The annual debate on capital punishment was opened by Mr.
Gilpin on Wednesday, who spoke against it as usual, and without any originality. The great safeguard of life was the feeling of its sanctity, and the feeling of its sanctity is diminished by every execution, and so forth. We should be disposed to say almost the very opposite—that the greatest safeguard of life is the feeling that it is not nearly so sacred as the highest ends for which it is given us, that it is not so much an end in itself, as a means for spiritual ends. Which respects life most,—the medical profession which devotes itself to saving life, or the various professions which devote themselves to spending it, often lavishly, on ideal ends, like missionaries, true students, or even explorers, who risk everything for a trifling acquisition of knowledge? We con- fidently belie that the most ennobling view of life is not that which esteems life more than the ends of life, but that which, on the one hand, regards life as liable to be forfeited by crimes of the worst order of brutality, and , on the other, as liable, to be rightly
laid down, or almost squandered, for the higher class of ideal endi The House, which is thoroughly radical, but not soft- hearted, rejected the Bill abolishing capital punishment by a majority of more than two to onee—./18 to 58.
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