will appease the tribunal which arraigns him, every circumstance of solemnity should be given to this dreadful act of legislative vengeance. If the intention of punishments be, what lawyers maintain it is[1], not to inflict pain on the criminal, but to provide for the public security by shewing the consequences of offending, no auxiliary ought to be wanting to the spectacle which can inspire the spectators with awe. The manner of passing sentence of death in Holland is dignified, solemn, and impressive: it must on reflection appear strikingly so to a person who has seen condemnations at the Old Bailey, where sometimes a dozen wretches are crowded into a box to be told, in a style little reverent or awful, that the law sendees them to be hanged.
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- ↑ Ut poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes perveniat.
Cicero.
Tully, with his generous love of liberty, was too often an advocate. Lawyers constantly declare that punishments are not inflicted by way of expiation or atonement for a crime committed, but as a precaution against future offences. — This has been the language of English lawyers from the days of Bracton to the present hour.
