Tracks of a Rolling Stone [52]
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.
CHAPTER XIX
WE were nearly six weeks in the Havana, being detained by Lord Durham's illness. I provided myself with a capital Spanish master, and made the most of him. This, as it turned out, proved very useful to me in the course of my future travels. About the middle of March we left for Charlestown in the steamer ISABEL, and thence on to New York. On the passage to Charlestown, we were amused one evening by the tricks of a conjuror. I had seen the man and his wife perform at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. She was called the 'Mysterious Lady.' The papers were full of speculations as to the nature of the mystery. It was the town talk and excitement of the season.
This was the trick. The lady sat in the corner of a large room, facing the wall, with her eyes bandaged. The company were seated as far as possible from her. Anyone was invited to write a few words on a slip of paper, and hand it to the man, who walked amongst the spectators. He would simply say to the woman 'What has the gentleman (or lady) written upon this paper?' Without hesitation she would reply correctly. The man was always the medium. One person requested her, through the man, to read the number on his watch, the figures being, as they always are, very minute. The man repeated the question: 'What is the number on this watch?' The woman, without hesitation, gave it correctly. A friend at my side, a young Guardsman, took a cameo ring from his finger, and asked for a description of the figures in relief. There was a pause. The woman was evidently perplexed. She confessed at last that she was unable to answer. The spectators murmured. My friend began to laugh. The conjuror's bread was at stake, but he was equal to the occasion. He at once explained to the company that the cameo represented 'Leeder and the Swan in a hambigious position, which the lady didn't profess
'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.
CHAPTER XIX
WE were nearly six weeks in the Havana, being detained by Lord Durham's illness. I provided myself with a capital Spanish master, and made the most of him. This, as it turned out, proved very useful to me in the course of my future travels. About the middle of March we left for Charlestown in the steamer ISABEL, and thence on to New York. On the passage to Charlestown, we were amused one evening by the tricks of a conjuror. I had seen the man and his wife perform at the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. She was called the 'Mysterious Lady.' The papers were full of speculations as to the nature of the mystery. It was the town talk and excitement of the season.
This was the trick. The lady sat in the corner of a large room, facing the wall, with her eyes bandaged. The company were seated as far as possible from her. Anyone was invited to write a few words on a slip of paper, and hand it to the man, who walked amongst the spectators. He would simply say to the woman 'What has the gentleman (or lady) written upon this paper?' Without hesitation she would reply correctly. The man was always the medium. One person requested her, through the man, to read the number on his watch, the figures being, as they always are, very minute. The man repeated the question: 'What is the number on this watch?' The woman, without hesitation, gave it correctly. A friend at my side, a young Guardsman, took a cameo ring from his finger, and asked for a description of the figures in relief. There was a pause. The woman was evidently perplexed. She confessed at last that she was unable to answer. The spectators murmured. My friend began to laugh. The conjuror's bread was at stake, but he was equal to the occasion. He at once explained to the company that the cameo represented 'Leeder and the Swan in a hambigious position, which the lady didn't profess