Psychological Quarterly Retrospect.

[BY THE EDITOR.]

THE preceding quarter has been replete with important psychological data. We have endeavoured to seize upon some of the more important salient points, with a view of permanently placing them upon record in this department of the journal, as illustrations of the social, moral, and religious progress of the age. The subject of crime, as a type of epidemic disorder, is fully considered in another part of the Psychological Journal. To this elaborate article we earnestly direct the attention of our readers. The subject is one of deep and philosophic interest.

During the preceding quarter the much-vexed question of capital punishment has again been brought under public notice and discussion, by Mr. Bright, in an able and spirited speech, recently delivered by that honourable gentleman to his Manchester constituents. He states the grievance of those who oppose the punishment of death with his usual acuteness, sagacity, and vigour of illustration. We must, however, confess that we are not made a convert to his opinions. What other punishment could be substituted in lieu of the gallows for the crime of murder at all calculated to protect society? We have uniformly expressed strong opinions against all undue severity of punishment, and have never failed to protest against the existing inequality between certain criminal offences and the punishment generally awarded for their commission; but for the crime of murder, what punishment short of death upon the scaffold would meet the exigencies of the case? But let Mr. Bright speak for himself.

"If I meet with a man who argues in favour of hanging, and listen to his > conversation, I find that he uses exactly the same arguments that were used thirty years ago in favour of hanging for all those offences that Mr. Dymond has described. I remember reading a speech of Sir Fowell Buxton's in the House of Commons, in which he said that if a young man murdered his grandfather, or if he cut down a young tree, then the law imposed just the same penalty for each offence. Some years ago, more than 200 offences were punishable with death. A bloody and a horrible system of law grew up chiefly since the Revolution of 1688; and during the time the present family have been on the throne of this country-and we have been under the government of an aristocracy assumed to be very enlightened, and a Government much more free than we had before that Revolution-more than 200 offences, such as the stealing of a fowl, or of 5s. worth out of a shop, were punishable with death. Only conceive how perverted men's minds must have become by this common custom of hanging to tolerate such things. I recollect hearing of the case of a woman whose husband had been kidnapped by the pressgang, and she stole

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something from a shop in Ludgate-hill. Well, for the sake of example, and to preserve the property of Ludgate-hill shopkeepers, she was hanged, and nobody at that time was shocked at the matter. I have read the memoirs of Elizabeth Fry-an excellent person, whom I consider it a happiness that I have been acquainted with-in which she describes that for the issuing of a bad halfcrown, or a bad pound-note, persons were in Newgate in great numbers; and out of twenty or thirty convicted, the custom was to select a certain numberthree or four, or eight or ten-and doom them to the gallows. This was common-at that time almost every week, in London-and the people passed by Newgate every week, and saw human beings strung up, swinging in the breeze, and separated after the execution; and the great statesmen of that generation never asked scarcely whether this horrible custom might not be mitigated or abolished. The world, however, was not all in that darkness. There was one country in the world where the law was not so brutal,-a great country on the other side of the Atlantic, springing up from colonies founded by ourselves. In the year 1675, William Penn founded the state of Pennsylvania-that is, in the reign of Charles II. Consider how long ago that is. Now we are accustomed to fancy that we have made prodigious strides in science and everything else since that time; but when William Penn drew up the laws of Pennsylvania, assisted by the great and good men who were his helpers, they did not carry with them the 200 capital offences we had here, but struck them all out, with the exception of one, that being the one we are now chiefly discussing namely, capital punishment for murder. They retained that punishment for only aggravated cases of murder; and Penn is understood to have retained it only in deference to the wishes of others, and not from any belief in its necessity or propriety. The State of Pennsylvania is now a great commonwealth, and during the whole of the time that has elapsed since its foundation, no person has been put to death in it for any crime save aggravated murder, and for even aggravated murder in extremely few cases. But your great statesmen that you read of in your histories-the men that shone in the House of Lords and the House of Commons-what were they doing then? Why, extending this law for scores of offences; and since William Penn's time, many thousands have been hanged in this country for offences that never were capitally punished in Pennsylvania, and for which the punishment of death hast since been abolished without the slightest injury to any one. All these persons, if the law were as rational as it was in Pennsylvania, would not have been executed, and I am satisfied that it would have been of enormous advantage to the country if it had been so, for it is impossible to bring a human being into a street, in front of several hundred persons, and hang him, with all the indignity that you would treat a dog with, without doing damage to the moral sense of every man and woman who shall gaze on that horrid spectacle. While such was the state of things in Pennsylvania-I take that merely as an example, for there are other countries I might mention-men were hanged in this country needlessly; and during all that period you had great authorities for what you did. I recollect dining in Dublin some few years ago, and sitting at table next to a judge on the Irish bench. I was discussing this question with him, and in the course of our conversation he said to me, 'Never take the opinions of judges on a question of that nature. They are accustomed to the thing. They are brought up to look upon it from a particular and peculiar point of view. If judges only had been consulted, you would probably still be hanging for horse stealing and sheep stealing, as you were a few years ago.' I am happy to say there are, and have been, of late years, not a few judges, and some of the highest in character and reputation, who have been quite willing that the punishment of death should be abolished; and we may expect that the experience they receive, if they are men of ordinary enlightenment, must bring them more and more to that conclusion. But governments do not like to part

with any power, and they do not like to part with any power over the lives of their subjects. For offences against the Sovereign or the State, look at the horrible punishment the law enacts. Hanging, cutting up, tearing out the heart, drawing, quartering, every description of cruelty, was, until within a very short time since, the law; and a portion of these horrors is still the law with regard to offences that go under the name of high treason. These persons don't examine this question. Politicians are quite willing to do nothing except what they are driven to, and to make their game of politics in things as they are, if the people do not force a change."

Mr. Bright much questions whether the punishment of death has at all diminished the crime of murder.

"One argument, and a most potent one, in convincing me that hanging was a blunder, is this; and I ask your attention to it for one moment. What we all want is, to make human life as secure as possible, and there are two modes by which it is proposed to effect it. One is by punishment by the law-the law hopes to deter and frighten men. The other is by inculcating everywhere a deep reverence for human life. Does anybody in England believe that human life is not more secure in England now than it was 100 or 200 years ago, when there was far more hanging than there is now? The reason why we feel more secure is because we know there is a less reckless, savage, and brutal character among all classes now than there was then; that there is more politeness, gentleness, courtesy, benevolence, and kindness of every description now than at former periods. There is a greater belief, arising from religious knowledge, that human life is a thing of infinite estimation in the eyes of the Creator, and it is this greater reverence for it which is the great and, I hope, the growing security for human life. I will assume-but I doubt it-that the practice of hanging men has the effect of deterring somebody, in some place, at some time, in some degree, from the crime of murder. How many do we save by reason of hanging, and how many are saved by reason of an increased reverence for human life? Don't you think that the reverence for human life that exists more or less in everybody, is a thousand times more effective in preventing murder than the fear of the gallows? But if it should happen that the system of hanging, however it may deter to some small extent, does to a great extent diminish the reverence for human life-don't you think that what it does in deterring is far less than what it does in destroying, by diminishing the sanctity of human life? I am perfectly certain-I know from my own feelings and from all human history-that participation in horror of any kind familiarizes the mind to it. Don't we know that when the news of the battle of the Alma was received, people shuddered when they read the account of the losses of that short but bloody battle? Don't you know that now we can read of losses far greater without being affected by them? It is so with everything of the kind, and so with public executions. That man who murdered his master in Drury-lane some time ago was a case in point. The very day that man was apprehended, I happened to be at the police-office in Westminster, where I went with a gentleman, now a member of the House of Commons, to give notice of a person who had run away with 2007. or 3007. belonging to him. In the office there was a policeman, more intelligent than many of that class, who addressed me by name. I asked, 'How do you know me?' 'I know you very well,' said he; have you never seen me in the lobby of the House of Commons?' 'Yes, I recollect you now,' I said, adding, 'You seem to have had some very bad cases latterly; I see a lad has committed a murder.' He said, Ay, sir, as long as there's hanging there will be murders.' I thought that this would have been excellent for a judge, and I wanted to know how he got to that conclusion. They don't care about it,' he said. Why, what did Weeks do (that was the name of the man who committed the murder)? He

went to see a man hanged at Newgate in the morning. He ran at half-past nine o'clock the same morning to see a woman hanged at Horsemonger-lane, and what he said was this, 'Why, it's nothing-it's but a kick, and it's over in a minute.""

But, as the Editor of the Examiner asks, how can Mr. Bright's theory of capital punishment be brought in harmony, with his practice? "How is it that he is found a frequent applicant at the Home Office for the commutation of the sentence of death? If the convict thinks so little of the scaffold, and so much of the secondary punishment, how can Mr. Bright be so cruel as to use his influence and powers of persuasion to get the man subjected to the severer and more dreaded penalty? Surely the Home Secretary has henceforth a reply out of his own mouth for him. 'Why, Friend Bright, after all, no one knows better than you, who have profited by the experience of letter D No. 1, that it's only a kick.'

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Yes,' our friend would rejoin, 'it is only a kick, but it is a last kick, and no one likes to do anything, no matter how trifling, for the last time.'

The point in dispute in a great measure hangs upon this questiondoes the fear of death deter from the commission of capital offences? does it operate as an effective restraint upon the murderous propensities of others? That it does so to a certain degree there can be no doubt. Many a man is deterred from sacrificing human life, even under extreme provocation, and with certain stringent penalties and great severity of punishment staring him in the face, influenced solely by the love of life and the fear of suffering a painful and ignominious death upon the scaffold. There is a certain type of criminals, devoid of all moral sense, having neither the fear of God or man before their eyes, who, reckless of all consequences, commit the most atrocious crimes. No amount of ingenious torture, or certainty of punishment in perspective, would deter a particular class of criminals from the commission of capital offences. It is not, however, with small sections of society that legislation has to deal: the laws cannot be so framed as to mete out even-handed justice to exceptional cases. The criminal code must be general in its operation; and there can be no exemption from punishment, except in cases of clearly-established moral irresponsibility, associated with positive mental aberration. The Editor of the Examiner maintains that the chances in favour of the worst guilt, have increased, and are alarmingly increasing. He says:

"The technicalities of the law give the murderer his chances; the spurious sensibility of jurors and the crotchets of abolitionists give him his chances; and the influences which operate at the Home Office give him his chances. See how much he has to calculate upon. First, he may not be found out; secondly, if found out, he may not be convicted. Is there not a Wilkins at the bar, and may there not be a Quaker on the jury? Thirdly, if con

victed, is there not a Home Office where a man with active friends may have his case brought under review with all the pleadings on the side of indulgence?—we use not the word mercy, for mercy regards the safety of the many, and will not expose them to danger to spare the guilty.

"The consequence of all this is, that criminal justice is affected with the very highest degree of uncertainty, and crime proportionately encouraged. A man who meditates murder now is not scared by the thought that the capital penalty follows the crime as its very shadow. Il y a fagots et fagots. There are murders and murders. There are discriminating penalties on the varieties. There is indulgence for murder without aggravating circumstances. Who knows till he has tried what will be considered aggravation, what not? It is all a lottery, and with few bad billets. The most select of all circles is now the halter. What a man must do to get hanged nowa-days is something prodigious. He has, as it were, to pass a competitive examination without parallel for difficulty. And for the deserving candidates their name is legion."

The suggestive and demoralizing effect of public executions on the criminal population is a point entirely apart from the question of the abolition of capital punishment. The mischief resulting from public executions is undoubtedly great. The fact that so many thousands rush with eagerness to see a fellow-creature strangled to death is in itself sad and melancholy evidence of the existence, in a considerable portion of our population, of a very questionable state of moral sense. We subjoin the following account of a public execution in California, and ask our readers whether such a revolting spectacle was not calculated to demoralize the mind, vitiate the feelings, and harden the hearts of those who witnessed it?

"The execution of two men, named Crane and Free, took place recently in California, which was attended by upwards of 5,000 persons. The Placewell gives the following account of the revolting affair: At one o'clock, p.m., accompanied by Sheriff Carson and his assistants, the prisoners came forth and took their seats quite gaily in a waggon. Crane was elegantly dressed in a full summer suit of white-pants trimmed with blue, a blue sash, with rosette or star upon his breast, and looked and acted the perfect Kentucky gentleman. Free was also well dressed; light coat, trimined with red; a red sash; black pants, trimmed with red; an elegant low-crowned black rowdy hat, which he wore a little to one side, and appeared not unlike an unconcerned jolly sailor. Arriving at the foot of the gallows, both ascended with a firm step to the platform. Free quite gaily (both being entirely unconfined) skipped upon the drop and round the platform, smiling upon the arrangement. They were now permitted to address the assemblage. Crane, in a very gentlemanly manner, and apparently without the slightest hesitation, read in a loud, firm voice his address. He seemed to regret nothing, except that he had not been permitted to take his own life long before; that he was soon to be with his beloved bride, but who the world called his murdered victim, and continued to speak for nearly twenty minutes. Free said he had concluded not to make any remarks, as it would only excite the people present, and stepped back from the edge of the scaffold. Calls from the crowd to go on! let us have it! brought him forward. He then said, 'I'll give you Micky Free's scaffold song;' commenced, but after singing three lines, stopped, saying, 'Gentlemen, I can't go through with it; you must excuse me.' Crane came forward and commenced singing a hymn from