THE LINGERING PLEA FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Wrra many other judicious
persons, Sir George Grey cannot re- concile his mind to the idea of giving up an old tradition which demands capital punishment for murder.
Some adhere to the death-punishment law on Scriptural au- thority, pleading direct decrees from the Old Testament : but to justify the reference to that authority as unrepealed, it would be necessary to execute capital punishment for other offences besides murder, and in other modes besides hanging. It might be asked whether a man should now be put to death for cursing his father and mother, stoned for blasphemy or sabbath-breaking
Other persons adhere to the capital punishment for murder on impulse of mere prejudice or habit ; and it is to be observed that Sir George Grey offers no reason in support of the assumption that it could not safely be relinquished. The only semblance of an argument which he employs is the trite array of figures, to show that commitments and convictions for certain crimes no longer " capital" have increased rather than diminished : a sort of statistical computation which no more proves the greater prevalency of the crime than the number of patients in the Lon-
don hospitals proves a peculiar unhealthiness ; in either case, probably, there is only a more efficient vigilance over crime or disease.
But if Sir George Grey—we ,take him only as the official representative of that opinion which still prevails in the Ex- ecutive of the country—insists on enforcing the law of death for murder, it perplexes us to account for two recent cases of com- mutation.
The revenge of Annette Meyers was as distinctly "murder," in the legal sense of the word, as any act could possibly be. The presumed "insanity," under which it is extenuated by some evasive reasoners, rests on no shadow of evidence : it is impos- sible to imagine a more lucid intellectual conception of the deed, its provocation, manner, and consequences, than the girl had ex- hibited throughout. Indeed the case constitutes a very remark- able aberration from received standards of right and wrong. According to set rule, Annette Meyers had forfeited her claim to exact fidelity from her paramour. She was unmistakeably "im- moral " in the technical application of the word, and her revenge was undeniably " murder." Yet the whole public raised a shout of indignation at the idea of sacrificing her, because that conduct which in others they call departure from virtue, in her they deemed a wrong suffered ; and the "murder " which she com- mitted they chose to view with leniency. We do not quarrel with this instinctive movement ; we respect it : we only ask those who' concur in it, what they wish to be the definition and law of murder? We understand well why the old rule was felt to be inapplicable to Meyers. Although her conduct had violated the rules of morals, her letters evinced so much womanly tenderness, so much generous sentiment, so strong a sense of justice and natural propriety, that the feelings of all were necessarily forced back to a law which overrides statutes and set rules—the impulse of sympathy with the primary instincts of human nature : from set forms of justice people were dashed back to the instinctive sense of justice, and compelled to admit that human contrivances fail to supersede natural laws, which are at once freer and more perfect in their operation. But none of the pleas in favour of Annette Meyers contravene the text of established laws against incontinence, or disturb the technical definition of "murder." There is nothing in her case which meets such pleas in favour of retaining capital punishment for murder as those which 'owe gentlemen choose to shield from the assault of argument behind Scripture authority and popular prejudice : and yet the public instinct obliges them to set those pleas at nought. The case of Mary Anne Hunt is yet more glaring as a viola- tion of the settled doctrines on the subject. Hunt was convicted of a very sordid and wanton murder, and would certainly have been hanged, if it had not been discovered that she was about to be a mother : she was respited until her child should be born; and then, according to the old practice, she would have been transferred from thsaccoucheur to the hangman. But to modern feelings so- lengthened a prelude to hanging is too revolting, and it is felt that the original sentence cannot be executed : it is there- fore commuted to °transportation. So Hunt escapes condign punishment for murder, because she had also been guilty of in- continence. In this case there is not a single redeeming trait ; not a particle of outraged feeling to extenuate her crime, as there was in the case of Parker, who was hanged a few days ago; not a shade of elevated sentiment to redeem her sin against morality, as there was in that of Meyers. She violated the law of murder, she violated the rules of moral conduct, without having one plea to extenuate her fault or her crime, but rather the accident which saved her arose from the complication of her misconduct. These gross inconsistencies in practice do but reflect the exist- ing inconsistencies of that heterogeneous mass of convictions, in- stincts, habits, and prejudices, called "public opinion." The public desires both to retain and to abolish capitalpunishment : Mr. E wart catches at the rising aspiration, Sir George Grey clings to the old habit of thought. The embarrassing difficulties, however, which beset the practice of retributive punishment generally, and capital punishment in particular, jar against old prejudices with increased force and frequency, and will break open a way for the progress of sounder doctrine. The advance might be more rapid if any quick-sighted statesman, possessing the opportunities of office, were to venture upon taking the lead : but that is not to be expected at present. Meanwhile, the pro- moters of the new opinion have every encouragement to perse- vere ; and they cannot better serve their cause than by showing, at every instance, how rudely and mischievously the existing law works in practice, as well when it is not enforced as when it is.
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