"JUDGMENT OF DEATH."

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 249, 20 October 1928, Page 1 (Supplement)

"JUDGMENT OF DEATH."

SUPREME PENALTY ONCE

COMMON.

'A DBEAUFUL

WYNDHAM, author of Judicial Dramas," "Crime on the Continent," etc.)

In Romilly's day, and for many years to oome, apart from dispatching fW "beyond the seas" as "transports," the only other traditionally method of getting rid of felons officially classed "undesirables" was to to the next world, dangling from the end of a rope. The House of Brunswick established a dreadful record in this respect. During the reign of George 111. alone, more offences were made capital in the reigns of all the Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts combined. One reason for the increase was (in a speech on the subject delivered in the House of Commons in the year 1819) declared to be "the unhappy facility afforded to legislation by parliamentary government." There.'were members, it seemed, who actually appeared to make a hobby of enlarging the number of capital felonies. A mixture of callousness and ambition brought these up to 200. But this total was, it must m remarked, theoretical, for the public were more conscientious than the politicians. As was bound to happen, the severity of the Law defeated itself. Over and over again, juries refused to bring in verdicts.of guilty,-and prosecutors declined' to press charges, when a man would go from dock to the gallows for a trivial offence. The "Good Old Days."

A hundred and twenty years ago the Law stood for terror, and for very little else. when, in 1810, a propoeal was made -to abolish "judgment of death" for stealing five shillings' worth of goods from t shop, Ellenborough, the Chief Justice of England, in an oftquoted passage actually declared: T am convinced with the rest of the judges that public expediency requires there should be no remission of the terror denounced against this description of offenders." - Enlarging on this subject, EUenborough added a further plea: "Your Lordships will pause before you assent to a measure pregnant with danger to the security of property. My Lords, if we suffer this bill to pass, we shall notknow where we stead; whether we stand upon our heads or upon our feet."

It is perhaps characteristic of the spirit of those days that not only was the bill defeated but the Archbishop of Canterbury and six other prelates voted against it. In 1828. the idea dawned upon the legislature that a man eould conceivably be put to a better use than hanging * l '' n i and a hundred felonies were exempted at one bound from capital punishment. Forgery, however, was not removed from the list until 1837. This, it is significant to remark, was on the petition of the London bankers themselves, who found from repeated experience that in many eases juries would violate their oaths rather than convict. Similarly' in indictments for theft. When a man could (fcnd inevitably would) be strungus for stealing a couple of pounds' wortn of goods; their practioe was to asseas the value'at £1 19 8. ,The problem set them wns not - mathematical, bu'* ethical. It was whether the sanctity of- their oath was above the sanctity of a human life. .But juries varied, and Jack Ketch still had constant employment. Even mere children were not exempted if they fell into the clutches of the Law. In 1801 a.small boy of. twelve was strung up by the public hangman for the theft of a spoon from a dwelling house. Thirty years later, John Bell, a lad of fourteen, was convicted of irfiiiny another, hoy. Despite the jury's recommendation to mercy, "on account of his extreme youth, and the profligate and unnatural manner in which he had.been brought up, the learned judge passed the sentence of death, and held out not the slightest hope of mercy." * Nor did he get any. r

The Modem Spirit. Since 1861 only four crimes are, under English law, punishable by death. These are: (1) Setting fire to H.M. dockyards, (2) piracy, accompanied by violence, (3) treason, and (4) mnrder. Cases of dodcyard burning and piracy are rare. At any rate, nobody has been hanged for them within the last seventy years. As for treason, there .are only two cases on record since 1900. The Boer War was responsible for one, and the European War for the other. So far as executions for murder in Britain are concerned, the annual number now is approximately twelve. In 1925, however, it rose to seventeen.

Many proposals have, from time to time, been advanced in Parliament to abolish this "judgment of death " The matter was first discussed in 1868; and, afterwards in 1872, 1877, 1881 and 1886. On each occasion, however, the proposals were negatived by substantial majorities. The argument most oft°n advanced against the abolition of capital punishment is that it would lead to an increase of homicide. Experience, however, shows that this has not happened in such countries as have abolished it. Among these are Holland, since 1870; Rumania since 1864; and Switzerland since 1874; and it has long been either abolished or abrogated in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, and Sweden; and also (except for political murder) in Italy. Of the other European countries that still retain it, only France keeps the public exectioner ("Monsieur de Paris") at all busy. By the way, the common idea that France once abolished the death penalty, and then, owing to the increase of murders, was compelled to re-impose it, is unfounded. The death penalty was never abolished in France. What happened was that between the yean 1908 and 1908 all such sentences were commuted. \

Where America is concerned, punishment is abolished in rigH Btatcs of the Union, the lead having hm rfM in Michigan in 1847. Of the other imprisonment for life is adopted as an alternative in thirty-three, and in the seven States where the death penalty Is still imposed will afao he frandthe largest number of murders. But absolute comparison between countries where capital panUunenthi still in force end time immtHi w is almost impossible. There is mon denominator en which to work, and countries where odats In securing «*> there are others a Pwol can be bought by anyoaeJ qnertkms asked." Then, too,! of the police, andtfcewnrj canttey otaerrod hTthe can. at **1 mentalfr unfit have an important l^Hj was****** "