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he deplored that "the peaceful inhabitants of the great Metropolis cannot lie down to rest without the apprehension that his house may be ransacked." This was at the time when to steal anything above the value of 40s. from a dwelling house was a capital offence.

Where death was the penalty for non-surrender or concealment by a bankrupt, fraudulent bankruptcy and concealment of property were of daily occurrence. When

death was the penalty for forgery, the bankers of England petitioned Parliament for the repeal of the law, on the ground that a milder punishment executed with greater certainty would prove more of a deterrent than the death penalty with its uncertainty.

But I will not dwell upon the non-deterrent effect of capital punishment in the years prior to 1840. You may think, as I was told the other day, that those were lawless times—those times when our fathers were young.

If we turn to the statistics of executions since 1840, we shall find that the number of persons executed during the twenty years 1840-1859 averaged 10.2 per annum; the number executed during the ten years 1860-1869 averaged 13.4 per annum; during the ten years 18701879, 14.5; during the ten years 1880-1889, 14.9.

From these figures, we see that there has been a steady rise in the number of executions in this country since 1840; not an unnatural rise in view of the increase in population, but there should be no rise at all, if the fear of the gallows has the deterrent effect claimed for it.

But it may occur to someone to think he can account for this increase, by urging that the proportion of executions to sentences is greater now than it was formerly, that the law is enforced with greater stringency than heretofore. This argument will not bear investigation, however, for,

although it is quite true that the proportion is greater today of executions to sentences for all offences, in respect of murder the difference is not very great, and such difference as there is, is in favor of increased leniency. Still keeping within the past sixty years, we find that the proportion of executions to sentences for murder in the twenty-five years, 1840-1864, was 58.2 per cent., and in the twenty-five years, 1865-1889, it was 52.9 per cent.

These figures, if they have any value at all, strengthen the view that there is no decrease whatever in that class of murder which ultimately receives the legal penalty in spite of all possibilities of escape.

As far then as our own country is concerned, statistics. show that the fear of a disgraceful death by the hangman's cord did not prove a deterrent when there were a couple hundred capital offences on the statute book, and it does not prove a deterrent now that there is only one.

IN OTHER EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

Let us next inquire into the deterrent effect of capital punishment in some of the other countries of Europe.

Italy, Roumania, Portugal, Holland and certain of the Swiss Cantons have entirely abolished the death penalty. In Italy it was abolished by law in 1889, but there have been no executions since 1874. Italy is a country where, for some reason, homicidal crimes are very frequent, but according to official reports, so far from there being an increase of serious crime since 1874, there has been a diminution.

In Portugal the last execution took place in 1846, and in 1867 capital punishment was abolished by an almost unanimous vote. It is stated that there has been a di

minution since 1867 in the number of crimes which before that period would have been punished by death.

In Holland the death penalty was abolished in 1870. The number of serious crimes is said to be in no way augmented since that time, and public security is completely assured under the present system.

In the Swiss Cantons the subject of capital punishment has been made a party question, and the matter was settled in 1879 by the penalty being retained in some Cantons and abolished in others; but in the eight Cantons which retain it there were between 1879 and 1891 only three condemnations to death, all of which were commuted.'

In Roumania the death punishment was abolished in 1866; but in that country, I am informed, through the kindness of Mr. Tallack, the crime of murder has shown a tendency to increase. This however may be, and almost certainly is, due to causes entirely unconnected with the nature of the punishment.

There are countries in which death is still the legal penalty, but where it is rarely carried out; such for instance as Finland, where the law has been suspended since 1826; Belgium, where it has been suspended since 1869; and Norway, where there has been no execution since 1876. In none of these countries has any increase in the crime of murder been recorded. Then there are those other countries, such as France, Germany, Austria and Spain, where executions are more or less frequent; but these countries cannot, on that account, boast any special diminution in homicidal crime. Murder has not been a capital offence in Russia for more than a hundred

'I am told that there have been executions since that date.

years, yet the crime is not more frequent there than in other countries.

England, by the retention of the death penalty seems to claim for herself a lower moral standard than that of those countries who have abolished it. While they find imprisonment answer every purpose, she uses the threat of the hangman's cord in order to restrain the murderous propensities of her sons.

UNCERTAINTY.

Having shown, as I think I have, that the death penalty does not deter either in England or abroad, we will now proceed to inquire into the causes of its failure.

It is commonly laid down that for a punishment to be effective (i) it should promptly follow the offence; (ii) it should be certain; (iii) it should be proportional to the crime; (iv) it should not be excessive.

(i) We need not discuss this, as capital punishment follows neither more nor less promptly than any other.

(ii) That an allotted punishment should follow its crime as certainly as the day the night, is a principle generally recognized by all writers on penology throughout the civilized world, and as generally neglected in practice. In the first place there is an uncertainty which is unavoidable; many crimes are committed for which the criminals are never apprehended, and there are undoubtedly many crimes committed of which we remain in entire ignorance, perhaps for ever, or perhaps until some chance reveals. them after many years. But, apart from these last, an enormously large proportion of recorded crimes goes unpunished. Gordon Rylands puts it in this country at 3:1, other writers put it still higher; but taking Gordon

Rylands' as a fair estimate, the criminal has three chances of escape to one of being punished. If this is true for the average criminal, the chances for the murderer to escape the death penalty are still greater. It has already been pointed out that the number of sentences is always greatly in excess of the number of executions. Between 1863 and 1889 there were in this country 1,785 persons charged with murder; of these 713, or less than one half, were sentenced; and 386, or less than one fourth, were executed. If we take the single year of 1892, in that year 155 murders were reported to the police. Fifty persons were tried for murder, twenty-two were sentenced and eighteen were executed. If we average one person to one murder, this means that more than seven out of eight murderers escaped the legal penalty, and six out of seven escaped punishment altogether. We see, then, that not only is there a large number of criminals who escape conviction, but there is a still larger number who escape the legal punishment. This is especially so if the criminal happens to be a woman; in the case, for instance, of a pregnant woman, the execution is postponed until after the birth, but as a matter of practice the sentence is never carried out.

What is true of England as to the uncertainty of the death punishment, is true in even a more marked degree in the other countries using this penalty. In some countries not only is there a large proportion of sentences commuted, but there is also, as in France, a strong disinclination in juries to find a verdict of guilty in murder This disinclination is also growing in Scotland to such a degree, that the meaning of "culpable homicide -the equivalent to our "manslaughter"-is now SO strained that it is sometimes difficult to see in what respect

cases.

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