lic go along with them?- Certainly; the thieves observe the sympathy of the public, and it seems to console them, and they appear less concerned than those who witness their sentence. I have been present on very many occasions when the sentence of death has been passed, and the criminals have been far less affected than the auditors.

'Do you think that the general feeling goes along with the infliction of the punishment of death, in the cases of crime unaccompanied with violence?-Certainly it does not.

Do you conceive that the infliction of the punishment of death in those cases, tends rather to excite the public feeling against the criminal laws?—No doubt it does; there are, I believe, very few advocates for the generality of the present capital punishments.'-pp. 166, 167.

Mr. Newman, solicitor for the city of London, speaking, from thirty years' experience, of the course of criminal prosecution in that city, informed the committee, that he had frequently observed a reluctance to prosecute and convict, in capital offences not directed against the lives, persons, or dwellings of

men.

"The Rev. Mr. Cotton, ordinary of Newgate, has described, in strong terms, the repugnance of the public to capital execution in offences unattended with violence, and the acquiescence even of the most depraved classes in their infliction in atrocious crimes.

Mr. Colquhoun, for twenty-seven years a police magistrate in this capital, and well known by his publications on these subjects, declares his firm conviction, that capital punishment in the minor offences operates powerfully in preventing convictions; and that there is a great reluctance to prosecute in forgery, shoplifting, larceny in the dwelling-house, burglary without actual entry, horse-stealing, sheep-stealing, cattle-stealing, framebreaking, house-breaking in the day time, robbery without acts of violence, and other minor offences, now subject to the punishment of death. According to the testimony of this intelligent observer, the public mind revolts at capital punishment in cases not atrocious.

'Mr. Newman, late keeper of Newgate, and connected with the administration of justice in London for forty years, gave testimony to the same effect.'- pp. 171, 172.

By several of these witnesses it was stated, that they had themselves suffered, and some of them to a large amount, from larcenies or forgeries, but were restrained by the severity of the law and by pure compassion from bringing the offend

ers to justice. And to conclude this various and concurring testimony, we will only add, that of the Earl Suffolk, who in a debate in the House of Lords, on the adoption of Sir Samuel Romilly's bill, stated the following interesting fact, from his own personal experience, clearly establishing the same conclusions, and highly creditable, as our readers will not fail to perceive, to his Lordship's humanity.

'Lord Suffolk said, "To the general principles upon which the present bill is brought forward, I most cordially assent, but I am more thoroughly induced to give it my support, upon the particular argument urged by my noble friend, namely, that the excess of the punishment deters the injured from prosecuting the guilty. My lords, I cannot doubt the truth of this argument, for I am myself an humble instance of its force. It happened to me, my lords, about four or five years since, to leave my house in town for the purpose of going into the country. An old and faithful servant was left in care of it till my return. In about four or five days I came to town again, and found, to my surprise, that my servant had fled during my absence, carrying off with her a considerable quantity of plate and other property. My lords, public duty pointed out the course I ought to take. I knew I ought immediately to go before a magistrate, who would have committed her for trial, but I must have appeared in a court of justice, as the prosecutor against her, and have embittered my own life by the consciousness of having shortened hers. My lords, humanity triumphed over justice and public duty. I was constrained to turn loose upon the public an individual certainly deserving of punishment, because the law of the land gave me no opportunity of visiting her with a castigation short of death. My lords, upon this ground alone, and for the sake of public justice, this law ought, in my opinion, to be amended. For the sake of the injured, and not of the guilty, I am an enemy to inordinate severity. The prosecutors are those who fear death, and not the persons offending. I shall not trouble your lordships any longer upon this subject. I shall cordially and conscientiously support the bill."—(Hear! Hear!)'

With these evidences of the evils to the community from the undue severity of the laws, we easily connect the yet more pernicious effects of the same causes on criminals themselves; not less, however, on those who contemplate, than on those who have already committed offence. These are found, first, in the temptation to crime, from the hope,

that if detected, the compassion of the injured will save them from prosecution; and, secondly, in the certainty, that even if convicted of a capital offence, except it be forgery or murder, they shall escape the capital punishment. The object of Mr. Montagu's work, it has been seen, is to exhibit the former. That of Mr. Wakefield's is to show the latter, and to mark the effects, on the prisoners themselves, of the criminal law as administered in London. Of these effects, Mr. Wakefield, as his name would to most of his readers in England sufficiently indicate, was himself an eyewitness. He frankly acknowledges in his Preface, that though part of the facts are derived from an official report made to the House of Commons early in the present year; yet most of them, and, we may add, by far the most interesting and decisive, came under his own personal observation, during his confinement from May, 1827, to May, 1830, in Newgate. The truth must not be concealed, that our author is no other than Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Esq., of somewhat notorious memory, who, having been convicted four or five years since of a plot to carry off a rich young heiress, Miss Turner, of Lancashire, with a view to a constrained marriage, and thence to the possession of her large fortune (in which nefarious conspiracy he was aided, to his indelible disgrace, by his own brother, then a clergyman of the Church of England), was sentenced to three years' imprisonment in the county jail of London. If, now, the mentioning of this fact should diminish in the view of our readers the authority, as it unquestionably must the respectability, of the witness, we can only say, we regret it, and cannot help it. In justice, however, to Mr. Wakefield, it should be said, that he has faithfully availed himself of the opportunities, which, though at the expense of his character, were put in his power; that he seems to have had the confidence of the officers of justice, as well as of his fellow-prisoners, with whom he had daily converse; and has given the result of his inquiries with great intelligence in a series of facts and observations, not less curious than instructive. * The fault

* Notwithstanding the doubtful reputation of the author, we find this work commended in an English journal of repute, as characterized 'by an uncommon talent for observation, and as one of the most valuable accessions to criminal jurisprudence, which have been made for many years.'

that may be found with his book is, that it is only too painfully interesting. He carries his reader into the very heart of Newgate. He opens to him the school' where the children and the younger offenders are confined, and the wards, among which various other classes of criminals are distributed; and in the press-yard, where capital offenders are kept till trial is over and sentence has been pronounced, in the gloomy cells of the condemned, and, finally, in the chapel, where they hear their last exhortations, and where all are assembled for worship,-he exhibits, as only a frequent spectator could, the varied, complicated, and distressing picture of shame and fear, penitence or rage, stupid insensibility, affected indifference, revolting levity, hardened profligacy, pretending to glory in the distinction of being condemned, hatred and revenge, presumptuous hope or the unutterable agony of despair, which are all to be witnessed, as, according to their character and fate, they are expressed by the inmates of this melancholy abode.

Mr. Wakefield commences his remarks on that part of the subject to which alone we can now refer, with observing, that the escape of so many capital offenders from capital conviction must not be wholly attributed to the source already pointed out, the compassion, weakness, or corruption of prosecutors and witnesses. Judges and juries,' he says, are men, like prosecutors and witnesses, and they constantly nullify the law, by saving from capital conviction one, whom they believe to be capitally guilty.' As an evidence of this, and of the strong reliance which is placed on the lenity of these parties, he states, that it is a common practice among the prisoners in Newgate to get up mock-trials, in which the men take the respective parts of judge, jury, witnesses, and the prisoner at the bar; that at some times they make the judge very strict, at others very lenient, in the exercise of his duty; that in most cases, where the evidence is decisive and the offence is capital, they represent the jury as bent upon giving a false verdict, notwithstanding the admonitions of the judge to the contrary; that, on these occasions, they show a remarkable knowledge of the temper of judges and juries; and that the best managers of a theatre might be envious of the correctness, with which the thieves imitate those so common squabbles between judge and jury. The boldness and contempt of law, which such

scenes must produce upon young offenders, who soon become skilful participators, must be obvious to every one, and must make Newgate, and all prisons conducted like it, the mere nurseries of crime. These, it is true, are but scenic representations; but they mark a state of feeling in the minds of these criminals far enough from imaginary. There are facts continually occurring in the administration of criminal justice in England, which fully warrant their confidence of escape. Of such, Mr. Wakefield relates the following, to illustrate the evil influence of the punishment of death on the minds of juries.

'Shortly after the execution of Joseph Hunton, in 1828, a man named Hunter was committed to Newgate, charged with forgery. A friend of mine was acquainted with the principal witness against the accused, and, merely from being so led to think on the subject, became desirous to save the prisoner's life. He consulted me as to the best course of proceeding for that purpose. I advised that the prisoner's defence should be entrusted to Mr. Harmer, whose experience and skill as an attorney in criminal matters are well known. This was done; but, on communicating with the prisoner's relations, my friend discovered that he was a bad fellow, and had committed several previous forgeries. There was not the least doubt of his guilt in this case. His friends dreaded, that, if he were acquitted in this case, he would commit other forgeries, and come to be hanged. It was therefore suggested, that the better course would be, to let him be capitally convicted, but on such evidence as would surely induce the King in Council to remit the sentence, so that he might be transported for life. The principal witness against him was induced to frame his evidence for that purpose; and the prisoner, aware of his own bad propensity, entirely concurred in the arrangement. The prisoner, therefore, his friends, his attorney, and the principal witness against him, went into court, bent on procuring a verdict of guilty. The evidence was conclusive; but the jury, without hesitation, returned a verdict of not guilty; and the prisoner was immediately discharged, to the great disappointment of every one interested on his behalf.' pp. 63, 64.

When, however, conviction is procured, it is always followed by condemnation. Every prisoner capitally convicted by a jury in London and Middlesex,* however incon

*It appears, that a different, and, as we think, a better practice, obtains in the country, or in the Provincial Assizes, where the judge passes sentence of death on none but those, whom he thinks not deserving