Such was the character of the legislation, which at the commencement of the present century, was thought good enough for paupers. If a man had the misfortune to be poor, he was liable to be confined for an indefinite period at the instance of parochial officers responsible to no one he was liable to see his children forcibly removed from him, and sent to places which were for all practical purposes as distant as the West Indies; to know that they would, on their arrival at their destination, be as much at the mercy of their masters as a negro slave; and that they would grow up without instruction, without advice, without assistance from any one. CHAP. II. and the The hardship and the injustice, which such a system Criminals inflicted on the poor, is not capable of exaggeration. Penal But it is very doubtful whether the poor themselves Code. suffered more severely from it than the rich. When a pauper was treated as a criminal, crime seemed no greater offence than poverty; and a poor man, with nothing but a workhouse and a prison to choose between, might think the prison the preferable evil of the two. During the latter years of the war, crime increased with a rapidity, which ought to have startled legislators into adopting some new measures for preventing it. In 1805, 4,605 persons were committed for trial; 2,783 were convicted; 350 of these were sentenced to death, and 68 were executed. In 1810, 5,146 persons were committed for trial; 3,158 were convicted; 476 were sentenced to death, and 67 were executed. In 1815, 7,818 persons were committed for trial; 4,883 were convicted; 553 persons were sentenced to death, and 57 were executed.1 In ten years, then, the committals rose from 4,605 to 7,818; the covnictions from 2,783 to 4,883; the sentences to death from 350 to 553; while the executions 1 Porter's Progress of the Nation, p. 642. II. CHAP, decreased from 68 to 57.' Deplorable as was the increase of crime during the war to which these figures pointed, its growth was much more lamentable after the conclusion of peace. Four years afterwards, or in 1819, 14,254 persons were committed for trial; 9,510 were convicted; 1,314 were sentenced to death, and 108 were executed. The first thing which must strike every reflecting mind on seeing these figures, is the extraordinary increase in the amount of crime; the second, the utter uncertainty of detecting it. Out of every 100 persons who were committed to trial, 33 had a reasonable prospect of acquittal; out of every hundred were sentenced to death, 92 were not executed. persons who The uncertainty, which undoubtedly encouraged the growth of crime, arose from a very natural and a very pardonable notion. The legislature had the folly to imagine that the best way of repressing crime was to give the suspected criminal no chance, and to punish the convict with the utmost severity. At the time at which this history commences, the counsel of a man charged with felony was not allowed to address the jury in the prisoner's defence; 2 and the commonest offences were, at that time, felonies. The least influential member of Parliament had sufficient power to have any offence made a capital felony, without benefit of clergy. In 1815 it was a capital offence to steal goods to the value of 5s. in a shop. It was a capital offence to steal 40s. from a dwelling 1 These fifty-seven suffered for the following crimes:-Murder and intent to murder, sixteen; burglary, ten; forgery, eleven; robbery from the person, seven; rape, seven; sheep stealing, three; arson, one; horse stealing, one; unnatural offence, one. See Metropolitan Police Report, 1828, p. 286. 2 Arnould's Denman, vol. i. pp. 225, 243, 250; Hansard, N. S. vol. xi. p. 219. 3 All felonies, except sacrilege and horse stealing, were up to 1827 felonies with benefit of clergy, provided the same were not expressly excepted by statu te. But, as in practice they always were excepted, the law was a mere mockery. Felons were only entitled once to benefit of clergy, which was, practically, very similar to the first fault with which many public school boys are familiar. Hansard, vol. xvii. p. 936; Kerr's Blackstone, vol. iv. p. 95. house. It was a capital offence to break frames. It was 1 Colchester, vol. i. p. 41. code acted as a direct en- 3 Wilberforce, vol. iv. p. 370. CHAP. II. СНАР. an unfortunate individual of a trifling offence, when con- Reasons of this character induced Parliament to refuse to listen to every plea for moderation, and to treat with contempt every proposal for the reform of the penal code. 'We have our professors of humanity like Robespierre,' wrote the Quarterly Review,' in 1816,2 who propose the abolition of capital punishment.' When it was desired to make transportation for life the punishment of stealing five shillings in a shop, the twelve judges stepped down from their pedestals, and through Lord Ellenborough, then Chief Justice of England, favoured the House of Lords, for the first time, with an unasked opinion, not of law, but of legislation, protesting against any abridgment of their powers of life and death.' 3 1 Twiss' Eldon, vol. ii. p. 121. 2 Quarterly Review of July 1816, p. 574, quoted in Arnould's Denman, 6 СНАР. sons. II. Humane people, in and out of Parliament, were constantly protesting againgst the severity of the code which the peers and the judges were resolutely bent on maintaining. But humane people might almost have been excused for doubting whether death was not a kinder punishment than the alternative which could be substituted for it. The felon, who was not hanged, was either transported or condemned to hard labour. Transportation was regarded with very different feelings by different classes of convicts. To a woman transportation meant ruin. During the voyage the female convicts notoriously lived in shameless intercourse with the sailors. Nine out of every ten, after their arrival in New South Wales, supported themselves by prostitution.' Unmarried men, on the contrary, welcomed the sentence. The generality of those Convict who are transported,' said Mr. Cotton, the ordinary at and PriNewgate, consider it as a party of pleasure, or going out to see the world; they evince no penitence or contrition, but seem to rejoice in the thing; many of them court transportation.' 2 The prisoners, added a constant visitor to the same prison, rejoice in the prospect of transportation, and it is with the greatest difficulty in the world that that spirit can be restrained. When they go off they are shouting and rejoicing as though some great achievement had been performed.' It was stated in the House of Commons in 1816 that there were hundreds of candidates for transportation to Botany Bay on the hulks. Married men, indeed, regarded the punishment with different feelings; and the despair which they displayed at their separation from their families, proved that they were not wholly destitute of the best of feelings. Men and even women were known to commit crimes in the hope that they might be sent to follow their husbands 2 'Hansard, vol. xxxix. pp. 1435, 1439. Report Metropolitan Police, 1818, p. 171. 3 Ibid. p. 178. ↑ Hansard, vol. xxxiii. p. 988. |