Capital Punishment Page #2

"Capital Punishment" is not a direct title by Charles Dickens; however, themes surrounding capital punishment can be found in his works, particularly in "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two Cities." In these novels, Dickens explores the moral implications of the death penalty, societal injustices, and the impact of crime and punishment on individuals and society. Through his vivid characters and compelling narratives, Dickens critiques the legal system of his time and advocates for social reform, emphasizing compassion and redemption over harsh retribution.

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always about her, darkly menacing him with that penalty whose murky
secret has a fascination for all secret and unwholesome thoughts.  And
when he struggles with his victim at the last, “though he should be
hanged for it”, it is a merciless wrestle, not with one weak life only,
but with that ever-haunting, ever-beckoning shadow of the gallows, too;
and with a fierce defiance to it, after their long survey of each other,
to come on and do its worst.

Present this black idea of violence to a bad mind contemplating violence;
hold up before a man remotely compassing the death of another person, the
spectacle of his own ghastly and untimely death by man’s hands; and out
of the depths of his own nature you shall assuredly raise up that which
lures and tempts him on.  The laws which regulate those mysteries have
not been studied or cared for, by the maintainers of this law; but they
are paramount and will always assert their power.

Out of one hundred and sixty-seven persons under sentence of Death in
England, questioned at different times, in the course of years, by an
English clergyman in the performance of his duty, there were only three
who had not been spectators of executions.

We come, now, to the consideration of those murders which are committed,
or attempted, with no other object than the attainment of an infamous
notoriety.  That this class of crimes has its origin in the Punishment of
Death, we cannot question; because (as we have already seen, and shall
presently establish by another proof) great notoriety and interest
attach, and are generally understood to attach, only to those criminals
who are in danger of being executed.

One of the most remarkable instances of murder originating in mad
self-conceit; and of the murderer’s part in the repulsive drama, in which
the law appears at such great disadvantage to itself and to society,
being acted almost to the last with a self-complacency that would be
horribly ludicrous if it were not utterly revolting; is presented in the
case of Hocker.

Here is an insolent, flippant, dissolute youth: aping the man of intrigue
and levity: over-dressed, over-confident, inordinately vain of his
personal appearance: distinguished as to his hair, cane, snuff-box, and
singing-voice: and unhappily the son of a working shoemaker.  Bent on
loftier flights than such a poor house-swallow as a teacher in a
Sunday-school can take; and having no truth, industry, perseverance, or
other dull work-a-day quality, to plume his wings withal; he casts about
him, in his jaunty way, for some mode of distinguishing himself—some
means of getting that head of hair into the print-shops; of having
something like justice done to his singing-voice and fine intellect; of
making the life and adventures of Thomas Hocker remarkable; and of
getting up some excitement in connection with that slighted piece of
biography.  The Stage?  No.  Not feasible.  There has always been a
conspiracy against the Thomas Hockers, in that kind of effort.  It has
been the same with Authorship in prose and poetry.  Is there nothing
else?  A Murder, now, would make a noise in the papers!  There is the
gallows to be sure; but without that, it would be nothing.  Short of
that, it wouldn’t be fame.  Well!  We must all die at one time or other;
and to die game, and have it in print, is just the thing for a man of
spirit.  They always die game at the Minor Theatres and the Saloons, and
the people like it very much.  Thurtell, too, died very game, and made a
capital speech when he was tried.  There’s all about it in a book at the
cigar-shop now.  Come, Tom, get your name up!  Let it be a dashing murder
that shall keep the wood-engravers at it for the next two months.  You
are the boy to go through with it, and interest the town!

The miserable wretch, inflated by this lunatic conceit, arranges his
whole plan for publication and effect.  It is quite an epitome of his
experience of the domestic melodrama or penny novel.  There is the Victim
Friend; the mysterious letter of the injured Female to the Victim Friend;
the romantic spot for the Death-Struggle by night; the unexpected
appearance of Thomas Hocker to the Policeman; the parlour of the Public
House, with Thomas Hocker reading the paper to a strange gentleman; the
Family Apartment, with a song by Thomas Hocker; the Inquest Room, with
Thomas Hocker boldly looking on; the interior of the Marylebone Theatre,
with Thomas Hocker taken into custody; the Police Office with Thomas
Hocker “affable” to the spectators; the interior of Newgate, with Thomas
Hocker preparing his defence; the Court, where Thomas Hocker, with his
dancing-master airs, is put upon his trial, and complimented by the
Judge; the Prosecution, the Defence, the Verdict, the Black Cap, the
Sentence—each of them a line in any Playbill, and how bold a line in
Thomas Hocker’s life!

It is worthy of remark, that the nearer he approaches to the gallows—the
great last scene to which the whole of these effects have been working
up—the more the overweening conceit of the poor wretch shows itself; the
more he feels that he is the hero of the hour; the more audaciously and
recklessly he lies, in supporting the character.  In public—at the
condemned sermon—he deports himself as becomes the man whose autographs
are precious, whose portraits are innumerable; in memory of whom, whole
fences and gates have been borne away, in splinters, from the scene of
murder.  He knows that the eyes of Europe are upon him; but he is not
proud—only graceful.  He bows, like the first gentleman in Europe, to the
turnkey who brings him a glass of water; and composes his clothes and
hassock as carefully, as good Madame Blaize could do.  In private—within
the walls of the condemned cell—every word and action of his waning life,
is a lie.  His whole time is divided between telling lies and writing
them.  If he ever have another thought, it is for his genteel appearance
on the scaffold; as when he begs the barber “not to cut his hair too
short, or they won’t know him when he comes out”.  His last proceeding
but one is to write two romantic love letters to women who have no
existence.  His last proceeding of all (but less characteristic, though
the only true one) is to swoon away, miserably, in the arms of the
attendants, and be hanged up like a craven dog.

Is not such a history, from first to last, a most revolting and
disgraceful one; and can the student of it bring himself to believe that
it ever could have place in any record of facts, or that the miserable
chief-actor in it could have ever had a motive for his arrogant
wickedness, but for the comment and the explanation which the Punishment
of Death supplies!

It is not a solitary case, nor is it a prodigy, but a mere specimen of a
class.  The case of Oxford, who fired at Her Majesty in the Park, will be
found, on examination, to resemble it very nearly, in the essential
feature.  There is no proved pretence whatever for regarding him as mad;
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