ONE:It is well known that Lord Tenterden refused ever to sit again in the House of Lords if the Reform Bill became law, and that he predicted that that measure would amount to the political extinction of the Upper House. As regards the history of our criminal law Lord Tenterden was right, for the period of long pauses had passed away, and rapid changes were made with but short intervals of breathing-time. From the year the Reform Bill passed the school of Beccaria and Bentham achieved rapid successes in England. In 1832 it ceased to be capital to steal a horse or a sheep, in 1833 to break into a house, in 1834 to return prematurely from transportation, in 1835 to commit sacrilege or to steal a letter. But[67] even till 1837 there were still 37 capital offences on the statute-book; and now there are only two, murder and treason. Hanging in chains was abolished in 1834; the pillory was wholly abolished in 1837; and the same year Ewart, after many years struggle, obtained for prisoners on trial for felony the right (still merely a nominal one)[39] of being defended by counsel.Whoever, then, I repeat, will honour me with his criticisms, let him not begin by supposing me to advocate principles destructive of virtue or religion, seeing that I have shown that such are not my principles; and instead of his proving me to be an infidel or a[116] rebel, let him contrive to find me a bad reasoner or a shortsighted politician; but let him not tremble at every proposition on behalf of the interests of humanity; let him convince me either of the inutility or of the possible political mischief of my principles; let him prove to me the advantage of received practices. I have given a public testimony of my religion and of my submission to my sovereign in my reply to the Notes and Observations; to reply to other writings of a similar nature would be superfluous; but whoever will write with that grace which becomes honest men, and with that knowledge which shall relieve me from the proof of first principles, of what character soever, he shall find in me not so much a man who is eager to reply as a peaceable lover of the truth.
TWO:Lastly, the surest but most difficult means of preventing crimes is to improve educationa subject too vast for present discussion, and lying beyond the limits of my treatise; a subject, I will also say, too intimately connected with the nature of government for it ever to be aught but a barren field, only cultivated here and there by a few philosophers, down to the remotest ages of public prosperity. A great man, who enlightens the humanity that persecutes him, has shown in detail the chief educational maxims of real utility to mankind; namely, that it consists less in a barren multiplicity of subjects than in their choice selection; in substituting originals for copies in the moral as in the physical phenomena presented by chance or intention to the fresh minds of youth; in inclining them to virtue by the easy path of feeling;[251] and in deterring them from evil by the sure path of necessity and disadvantage, not by the uncertain method of command, which never obtains more than a simulated and transitory obedience.
ONE:Six days after his arrival Beccaria writes in a similar strain: that he is in the midst of adorations and the most flattering praises, considered as the companion and colleague of the greatest men in Europe, regarded with admiration and curiosity, his company competed for; in the capital of pleasures, close to three theatres, one of them the Comdie Fran?aise, the most interesting spectacle in the world; and that yet he is unhappy and discontented, and unable to find distraction in anything. He tells his wife that he is in excellent health, but that she must say just the contrary, in order that there may be a good pretext for his return; and the better to ensure this, he sends his wife another letter which she may show to his parents, and in which, at the end of much general news about Paris, he alludes incidentally to the bad effect on his health of drinking the waters of the Seine. He regrets having to resort to this fiction; but considers that he is justified by the circumstances.
TWO:The object of examining an accused man is the ascertainment of truth. But if this truth is difficult to discover from a mans air, demeanour, or countenance, even when he is quiet, much more difficult will it be to discover from a man upon whose face all the signs, whereby most men, sometimes in spite of themselves, express the truth, are distorted by pain. Every violent action confuses and causes to disappear those trifling differences between objects, by which one may sometimes distinguish the true from the false.
ONE:In the third place, there is the discharge from prison; and truly, if the prevention of crime be a main object of society, it is just when a man is released from prison that, from a social point of view, there would seem most reason to send him there. For even if, whilst in prison, he has learned no dishonest means of livelihood, how shall he, when out of it, set about obtaining an honest one? If temptation was too strong for him when all doors were open to him, is it likely to be less strong when most are closed? Will it not be something like a miracle, if, with two pounds paid to him on his discharge and his railway fare paid home, he eat for any considerable time the bread of honesty, and sleep the sleep of the just?
TWO:
