gard for it, by the adoption of a rule The very fact that death punishment is that he who violates that right in ano- more shocking than any other to the ther forfeits it for himself, and that imagination, necessarily renders the Courts while no other crime that he can commit of Justice more scrupulous in requiring the deprives him of his right to live, this shall. fullest evidence of guilt. Even that which There is one argument against capital is the greatest objection to capital punishpunishment, even in extreme cases, which ment, the impossibility of correcting an I cannot deny to have weight-on which error once committed, must make, and does my hon. Friend justly laid great stress, make, juries and Judges more careful in and which never can be entirely got rid of. forming their opinion, and more jealous in It is this that if by an error of justice an their scrutiny of the evidence. If the innocent person is put to death, the mis- substitution of penal servitude for death in take can never be corrected; all compen- cases of murder should cause any relaxation sation, all reparation for the wrong is im- in this conscientious scrupulosity, there possible. This would be indeed a serious would be a great evil to set against the real, objection if these miserable mistakes- but I hope rare, advantage of being able to among the most tragical occurrences in the make reparation to a condemned person who whole round of human affairs-could not be was afterwards discovered to be innocent. made extremely rare. The argument is In order that the possibility of correction invincible where the mode of criminal pro- may be kept open wherever the chance of cedure is dangerous to the innocent, or this sad contingency is more than infinitesiwhere the Courts of Justice are not trusted. mal, it is quite right that the Judge should And this probably is the reason why the ob- recommend to the Crown a commutation jection to an irreparable punishment began of the sentence, not solely when the proof (as I believe it did) earlier, and is more of guilt is open to the smallest suspicion, intense and more widely diffused, in some but whenever there remains anything unexparts of the Continent of Europe than it is plained and mysterious in the case, raising here. There are on the Continent great a desire for more light, or making it likely and enlightened countries, in which the that further information may at some future criminal procedure is not so favourable to time be obtained. I would also suggest innocence, does not afford the same secu- that whenever the sentence is commuted rity against erroneous conviction, as it does the grounds of the commutation should, among us; countries where the Courts of in some authentic form, be made known Justice seem to think they fail in their to the public. Thus much I willingly duty unless they find somebody guilty; and concede to my hon. Friend; but on the in their really laudable desire to hunt guilt question of total abolition I am inclined from its hiding-places, expose themselves to to hope that the feeling of the country a serious danger of condemning the inno- is not with him, and that the limitation cent. If our own procedure and Courts of of death punishment to the cases referred Justice afforded ground for similar appre- to in the Bill of last year will be genehension, I should be the first to join in rally considered sufficient. The mania withdrawing the power of inflicting irrepa- which existed a short time ago for paring rable punishment from such tribunals. But down all our punishments seems to have we all know that the defects of our proce- reached its limits, and not before it was dure are the very opposite. Our rules of time. We were in danger of being left evidence are even too favourable to the without any effectual punishment, except prisoner and juries and Judges carry out for small offences. What was formerly our the maxim, "It is better that ten guilty chief secondary punishment transportashould escape than that one innocent person tion-before it was abolished, had become should suffer," not only to the letter, but almost a reward. Penal servitude, the subbeyond the letter. Judges are most anxious stitute for it, was becoming, to the classes to point out, and juries to allow for, the who were principally subject to it, almost barest possibility of the prisoner's inno- nominal, so comfortable did we make our cence. No human judgment is infallible: prisons, and so easy had it become to get such sad cases as my hon. Friend cited will quickly out of them. Flogging-a most sometimes occur; but in so grave a case as objectionable punishment in ordinary cases, that of murder, the accused, in our system, but a particularly appropriate one for crimes has always the benefit of the merest shadow of brutality, especially crimes against women of a doubt. And this suggests another -we would not hear of, except, to be sure, consideration very germane to the question. in the case of garotters, for whose peculiar

benefit we re-established it in a hurry, im- MR. HIBBERT thought the speech of mediately after a Member of Parliament the hon. Member (Mr. Darby Griffith) had been garotted. With this exception, should have been made on the second readoffences, even of an atrocious kind, against ing of the Bill. There were many countries the person, as my hon. and learned Friend in which private executions were estabthe Member for Oxford (Mr. Neate) well lished without the inconveniences asserted remarked, not only were, but still are, to be inseparable from them. visited with penalties so ludicrously inadequate, as to be almost an encouragement to the crime. I think, Sir, that in the case of most offences, except those against property, there is more need of strengthening our punishments than of weakening them and that severer sentences, with an apportionment of them to the different kinds of offences which shall approve itself better than at present to the moral sentiments of the community, are the kind of reform of which our penal system now stands in need. I shall therefore vote against the Amendment.

Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question." The House divided:-Ayes 127; Noes 23: Majority 104.

Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 struck out.

Clause 3 (Execution to be within Prison).

MR. DARBY GRIFFITH expressed his opinion that, in introducing the element of privacy into executions, they would do their best to imitate the crime itself. It was, of course, a deed of violence. In taking away the element of publicity, they were taking away the chief authority for the act, which was to be sought, not in any written statute, but in the common feeling of mankind seated in the heart. This doing away with the consensus populi would be to realize the prediction that if they abolished publicity it would be impossible to maintain capital punishment at all, because the effect would be revolting to human feeling. They would only show that they were afraid of carrying out their own principle of capital punishment. It might be true that, when a crowd was collected at executions, scenes and incidents revolting to moral feeling took place; but this might equally occur if a number of people were admitted to what was called a private execution.

MR. NEWDEGATE concurred with the argument of the hon. Member for Devizes. He admitted that private executions prevailed in various countries; but there was no country in the world in which respect for the law was so high and deep as it was in England. The principle of secresy which the Bill contained was objectionable, because it would bring the carrying out of the law into suspicion and diminish the force of the law. Secresy in matters of this kind would excite against the Executive an amount of odium that must be deplored, and which had never previously attached to it. The principle of our law was, that the execution of a person was the act of the whole nation, and that being so, it should be public, in order that that portion of the nation residing in the immediate neighbourhood of the crime might, if they chose, attend and see their own punish

ment carried out.

MR. M'LAREN said, he entirely disagreed in the views taken by his hon. Friend on the other side. Even supposing that the scriptural argument could be maintained, and that the text, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed," was correctly interpreted, which he by no means admitted, where was it written that the shedding of blood should necessarily take place in the midst of a crowd composed of the most profligate and worthless part of the population that could be collected? Did the spectacle do good to the classes who furnished these crowds? All the evidence went to show that instead of doing them good, it had a tendency to demoralize them. The clauses of the Bill would insure every necessary publicity, and he cordially thanked the Government for the measure.

MR. ALDERMAN LUSK thought the Bill a move in the right direction-that was to say, towards the total abolition of capital punishment. Public executions were an evil. He himself had had more than once to sentence numbers of persons in the police-court for robbing at executions. He asked whether" within the walls" of the prison would be interpreted within the external boundary walls or actually within the prison itself?

MR. GATHORNE HARDY: The external walls.

MR. DARBY GRIFFITH said, with reference to the remarks of the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Hibbert), that if any change took place from private executions it would most certainly not be to public executions, but to the total abolition of capital punishment; the national aversion to secresy would enforce this abolition.

hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr.
Newdegate) objected to all punishments
carried out privately as unconstitutional,
was he prepared to revive the abominable
practice of public flogging? There was no
objection to the clause.

MR. NEWDEGATE said, he objected
to flogging prisoners, because to degrade
men was not the best way to fit them to
continue in society. But the case of capital
punishment is totally different, and the old
principle of English law is that if a citizen
of the country is to be deprived of his life
the execution ought to take place in the
face of the public.

MR. M. CHAMBERS said, that if, as some predicted, the effect of passing the second reading of this Bill were to lead to the abolition of capital punishment, he should assuredly regret that he had been among its supporters. He could not agree in that prediction. He for a long time considered private executions anti-English ; but the majority of the country, or at any rate of the House, has now decided the question. He protested against the representation of the hon. and learned Member for Tiverton (Mr. Denman) that juries had violated their oaths-["No, no!"]-for violating their oaths it is, because they objected to the penalty of death.

Clause agreed to.

Clause 4 (Sheriff, &c. to be present).

MR. DENMAN admitted that one reason why he had voted for the second reading of the Bill was because he believed it was a step towards total abolition. But even assuming that capital punishment was to be maintained in perpetuity, was it not far better that it should be carried out within the prisons, and thus avoid the horrible and disgusting scenes that took One great place at public executions? stumbling block in the way of total abolitionists hitherto had been the want of a sufficiently strong public opinion to justify their proposal; private executions would, he believed, remove the difficulty by leading the public to the opinion that it was not necessary to put a person out of the world for the public safety when he could be well secured from doing harm by closely confining him in prison. The hon. and learned Gentleman said that, in the case of Palin, the first murder case he had ever defended, if the punishment had been anything but death the prisoner would MR. NEATE said, that even if the have been convicted, because there was the plainest evidence against him. Palin House agreed to deprive executions of their was afterwards transported for fifteen public character, there was much that years, and finally committed a capital might and ought to be done to give sooffence, for which he was executed. But lemnity to executions within the walls of the that he did not wish to inflict a speech prison. He wished, for instance, that the upon hon. Members he might have cited sheriff present should be the High Sheriff; different cases in which criminals, un- and he further thought that the foreman of doubtedly guilty, had escaped conviction the grand jury and at least three of the through the repugnance of juries to doom grand jury ought to attend the execu["Oh!"] The clause, as it stood, them to the extreme penalty of the law. It tion. would not be long, he thought after this was founded on a total misconception of Bill passed, before public opinion would the nature and object of capital punishdeclare that a secret act of assassination ment. Something should be done to supwithin the gaol was not necessary or ex-ply the want of publicity by the presence pedient. A plan had been suggested by of proper representatives of the public. If Sir Walter Crofton, a very high authority he were asked to name a suitable hour and on such a subject, under which prisoners place for the purpose, he should say New might be confined for life, and practically Palace Yard at four o'clock. ["Oh, oh !"] sure there would be a very without hope, in the interior of some prison, As he was so that society would run no risk of their strong feeling in the country against the escape from prison, and would avoid the Bill he hoped the right hon. Gentleman risks it now ran, in many cases, from their the Home Secretary would allow a suffitotal impunity, owing to the unwillingness cient time between the Committee and the of juries to inflict an irrevocable sentence. third reading to enable the House to learn MR. RUSSELL GURNEY said, the what was thought of it out of doors. The 2 M VOL.CXCI. [THIRD SERIES.]

to admit the representatives of the Press | were present. He held that the decision and other persons of respectability who, in of what persons to be admitted should not the opinion of the authorities, ought to be be left entirely to the discretion of the present at the execution. sheriff and visiting justices. He thought it would tend to the satisfaction of the people of this country that the admission should be ensured of those who would faithfully report what took place on such occasions.