secure.

of the Peace, which makes a gentleman understand his right to be angry. This story illustrates self-love, that vast passion, whose objects of affection are so small-against the wounds of whose minute and fragile offspring we can never be The sons of giant pride are about in all directions; and though Lord Althorp be not husky in his speech, though his words fall soft as flakes of snow, yet shall he brain the first-born, the joy, the pride of the Gogs, and be stunned with their complaints of wrong and threats of vengeance. Throw but the stone, however, and the giant dies-aye, were he ten times as big as Hulton of Hulton Park. Giantship, whatever it was formerly, when beasts could speak, is now conventional; if we allow men to lay down their own proportions of consequence, they will fill them with insolence. By taking their just measure, we bring them down to their modesties or proprieties. We have not a doubt, that had our aforesaid merchant filliped a nut sharply against his bullying giant, instead of begging and praying, he would have knocked him down to insignificance, for the chip showed the softness of the block.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS.

"The true hangman is the Member of Parliament; he who frames the bloody law is answerable for the blood that is spilt under it."-Speech of Sir WILLIAM MEREDITH.*

A PETITION against the punishment of death, signed by 1,100 inhabitants of Middlesex, qualified to serve on grand juries, and several of whom have served as foremen, has been presented to the House of Commons.

"The Petitioners view with deep regret the "excessive and indiscriminate severity of the Cri"minal Laws, which annex to offences of different degrees of moral guilt the punishment of death, "and confound the simple invasion of the rights of property with the most malignant and atrocious "crimes against the person and life of man.”

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They observe,

"That where public opinion does not go along "with the laws, the persons who suffer under them "are regarded as the victims of Legislative tyranny

* This admirable speech has been lately published, and circulated by the Society for the Diffusion of Information respecting Capital Punishments.

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or judicial caprice, and not as criminals whose "doom has been pronounced by the voice of dispassionate justice."

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They complain,

"That the criminals executed in this country "are selected out of a far greater number sen"tenced to death, and where the practice condemns "the Law, the Law ought to be altered, that cri"minals might suffer the punishment of their guilt "by the authority of defined statutes, and not by "the uncertain and capricious rule of judicial "discretion.

"That in the present state of the Law, Juries "feel extremely reluctant to convict, when the "penal consequences of the offence excite a con"scientious horror on their minds, lest the rigorous "performance of their duty as jurors should make "them accessory to judicial murder. Hence, in "Courts of Justice, a most unnecessary and painful struggle is occasioned by the conflict of the feel"ings of a just humanity with the sense of the "obligation of an oath."

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The petitioners conclude by praying that a distinction may be drawn between the simple invasion of the rights of property, and crimes of violence and blood.

The Lord Chancellor (Brougham) said that he was not prepared to draw the line so broadly. He was of opinion, that crimes tending to the devastation or subversion of society, should be punished

with death; but he does not attempt to show, that the punishment of death has the effect of checking such crimes, nor does he show that the sentiment of society will allow it to be enforced. His Lordship maintains a theory of severity against the world's practical experience of its inutility and impolicy. "Even in crimes which are seldom or 66 never pardoned," observed Sir William Meredith, half a century ago, "death is no prevention. "Housebreakers, forgers, and coiners, are sure to "be hanged; yet housebreaking, forgery, and coining, are the very crimes which are oftenest "committed. Strange it is, that in the case of blood, of which we ought to be most tender, we should still go on against reason, and against "experience, to make unavailing slaughter of "our fellow creatures."

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We foresee that Lord Brougham and Vaux will be a prodigious favourite with the Church. His observation, "that there was nothing in the Bible

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prohibitory of the punishment of death for other "crimes than murder," reminds us of the reason which the Newgate Ordinary, in Jonathan Wild, gives for his choice of punch, that it is a liquor no where spoken ill of in Scripture.

The common phrase, the severity of punishments, is inaccurate and misleading. Of our punishments no one quality can be predicated. They vary with humour and circumstances. Sometimes they are sanguinary, sometimes gentle; now it is

called, justice; anon, mercy. If intention were to be inferred from effect, it would be supposed that the policy of the law had been to improve crime by a sort of gymnastic exercise. When extraordinary activity is observed in any limb of crime, the Law immediately corrects the partiality by a smart application of the rod; the ingenuity of the rogues then takes another direction which has hitherto had repose and indulgence, the Law after a time pursues it in that quarter with a terrible chastisement; a third is then tried, and so on. By this process all the muscles of crime are in turn exercised, and the body felonious rendered supple, agile, and vigorous. There is as much fashion in what is termed justice as in bonnets or sleeves. The judge's cap is indeed as capricious as the ladies'. Sometimes the trimmings are blood red, sometimes the sky blue of mercy is in vogue. One assize there is a run of death on the horse-stealers; another the sheep-stealers have their turn; last winter arson was the capital rage; now death for forgery is said to be coming in again—ne quid nimis is the maxim. By this system it has come to pass that our rogues are accomplished in all branches of felony, and practised in resources beyond the rogues of all other countries in the world; and our criminals may be affirmed to be worthy of our Legislators. The vain threat of great punishments has had this comforting effect on rogues, of masking from their imaginations the fear of the more probable minor