breathe a divinity, we change him into a corpse; the sparkling lustre of whose eye is gone, the graceful motion of whose limbs is changed into rigidity, and which at last gradually becomes fit but for the food of worms. In what other view can they pretend it improves man? for they cannot suppose they improve his morals by hanging him. But if a different course had been followed, then we might have hoped to see the man improved, his heart might have opened to nobler sentiments, his mind might have been rendered capable of feeling the value of virtue, nay more, its beauty.
Does it deter others from the commission of crimes, for which they see it inflicted? Let us consult the criminal records of every country, and every page will show us its insufficiency, every line will contradict those who maintain that by the dread of death, men are hindered from pursuing the path that leads to crime. This punishment not only does not render less frequent the crimes of robbery, and forgery, for which it is so wantonly ordained, but if it were not for the palliative, which we have been forced to adopt, of showing more leniency to mere robbers, whose life has been spared, would render frequent the worst of crimes, murder. For in Italy, where formerly no difference in punishment was established between the robber and murderer, every highwayman with the purse took also the life of his victim that he might thus ensure his safety. But in China, where robbers are whipped and murderers cut to pieces, murders are seldom heard of. That the dread of death does not even deter men from the commission even of the smaller crimes, have we not every day demonstrated to us? Does not every day bring to our newspapers an increase of crimes? It has been found that the numbers of executions every year increase: and what is the cause of this, if not that the populace of great towns are become now so accustomed to the sight of death that they attend the execution of a felon, as a farce at which they laugh or applaud, just as he may show more
