CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND WOMEN.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Whatever is done to alter or improve the law as to degrees of murder, it is much to be hoped that females qua females will not be excluded from the extreme penalty. For let us not forget that the lives of the most innocent and helpless are necessarily entirely in the hands of women. To a great number of English people the law of the land is their guide as to right and wrong—a very imperfect criterion, no doubt, but vastly better than nothing ; and if the murder of infants by their mothers be legally defined as something short of murder, Heaven have mercy upon the little children I This is not to say that the unhappy girl-murderer should be hanged—nay, she might always be reprieved simply as an exercise of the mercy of the Crown, but not from any weakening of the verdict. Let her leave the court convinced that she has committed murder. There are many loving Christian agencies ready to befriend her.—I am, Sir, &c., LUCY C. F. CAVENDISH.
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