and by far the humanest course towards yourself, is to pass upon you the last sentence of the law, which is "as usual. If the criminal happened to be a lunatic as well, one or two other touches might be thrown in, for which we refer our readers to the Pall Mall of Monday.
No doubt, if these principles are to be followed, we may apply them to many other subjects than the treatment of criminals. If we are only to ask ourselves what is best for society, and at the same time most humane towards its separate members, we may go far in the direction of Utopia. Would it not be best for society and most humane towards young men of wealth and position that they should not be allowed to squander the one and degrade the other ? Might not a similar check be put upon yet more mischievous courses ? Could not drunkenness be repressed by a compulsory pledge, and a flogging whenever it was broken ? Would it not be humanity towards landlords to deprive them of the possibility of interfering with the consciences of their tenants ? Many of these things might be done, too, without upsetting our notions of right and wrong. The crusade which the Pall Mall Gazette
preaches in favour of death is not so harmless. It has the mischief of turning punishment into vengeance, and substitut- ing interest for morality ; it makes law the means of smooth- ing away temporary difficulties, and in its zeal for severity it overlooks justice. We quite agree with it that there is no likelihood of its suggestions being adopted, but that does not make them the less injurious. The advocate of a good cause is not listened to the more readily, nor do his words carry greater weight, because he has just been supporting a bad one, and the hearers who have just disposed of a set of paradoxes are apt to attach the same value to the sound arguments which succeed them. The Gospel of Blood has been proclaimed so often, that there is great danger of the public falling into utter scepticism, and death as the luxury of the Pall MaIl Gazette will tend to supersede death as a necessity.
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