by removing the inducement or correcting the disposition to crimes, or by taking a sincere interest in the welfare of the offender, and convincing him that the evils he experiences are the unavoidable consequences of his own misconduct, and are inflicted upon him for his own good, that we can expect to produce any beneficial effect. Upon the practicability of this, is founded the great plan of modern improvement, called The Penitentiary System, the advantages of which are every day becoming more apparent, and which, when perfected by experience, cannot fail to produce the most important and the happiest results on the moral character and condition of mankind.

13

ON PUNISHMENTS BY WAY OF EXAMPLE.

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THE proper end of human punishment,” says Dr. Paley, "is not the satisfaction of justice, but the prevention of crimes." By the satisfaction of justice he means, "the retribution of so much pain for so much guilt." But having shewn, that the prevention of crimes is the great duty of the legislator, he hastens to a conclusion which cannot be conceded to him, and takes it for granted, that severe punishments will accomplish this purpose; contending that "the ease with which crimes are committed or concealed, must be counteracted by additional penalties and increased terrors." A slight consideration will however shew, how little reliance can be placed on a mere system of severity, to whatever extent it may be carried; and that it rather serves to calm our fears, and flatter us with a dangerous security, than to remedy the evil. No person commits a crime, but under such circumstances, and with such precautions, as he thinks sufficient to secure

him from discovery. The greater or less degree of the punishment is therefore a matter of inferior account; and it would be much more advisable to endeavour to diminish the inducement to the crime, or even to increase the chance of detection, than to increase the punishment. The arm of the law is always defective, and in fact, guards only a small part of the province of human action; whilst an immense district is always open to the depredations of the profligate, who are acquainted with the lines of demarcation, and know how far they may venture with safety. The legislator denounces the penalty to be positive and certain, but the offender reads it conditionally, if the crime should be discovered. This is the only danger against which he has to provide, and in this, all the chances are in his favour. The choice of time and circumstance is in his own power, and these may frequently occur so fortunately, that detection may be impossible.* To compunction and remorse he is a stranger; and he therefore scruples not to secure his impunity from

* It is stated by Vickery, the Bow-Street officer, in his examination before the Committee of the House of Commons, that "within one month, there was property stolen in the City of London, and particularly about Basinghall-Street, to the amount of 15,000l., and he did not think that any one of those parties was ever known or apprehended, though they were sought after night and day."

one crime by the perpetration of another.Thus, whilst the criminal disposition remains, the severest denunciations of punishment will be insufficient. The only effectual security against criminality must ultimately depend on those moral inducements and better dispositions which operate equally in darkness as in light. "Violent punishments," says Burgh, "become familiar, and are despised—a people are to be led like rational creatures, not to be driven like brutes. The severest punishment, under a mild administration, would be to convince the offender he has committed a foul crime."

It seems indeed a strange inconsistency in some writers on this subject, that whilst they contend that punishment is of no avail when used for the purpose of reformation, they still suppose that it may be advantageously resorted to for the purpose of deterring others from crimes. Thus, Dr. Paley informs us, that "the end of punishment is two-fold, amendment and example; in the first of these, the reformation of criminals, little," says he, " has ever been effected, and little, I fear, is practicable. From every species of punishment that has hitherto been devised, from imprisonment and exile, from pain and infamy, malefactors return more hardened in their crimes and more instructed." But, if punishment will not deter the offender him

self, upon whom it is inflicted, from a repetition of his offence, how can the example of such punishment be expected to deter others from a similar crime?

There is indeed great reason to fear that this opinion of the utility of example, has been carried much too far. It is the prerogative of the Supreme Being alone to pierce through the veil of futurity, and to know that the object in view will be accomplished; and it is this alone that can authorize the infliction of immediate and positive pain for the purpose of obtaining some remote or contingent good. To put a person to death, ostensibly for an offence which deserves only a slighter punishment, but in fact, in the expectation of deterring others from the perpetration of similar crimes, is a degree of presumption very unsuitable to the weakness and imperfection of our nature; yet, we not only put persons to death for the sake of example, who would not have been executed for the crime itself, but openly avow this motive.* The inconsiderate and sanguinary

* Take for instance the story, so often repeated, and so much relied on, that when a man convicted at Hertford Assizes of horse-stealing, complained, that it was cruel to hang him for only stealing a horse, the judge told him, that he was not to be hanged for only stealing a horse; but, that horses