Mr. Mill made a very able speech on Tuesday night
against the abolition of capital punishment for the worse cases of murder. He maintained, as we have always maintained, that death is an infiuitely more merciful punishment than penal servitude for life without any hope of liberty, and yet at the same time it affects the imagination with far greater intensity. It is, said Mr. Mill, very justly, a most important property in every punishment in- tended for deterrent objects to seem more dreadful than it is, inasmuch as those deterrent effects depend not on what the punishment is, but on what it seems. As to the argument that we cannot expect people to respect life when we ourselves take it away by law, it might just as well be said that we could not expect people to respect the happiness of others when we our- selves inflict suffering by law. We mark our respect for happiness by inflicting suffering on those who recklessly tamper with the happiness of other people ; and so we mark our respect for life by inflicting death on those who cruelly rob other people of life. We are heartily glad to see a Radical leader protesting against the effeminate doctrine of men who esteem life merely, better than all which renders life valuable.
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