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in this great work, when it is related that one of these tunnels is the subterraneous passage of Harecastle, no less than 2880 yards in length, and more than seventy yards below the surface of the earth. Many of the first engineers had been invited to give plans for this Canal before Mr. Brindley was called to the undertaking; but Harecastle-Hill had always proved to them an insurmountable difficulty arising from the variety of soil and quick-sands, which he alone was capable to overcome. Another Canal of his construction was completed in 1772, connecting the port of Bristol, by inland naviga tion, with those of Liverpool and Hall; being forty-six miles in length. Another, which was three years in executing, united Birmingham, by a cut of twenty-six miles in extent, with the above: thus affording, by a junction with the river Severn, the means of distributing the manufactures of all those great towns with great facility over many parts of England in which they were scarcely known before. It would be tedious to our readers to detail the many vast works which he designed and directed in various distant countries. His activity was unceasing, his zeal yielded to no obstacles: he endured the jealousy and opposition of ignorance and prejudice, steadily persevering in his plans, and never failing to triumph over all his rivals. And having thus rendered the most important services to his country, he died at the age of fifty-six, at Turnhurst, in Staffordshire, on the 30th of September, 1772. Brindley, owing to the poverty of his parents, having never received the advantages of regular instruction, explored his way to knowledge by the unassisted energies of his own mind. This led him to singular habits of study and of calculation, which are incompatible with a more regular education. When he had any great scheme in prospect, it was his practice to retire to bed, where he would sometimes meditate for several days together, until his plans were matured. He would then rise and proceed to execute them at once, seldom making drawings, which he considered as so much lost time in the execution of his well-digested arrangements. Another method almost peculiar to himself, was the working his calculations by memory to an amazing extent, and having conducted them thus to a certain point, he would put down the results only in figures. Then resuming his calculation, he proceeded as before, until the whole was completed, in a progression which he could scarcely by description render intelligible to another person.

In estimating the consequences of the great public improvements which were produced by the powers of this extraordinary man, we are to reflect upon the mighty operation of that extended system of internal commerce, which has effected so striking a change in the mational character. When the opening of Canals through the king dom was commenced, manufactories were few, machinery very imperfect, and the number of hands employed extremely limited. The great towns of Liverpool, Manchester, and Birmingham, bore no resemblance nor comparison with their present condition. All the wealth and intelligence and enterprize we now behold have been

created by this facility of communication, without which neither speculation would have arisen, nor machinery been carried to perfection. The impulse thus given to trade invited similar exertions in agricultural produce, the price of which naturally increased on demand. Extensive commercial enterprise led to foreign connexions, multitudes of hands were called into action upon superior wages, and life and spirit pervaded the whole kingdom, producing those almost inexhaustible sources of wealth, which enabled this nation to stem that great torrent of revolution which overwhelmed almost every other kingdom of Europe, and afforded us the means of conducting to a triumphant issue the most tremendous contest for national existence in which this country was ever engaged.

Under all these stimulating causes, the population of the British islands increased with extraordinary rapidity, until it has at length reached a point where it is necessarily checked by the means of

existence.

If we admit that the wide extension of our commerce and manufactures has led to much individual profligacy and misery, we should also reflect upon the eminent blessings they have brought us as a nation. We should acknowledge how much the individual comforts of the people at large have been increased by those improvements, although in their production it must be confessed that the manufacturer himself has been sometimes led, by evil association and unequal wages, to dissolute habits and all their fatal consequences. If the decline of some sources of employment has left a portion of the labouring classes to the necessity of seeking other means of existence, it is unjust to charge their peculiar misfortunes upon a system which has on the whole so greatly benefited the community.

Far be it from us to join in the mistaken opinion of some ignorant men, who maintain that few are suffering except those who have been idle or improvident. Many, doubtless, during the period of high wages, have neglected the opportunity of laying up provision for a time of need; but many industrious and deserving families have been thrown upon the charity of their wealthier neighbours, by the mere cessation of those various occupations which are peculiar to a period of war, and who now have an undoubted claim upon our benevolence.

While we endeavour to defend our national improvements from the unmerited reproach of having caused the distress we now witness, we are free to acknowledge that this distress is the consequence of the rapid increase of population, which must inevitably decline now the excitement is withdrawn; and that it is our duty meanwhile to alleviate by our utmost exertions that widely-extended poverty, which we cannot wholly relieve, and which seems to be the inevitable lot of the great bulk of mankind, under whatever form of government or circumstances of association they may be found. EDITOR-110

ON CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS.

(From Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy.)

There are two methods of administering penal justice: The first method assigns capital punishments to few offences, and inflicts it invariably.

The second method assigns capital punishments to many kinds of offences, but inflicts it only upon a few examples of each kind.

The latter of which two methods has been long adopted in this country, where, of those who receive sentence of death, scarcely one in ten is executed. And the preference of this to the former method seems to be founded in the consideration, that the selection of proper objects for capital punishment principally depends upon circumstances, which, however easy to perceive in each particular case after the crime is committed, it is impossible to enumerate or define beforehand; or to ascertain, however, with that exactness, which is requisite in legal descriptions. Hence, although it be ne cessary to fix by precise rules of law the boundary on one side, that is, the limit to which the punishment may be extended; and also that nothing less than the authority of the whole legislature be suffered to determine that boundary, and assign these rules; yet the mitigation of punishment, the exercise of lenity, may without danger be entrusted to the executive magistrate, whose discretion will operate upon those numerous unforeseen, mutable, and indefinite circumstances, both of the crime and the criminal, which constitute or qualify the malignity of each offence. Without the power of relaxation lodged in a living authority, either some offenders would escape capital punishment, whom the public safety required to Suffer; or some would undergo this punishment where it was neither deserved nor necessary. For if judgment of death were reserved for one or two species of crimes only, which would probably be the case if that judgment was intended to be executed without exception, crimes might occur of the most dangerous example, and accompanied with circumstances of heinous aggravation, which did not fall within any description of offences that the laws had made capital, and which consequently could not receive the punishment their own malignity and the public safety required. What is worse, it would be known, beforehand, that such crimes might be committed without danger to the offender's life. On the other hand, if, to reach these possible cases, the whole class of offences to which they belong be subjected to pains of death, and no power of remitting this severity remain any where, the execution of the laws will become more sanguinary than the public compassion would endure, or than is necessary to the general security.

The law of England is constructed upon a different and a better policy. By the number of statutes creating capital offences, it sweeps into the net every crime, which under any possible circumstances may merit the punishment of death; but, when the execution of B b

VOL. I.

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this sentence comes to be deliberated upon, a small proportion of each class are singled out, the general character, or the peculiar aggravations of whose crimes render them fit examples of public justice. By this expedient few actually suffer death, whilst the dread and danger of it hang over the crimes of many. The tenderness of the law cannot be taken advantage of. The life of the subject is spared, as far as the necessity of restraint and intimidation permits; yet no one will adventure upon the commission of any enormous crime, from a knowledge that the laws have not provided for its punishment. The wisdom and humanity of this design furnish a just excuse for the multiplicity of capital offences, which the laws of England are accused of creating beyond those of other countries. The charge of cruelty is answered by observing, that these laws were never meant to be carried into indiscriminate execution; that the legislature, when it establishes its last and highest sanctions, trusts to the benignity of the crown to relax their severity, as often as circumstances appear to palliate the offence, or even as often as those circumstances of aggravation are wanting, which rendered this rigorous interposition necessary. Upon this plan, it is enough to vindicate the lenity of the laws, that some instances are to be found in each class of capital crimes, which require the restraint of capital punishment; and that this restraint could not be applied without subjecting the whole class to the same condemnation.

The prerogative of pardon is properly reserved to the chief magistrate. The power of suspending the laws is a privilege of too high a nature to be committed to many hands, or to those of any inferior officer in the state. The king also can best collect the advice by which his resolutions shall be governed; and is at the same time removed at the greatest distance from the influence of private motives. But let this power be deposited where it will, the exercise of it ought to be regarded, not as a favour to be yielded to solicitation, granted to friendship, or, least of all, to be made subservient to the conciliating or gratifying of political attachments, but as a judicial act; as a deliberation to be conducted with the same character of impartiality, with the same exact and diligent attention to the proper merits and circumstances of the case, as that which the judge upon the bench was expected to maintain and shew in the trial of the prisoner's guilt, The questions whether the prisoner be guilty, and whether, being guilty, he ought to be executed, are equally questions of public justice. The adjudication of the latter question is as much a function of magistracy as the trial of the former. The public welfare is interested in both. The conviction of an offender should depend upon nothing but the proof of his guilt; nor the execution of his sentence upon any thing beside the quality and circumstances of his crime. It is necessary to the good order of society, and to the reputation and authority of government, that this be known, and believed to be the case in each part of the proceeding. Which reflections shew, that the admission of extrinsic or oblique considerations, in dispensing the power of pardon, is a crime in the authors and

advisers of such unmerited partiality, of the same nature with that of corruption in a judge.

Aggravations which ought to guide the magistrate in the selection of objects of condign punishment are principally these threerepetition, cruelty, combination. The two first, it is manifest, add to every reason upon which the justice or the necessity of rigorous measures can be founded; and, with respect to the last circumstance, it may be observed, that when thieves and robbers are once collected into gangs, their violence becomes more formidable, the confederates more desperate, and the difficulty of defending the public against their depredations much greater, than in the case of solitary adventurers. Which several considerations compose a distinction, that is properly adverted to in deciding upon the fate of convicted malefactors.

INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY ON THE CONDITION OF THE
LABOURING CLASSES.

By Sir Thomas Bernard.

[Sir Thomas Bernard was born at Lincoln, 27th April 1750. He was educated at Harvard College, Cambridge, in Massachusets; from which he was removed to be Private Secretary to his father, Sir Francis Bernard, then Governor of that Colony. On his return to England he pursued the profession of the law nearly 20 years, and retiring with a competent fortune, married, and settled in London. From this period he devoted himself to the great work of benevolence. He became an active member of most of the public charities, and zealously promoted the welfare of his countrymen, as well by his personal exertions as by his pen. He was the author of several works of this description; and, as the Founder of the Society for Bettering the Condition of the Poor, wrote the excellent Prefaces to their Annual Reports, from which the following is extracted. He died at Leamington, 1st July 1818.]

Το pure and vital Christianity we must look for the basis of every essential and permanent improvement in the condition of the poor. When, however, I speak of its influence and effects, I refer to Christianity, in its original and uncorrupted purity, adopting the position that, in proportion as, in any country, Christianity has degenerated into form, or been perverted into craft, so far its effects have been diminished and deteriorated; and that where its true character has been preserved, and faith has operated to produce moral virtue, there its effects have been improved and augmented.

To Christianity alone we are indebted, not only for our exemption from some of the most desolating evils under which humanity formerly suffered, but even for the very existence of Charity itself. In the first place, we may observe a visible and obvious improvement of our condition, by its influence in respect of war, and in the mitigation of those horrors and atrocities, which, until the corruption of our nature is in a great measure done away, will, I fear, be unavoidable evils, produced and reproduced by our own lusts and passions. The murder of prisoners in cold blood, and the subjugat

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