DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22140#0183
THE JOINT-STOCK PRINCIPLE IN LABOUR. 167
men of fashion, a horrible appetite for these spectacles. George
Selwyn the wit never missed an execution. But the number
which was condemned and executed was only a portion of those
offenders against whom the law denounced capital punishment.
If one examines the calendars of provincial crime in towns like
Reading and Oxford—and these calendars are frequently printed
in the papers—neither of which towns had more than five thousand
inhabitants in the days of the first two Georges, he would be
amazed at the numbers which were raked together for the assizes.
But the juries were more merciful than the law. They refused to
find more than a low value on goods stolen, when the law inflicted
the penalty of death on stealing over thirteen-pence halfpenny—■
the price of a box of pills—from a dwelling-house. In con-
sequence, the administration of the criminal law became exceed-
ingly uncertain, and crime was stimulated rather than checked by
severity on paper. But it took a long time for Parliament to see
that its ferocious penalties defeated their own ends, and it required
all the energy of Romilly and Mackintosh to get the necessary
alteration in our criminal law. It is very hard to induce a British
Parliament to see that remedies are more deterrent than penalties.
The forgery of Bank notes and Exchequer Bills was made a
capital felony. In other offences of the same kind, e.g., wills and
deeds, the osfender was left to the statute of Elizabeth which
prescribed the pillory, mutilation, and branding, penalties which I
have seen were inflicted as late as 1731. In course of time, juries
again refused to convict, though the clearest evidence was brought
before them, and at last, the bankers who had procured the capital
sentence in the first case, petitioned Parliament for a modification
of the penalties, on the plea that the practice of juries was giving
an immunity to crime. Now looking at the result which ensued
from this refusal of juries to convict, viz., the amendment of the
criminal law, at once in the direction of humanity, and the
diminution of crime, it is not, you will see, quite easy to allege
that unconditional obedience to municipal law is an imperative
duty. I am ready enough to admit that the alternative is very
serious, and to some high-handed resolute persons is exceedingly
irritating, but one must be blind to some of the best-known facts
in the social history of our country, perhaps in its political history,
men of fashion, a horrible appetite for these spectacles. George
Selwyn the wit never missed an execution. But the number
which was condemned and executed was only a portion of those
offenders against whom the law denounced capital punishment.
If one examines the calendars of provincial crime in towns like
Reading and Oxford—and these calendars are frequently printed
in the papers—neither of which towns had more than five thousand
inhabitants in the days of the first two Georges, he would be
amazed at the numbers which were raked together for the assizes.
But the juries were more merciful than the law. They refused to
find more than a low value on goods stolen, when the law inflicted
the penalty of death on stealing over thirteen-pence halfpenny—■
the price of a box of pills—from a dwelling-house. In con-
sequence, the administration of the criminal law became exceed-
ingly uncertain, and crime was stimulated rather than checked by
severity on paper. But it took a long time for Parliament to see
that its ferocious penalties defeated their own ends, and it required
all the energy of Romilly and Mackintosh to get the necessary
alteration in our criminal law. It is very hard to induce a British
Parliament to see that remedies are more deterrent than penalties.
The forgery of Bank notes and Exchequer Bills was made a
capital felony. In other offences of the same kind, e.g., wills and
deeds, the osfender was left to the statute of Elizabeth which
prescribed the pillory, mutilation, and branding, penalties which I
have seen were inflicted as late as 1731. In course of time, juries
again refused to convict, though the clearest evidence was brought
before them, and at last, the bankers who had procured the capital
sentence in the first case, petitioned Parliament for a modification
of the penalties, on the plea that the practice of juries was giving
an immunity to crime. Now looking at the result which ensued
from this refusal of juries to convict, viz., the amendment of the
criminal law, at once in the direction of humanity, and the
diminution of crime, it is not, you will see, quite easy to allege
that unconditional obedience to municipal law is an imperative
duty. I am ready enough to admit that the alternative is very
serious, and to some high-handed resolute persons is exceedingly
irritating, but one must be blind to some of the best-known facts
in the social history of our country, perhaps in its political history,