All that renders death less formidable to them renders laborious restraint proportionably more irksome.' There is doubtless a certain measure of truth in these remarks. But Bentham is here speaking of the degraded class; and is it likely that such would reflect seriously upon what they never see and only know by hearsay? Think how feeble are their powers of imagination and reflection, how little they would be impressed by such additional seventies as 'occasional solitary confinement,' the occurrence and the effects of which would be known to no one outside the jail.
As to the 'majority,' the higher classes, the fact that men are often imprisoned for offences - political and others - which they are proud to suffer for, would always attenuate the ignominy attached to 'imprisonment.' And were this the only penalty for all crimes, for first-class misdemeanants and for the most atrocious of criminals alike, the distinction would not be very finely drawn by the interested; at the most, the severest treatment as an alternative to capital punishment would always savour of extenuating circumstances.
There remain two other points of view from which the question has to be considered: one is what may be called the Vindictive, the other, directly opposed to it, the Sentimental argument. The first may be dismissed with a word or two. In civilised countries torture is for ever abrogated; and with it, let us hope, the idea of judicial vengeance.
The LEX TALIONIS - the Levitic law - 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth,' is befitting only for savages. Unfortunately the Christian religion still promulgates and passionately clings to the belief in Hell as a place or state of everlasting torment - that is to say, of eternal torture inflicted for no ultimate end save that of implacable vengeance. Of all the miserable superstitions ever hatched by the brain of man this, as indicative of its barbarous origin, is the most degrading. As an ordinance ascribed to a Being worshipped as just and beneficent, it is blasphemous.
The Sentimental argument, like all arguments based upon feeling rather than reason, though not without merit, is fraught with mischief which far outweighs it. There are always a number of people in the world who refer to their feelings as the highest human tribunal. When the reasoning faculty is not very strong, the process of ratiocination irksome, and the issue perhaps unacceptable, this course affords a convenient solution to many a complicated problem.
It commends itself, moreover, to those who adopt it, by the sense of chivalry which it involves. There is something generous and noble, albeit quixotic, in siding with the weak, even if they be in the wrong. There is something charitable in the judgment, 'Oh! poor creature, think of his adverse circumstances, his ignorance, his temptation. Let us be merciful and forgiving.' In practice, however, this often leads astray. Thus in most cases, even where premeditated murder is proved to the hilt, the sympathy of the sentimentalist is invariably with the murderer, to the complete oblivion of the victim's family.
Bentham, speaking of the humanity plea, thus words its argument: 'Attend not to the sophistries of reason, which often deceive, but be governed by your hearts, which will always lead you right. I reject without hesitation the punishment you propose: it violates natural feelings, it harrows up the susceptible mind, it is tyrannical and cruel.'
Such is the language of your sentimental orators.
'But abolish any one penal law merely because it is repugnant to the feelings of a humane heart, and, if consistent, you abolish the whole penal code. There is not one of its provisions that does not, in a more or less painful degree, wound the sensibility.'
As this writer elsewhere observes: 'It is only a virtue when justice has done its work, &c. Before this, to forgive injuries is to invite their perpetration - is to be, not the friend, but the enemy of society. What could wickedness desire more than an arrangement by which offences should be always followed by pardon?'
Sentiment is the ULTIMA RATIO FEMINARUM, and of men whose natures are of the epicene gender. It is a luxury we must forego in the face of the stern duties which evil compels us to encounter.
There is only one other argument against capital punishment that is worth considering.
The objection so strenuously pleaded by Dickens in his letters to the 'Times' - viz. the brutalising effects upon the degraded crowds which witnessed public executions - is no longer apposite. But it may still be urged with no little force that the extreme severity of the sentence induces all concerned in the conviction of the accused to shirk the responsibility. Informers, prosecutors, witnesses, judges, and jurymen are, as a rule, liable to reluctance as to the performance of their respective parts in the melancholy drama.' The consequence is that 'the benefit of the doubt,' while salving the consciences of these servants of the law, not unfrequently turns a real criminal loose upon society; whereas, had any other penalty than death been feasible, the same person would have been found guilty.
Much might be said on either side, but on the whole it would seem wisest to leave things - in this country - as they are; and, for one, I am inclined to the belief that, Mercy murders, pardoning those that kill.
