SUPPLEMENT TO HOUSE No. 196.

APPENDIX A.

Hon. ROBERT RANTOUL Jr.'s Letters on the Death Penalty.

WHEN one casts his eye upon the history of crime and punishment in modern Europe, the phenomenon which first attracts his notice is the prodigality with which the death-penalty was formerly dispensed, and the prodigious advance which a milder system of repressive policy has made during the eighteenth, and the first quarter of the nineteenth centuries; and still more remarkably, during the last twenty years. As this mitigation of punishment has been tried in every part of Christendom, if any evil consequences had followed from it, some one would have been able to point them out, and to tell us when, where, how, and how long, the mischief manifested itself. Yet, among more than two hundred authors upon this subject, whose writings I have examined, I have never found but two who have seriously attempted to exhibit the evils which these successive meliorations of the law must have occasioned, if those wise men, against whose indignant remonstrances these changes were effected, were right in their prognostications. The two champions of blood, were the authors of "Hanging not Punishment Enough," published in 1701, and "Thoughts on Executive Justice,” published in 1785; both which works are now reprinted and distributed by the opponents of the death-penalty, to show the absurdities into which men of great learning and talents are forced, when they attempt to vindicate the operation of the gallows.

It is quite immaterial what country we select for this investigation, as the results are every where the same. Some governments, however, afford us official data much more complete and accurate than we can obtain elsewhere; and an argument founded on facts thus ascertained is to be preferred, because it avoids the long controversies about the evidence of the facts advanced, to which we should otherwise be exposed. Let us first consult, then, the experience of the two neighboring nations of Holland and Belgium. Both have spilled blood till they sickened at the spectacle. Both have laid aside the axe at last, to rust

unused, or very rarely to be drawn from its depository among the other relics of a barbarous age.

In the city of Amsterdam, during the greater part of the last century, executions diminished as follows

From 1693 to 1735, there were, in 43 years, 288

This table gives between four and five executions, or, to be precise, 4.15 per year, for the eighty-two years included in it.

But, for the period ending in 1735, it gives 6.7 per year.

That is, the annual number of executions was about eleven times as great at the beginning of the eighteenth century as in the latter part of it, during the time of our revolutionary war.

Howard, the philanthropist, in 1785, speaking of Holland, says :"Of late, in all the seven provinces, seldom more executions in a year than from four to six."

In the kingdom of Holland, from 1831 to 1835 inclusive, five years, there were five executions, or one per year. Holland, therefore, had five times as many executions in a year, half a century before, as she had in this last period, and if the proportion was the same as in Amsterdam for the preceding periods, then she had FIFTY-FIVE times as many in a year, in the period preceding 1735, as in the period preceding 1835. Were their morals better?-or their lives, their limbs, their goods, safer, with fifty-five times as many executions? No! The sword dropped from the wearied hands of vindictive justice. They had learned the lesson of the French sage,-Une loi rigoureuse produit des crimes.-Harsh laws beget crimes. They had arrived, after wading through a sea of blood, to the conclusions of Bentham:-" If the legislator be desirous to inspire humanity amongst the citizens, let him set the example; let him show the utmost respect for the life of man. Sanguinary laws have a tendency to render man cruel, either by fear, by imitation, or by revenge. But laws dictated by mildness humanize the manners of a nation, and the spirit of government."

That Holland is better governed, dispensing with fifty-four parts out

of the ancient death-penalties, no man denies. These fifty-four parts have been abandoned, not only without detriment, but with positive advantage. Is it unreasonable to suppose, that the remaining fifty-fifth part is of the same deleterious nature, and might be discarded forever, with the same safety and certain utility?

Instead of attempting a detailed examination of the criminal statistics of Holland, which would, so far as I can carry it, strengthen the general inference I have drawn, but which would, after all, be unsatisfactory and open to objection, because of the imperfection of the materials within my reach, I pass on to Belgium, where, fortunately, we have tables containing much valuable information for thirty-nine consecutive years, and of unquestionable accuracy.

Total number of criminals sentenced to death in Belgium, excluding Limbourg and Luxembourg, in each year, from 1796 to 1833, inclusively, distinguishing, also, those condemned for murder, and attempts to murder,—including, under the head of murder, the three crimes of murder, poisoning, and parricide :—

From this table it appears that, during the nineteen years ending in 1814, in which were 531 executions, or 28 per annum, the number convicted of capital crimes was 784, or a little more than 41 per annum, and the number convicted of murder, 399, or 21 per annum. But in the next nineteen years, when the executions were 71 only, or less than 4 per annum, the convictions were 241, or less than 13 per annum, and those for murder, 127, or less than 7 per annum. So that under the unrestricted operation of severity, when executions were more than seven times as numerous as in the latter period, capital crimes were more than three times, and murders, also, more than three times as frequent.

Not only does this result follow from the table taken as a whole, but each period in which a change in the degree of severity occurs, teaches the same lesson.

The three years, in which more than 50 executions occurred in each year, were followed respectively by the three years of most numerous murders:

These three years, presenting an average of 63 executions a year, or little more than double the average of the first 19 years, were thus followed by three years of 120 murders, or 40 murders per year; about double the average of the period in which they are included.

The dragons' teeth, sown in the judicial butcheries of 1798 and 1801-2, springing up in this unexampled harvest of murders in 1799 and 1802-3, ought to teach every government how the evil example of vengeance returns, with its bloody instructions, to plague the inventor. After 1808, criminal justice became milder; the number of executions, which, for ten years previous, had been 411, or 41 a year, was suddenly reduced to 93 in the next seven years, or 13 a year. this mildness encourage crime? On the contrary, the table already given shows that there were not so many condemned annually for all capital offences, during these seven years, as for murder alone, during the reign of blood that preceded them.

Did

The mitigation of severity during the next period is still more remarkable, as are also its effects.

In the 10 years ending in 1824, there were 49 executions.
In the 10

1834,

22

The convictions for murder diminish, as is already seen in the table,

in almost as rapid proportion.

Number of criminals executed, whole number convicted of capital crimes, and whole number convicted of murder, in Belgium, excluding Limbourg and Luxembourg, from 1799 to 1834, inclusive, divided, as nearly as may be, into eight equal periods, with the average of each

It appears, from this table, that, while executions increased, murders increased. Executions reached their highest point in 1801-2, averaging, for those two years, 68 a year; and murders accordingly reached their highest point one year later, in 1802-3, averaging, for those two years, 41 a year. After executions declined, murders declined also, until they averaged but 4 a year, including that very year 1834, on which the supposed objection is grounded. If a diminution in the average of murders, while there were no executions, to less than one tenth the average of 1802-3, does not show a sufficient change, in only thirty-two years' time, to warrant a favorable inference for the modern practice, it is difficult to imagine any facts, short of the cessation of crime altogether, from which such an inference might be drawn. Observe, also, the uniformity between the falling off in the number of executions, and in that of convictions for murder.

After the period ending in 1799, the executions increase 13, the convictions for murder increase 4. In all the following periods, they decrease. After