Capital Punishment Page #4

"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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universally avoided, like a pestilence.  I want to know why so much
sympathy is expended on the man who kills another in the vehemence of his
own bad passions, and why the man who kills him in the name of the law is
shunned and fled from?  Is it because the murderer is going to die?  Then
by no means put him to death.  Is it because the hangman executes a law,
which, when they once come near it face to face, all men instinctively
revolt from?  Then by all means change it.  There is, there can be, no
prevention in such a law.

It may be urged that Public Executions are not intended for the benefit
of those dregs of society who habitually attend them.  This is an
absurdity, to which the obvious answer is, So much the worse.  If they be
not considered with reference to that class of persons, comprehending a
great host of criminals in various stages of development, they ought to
be, and must be.  To lose sight of that consideration is to be
irrational, unjust, and cruel.  All other punishments are especially
devised, with a reference to the rooted habits, propensities, and
antipathies of criminals.  And shall it be said, out of Bedlam, that this
last punishment of all is alone to be made an exception from the rule,
even where it is shown to be a means of propagating vice and crime?

But there may be people who do not attend executions, to whom the general
fame and rumour of such scenes is an example, and a means of deterring
from crime.

Who are they?  We have seen that around Capital Punishment there lingers
a fascination, urging weak and bad people towards it, and imparting an
interest to details connected with it, and with malefactors awaiting it
or suffering it, which even good and well-disposed people cannot
withstand.  We know that last-dying speeches and Newgate calendars are
the favourite literature of very low intellects.  The gallows is not
appealed to as an example in the instruction of youth (unless they are
training for it); nor are there condensed accounts of celebrated
executions for the use of national schools.  There is a story in an old
spelling-book of a certain Don’t Care who was hanged at last, but it is
not understood to have had any remarkable effect on crimes or executions
in the generation to which it belonged, and with which it has passed
away.  Hogarth’s idle apprentice is hanged; but the whole scene—with the
unmistakable stout lady, drunk and pious, in the cast; the quarrelling,
blasphemy, lewdness, and uproar; Tiddy Doll vending his gingerbread, and
the boys picking his pocket—is a bitter satire on the great example; as
efficient then, as now.

Is it efficient to prevent crime?  The parliamentary returns demonstrate
that it is not.  I was engaged in making some extracts from these
documents, when I found them so well abstracted in one of the papers
published by the committee on this subject established at Aylesbury last
year, by the humane exertions of Lord Nugent, that I am glad to quote the
general results from its pages:

    “In 1843 a return was laid on the table of the House of the
    commitments and executions for murder in England and Wales during the
    thirty years ending with December 1842, divided into five periods of
    six years each.  It shows that in the last six years, from 1836 to
    1842, during which there were only 50 executions, the commitments for
    murder were fewer by 61 than in the six years preceding with 74
    executions; fewer by 63 than in the six years ending 1830 with 75
    executions; fewer by 56 than in the six years ending 1824 with 94
    executions; and fewer by 93 than in the six years ending 1818 when
    there was no less a number of executions than 122.  But it may be
    said, perhaps, that in the inference we draw from this return, we are
    substituting cause for effect, and that in each successive cycle, the
    number of murders decreased in consequence of the example of public
    executions in the cycle immediately preceding, and that it was for
    that reason there were fewer commitments.  This might be said with
    some colour of truth, if the example had been taken from two
    successive cycles only.  But when the comparative examples adduced
    are of no less than five successive cycles, and the result
    gradually and constantly progressive in the same direction, the
    relation of facts to each other is determined beyond all ground for
    dispute, namely, that the number of these crimes has diminished in
    consequence of the diminution of the number of executions.  More
    especially when it is also remembered that it was immediately after
    the first of these cycles of five years, when there had been the
    greatest number of executions and the greatest number of murders,
    that the greatest number of persons were suddenly cast loose upon the
    country, without employ, by the reduction of the Army and Navy; that
    then came periods of great distress and great disturbance in the
    agricultural and manufacturing districts; and above all, that it
    was during the subsequent cycles that the most important mitigations
    were effected in the law, and that the Punishment of Death was taken
    away not only for crimes of stealth, such as cattle and horse
    stealing and forgery, of which crimes corresponding statistics show
    likewise a corresponding decrease, but for the crimes of violence
    too, tending to murder, such as are many of the incendiary
    offences, and such as are highway robbery and burglary.  But another
    return, laid before the House at the same time, bears upon our
    argument, if possible, still more conclusively.  In table 11 we have
    only the years which have occurred since 1810, in which all
    persons convicted of murder suffered death; and, compared with these
    an equal number of years in which the smallest proportion of
    persons convicted were executed.  In the first case there were 66
    persons convicted, all of whom underwent the penalty of death; in the
    second 83 were convicted, of whom 31 only were executed.  Now see how
    these two very different methods of dealing with the crime of murder
    affected the commission of it in the years immediately following.
    The number of commitments for murder, in the four years immediately
    following those in which all persons convicted were executed, was
    270.

    “In the four years immediately following those in which little more
    than one-third of the persons convicted were executed, there were but
    222, being 48 less.  If we compare the commitments in the following
    years with those in the first years, we shall find that, immediately
    after the examples of unsparing execution, the crime increased
    nearly 13 per cent., and that after commutation was the practice and
    capital punishment the exception, it decreased 17 per cent.

    “In the same parliamentary return is an account of the commitments
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