CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
(Opinions of the Press.) The " Times " observes that the fault of the old laws -was that they not only confounded the moral sense of mankind by inflicting the same punishment for crimes so utterly different both in degree and kind as murder and shoplifting, piracy and coining, but that they actually encouraged criminals to commit the extreme offence by making the punishment of all crimes the same. Mr Gilpin would renew this very absurdity. Disastrous as the removal of the deterring influence of capital punishment might be with the reckless and brutal generally, the worst effect of it would probably be experienced in prisons, where ruflians sentenced to long sentences have no possible penalty but death before their eyes. A man sentenced to penal servitude for life might murder any number of warders without any aggravation of his lot. As to the various tortures which the abolitionists would inflict in conjunction with lifelong imprisonment on persons convicted of murder, it is strange to see men proposing in the name of humanity th« practice of horrors against which the feeling of the whole country would certainly revolt. We are not to put a murderer to death, because it is cruel ; but we may torment him in mind and body until the death which we affect to repudiate releases him from his sufferings. We may kill him by inches, but we may notkillhim outright. If capital punishment be abolished, the murderer must simply have his sentence of penal servitude like another man. The question for us, then, is whether such a punishment will afford sufficient protection to human life. The " Times" believes that the country is against the proposed change in the law, and that opinion is sound. The " Telegraph " thinks that, besides the cumulative charges of inefficiency, uncertainty, injustice, human frailty, lows is assailed, there is an awkward dilemma in sending a man to heaven for murder if he has made his peace according to the doctrines and counsels of the ordinary. Nor can it be without grave detriment to the community that we set up death, the universal fate allotted to us all by Providence, as the worst and most dreadful punishment. The " Star " notices some flaws in Mr Mill's ratiocination. In the first place, ona cannot believe that every perpetrator of aggravated murder is within that category of utterly incorrigible and hopeless villains to which Mr Mill would confine the punishment of death. Secondly, the descx'iption of absolutely hopeless wickedness which Mr Mill gave would apply with much more truth to many habitual perpetrators of smaller crimes. Yet Mr Mill would never think of applying to these criminals that principle of calm extinction and annihilation which he thinks the law should adopt towards those of whose incorrigible character it is persuaded. Thirdly, Mr Mill altogether leaves out of view the religious element of this question. A member of Parliament who discusses the propriety of executions without entertaining the idea of the future life does not place himself en rapport with his countrymen to bring them into harmony with his views. Lastly, one marvels at the ease with which Mr
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Southland Times, Issue 993, 27 July 1868, Page 3
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522CAPITAL PUNISHMENT. Southland Times, Issue 993, 27 July 1868, Page 3
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