The legislature of Pennsylvania have received, 'very favorably, a plan presented by Dr. Mease, recommending this mode of punishment; he has sent me a copy of his papers, which are at the disposal of the general assembly: they are written with ingenuity, but under the circumstances in which this state is placed, I cannot propose his scheme as either a practicable or an advisable mode of disposing of convicts.

Simple imprisonment has obvious defects; as a corrective, it is nearly the worst that could be applied. If solitary, it is, for most offences, too severe. If it be not solitary, it becomes a school for vice and every kind of corruption. The want of employment, even when men are at liberty, leads them to evil associations, and the proverb does not much exaggerate, which calls it the root of all evil. But when to idleness is joined an association with all that is most profligate and unprincipled, it may be easily imagined how quick must be the progress from innocence to vice, from vice to crime. The band of the guilty thus collected, acquire a knowlege of each other's capacity in the commission of offences; they feel their strength, they recruit their numbers, they organize themselves for their warfare on society, and come out completely disciplined and arrayed against the laws.

Imprisonment in irons has all the evils of simple imprisonment, and adds to them, that of inequality, and the danger of arbitrary imposition. The weight

of the chains, if regulated by law, must be a torture to the weak, while the robust delinquent will bear them without pain. If they are at the discretion of the goaler, there can be no better engine for petty tyranny and extortion.

Confiscation of property has few advocates, and ought to have none. It has every defect that can attach to a mode of punishment, except that it is in some degree remissible; it is unequal, because it forfeits for the same offence, the largest and the smallest fortune. It is cruel, because it deprives numbers of the means of subsistence for the fault of one. It is unjust, for it punishes without distinction, the innocent as well. as the guilty. It is liable to the worst of abuses, because it makes it the interest of the government to multiply convictions. This last characteristic is perhaps the reason why it retains a place in the penal jurisprudence of Europe.

The four next heads may be classed together: the pillory, stocks, and other contrivances for public exposure, labour in chains, and on the public works, indelible marks of disgrace, (always attended with bodily pain) and the infliction of stripes, all are liable to the same radical objections; they all discard the idea of reformation; all are unequal, and subject to arbitrary imposition; with the exception of public labor, they are all momentary in their application, and when the operation is over, they impose a necessity on the patient, with the alternative of starving, immediately to repeat his

offence; he accordingly, with encreased dexterity, commences a new career; forms a corps of similar associates to prey upon society; seduces others by the example of his impunity in the numerous instances in which he escapes detection; swells the list of convictions in those where his vigilance is defeated, and finally, becomes a fit subject for the grand remedy-the punishment of death. I approached the inquiry into the nature and effect of this punishment with the awe becoming a man who felt, most deeply, his liability to err, and the necessity of forming a correct opinion on a point so interesting to the justice of the country, the life of its citizens, and the character of its laws. I strove to clear my understanding from all prejudices which education, or early impressions might have created, and to produce a frame of mind, fitted for the investigation of truth and the impartial examination of the arguments on this great question. For this purpose, I not only consulted such writers on the subject as were within my reach, but endeavoured to procure a knowlege of the practical effect of this punishment on different crimes in the several countries where it is inflicted. In my situation, however, I could draw but a very limited advantage from either of these sources: very few books on penal law, even those most commonly referred to, are to be found in the scanty collections of this place, and my failure in procuring information from the other states. is more to be regretted on this than any other topic on which

it was requested. With these inadequate means, but after the best use that my faculties would enable me to make of them; after long reflection, and not until I had canvassed every argument that could suggest itself to my mind, I came to the conclusion, that the punishment of death should find no place in the code which you have directed me to present. In offering this result, I feel a diffidence, which arises, not from any doubt of its correctness; I entertain none; but from the fear of being thought presumptuous in going beyond the point of penal reform, at which the wisdom of the other states has hitherto thought proper to stop; and from a reluctance to offer my opinions in opposition to those (certainly more entitled to respect than my own) which still support the propriety of this punishment for certain offences. On a mere speculative question, I should yield to this authority; but here I could not justify the confidence you have reposed in me, were I to give you the opinions of others, no matter how respectable they may be, instead of those which my best judgment assured me were right.

The example of the other states is certainly entitled to great respect; the greater, because all, without exception, still retain this punishment; but this example loses some of its force when we reflect on the slow progress of all improvement, and on the stubborn principles of the common law, which have particularly retarded its advance in jurisprudence. In England, their parliament had been debating

for near a century, before they would take off capital punishment from two or three cases, in which every body allowed it was manifestly cruel and absurd they have retained it in at least an hundred others of the same description; and when we reflect on these facts, and observe the influence which the prevailing opinions of that country have always had on the literature and jurisprudence of ours, we may account for the several states having stopped short in the reform of their penal law, without supposing them to have arrived at the point of perfection, beyond which, it would be both unwise and presumptuous to pass. As to the authority of great names, it loses much of its force since the mass of the ́people have began to think for themselves; and since legislation is no longer considered as a trade, which none can practise with success, but those who have been educated to understand the mystery; the plain matter of fact, practical manner, in which that business is conducted with us, refers more to experience of facts than theory of reasoning; more to ideas of utility drawn from the state of society, than from the opinions of authors on the subject. If the argument were to be carried by the authority of names, that of Beccaria, were there no other, would ensure the victory. But reason alone, not precedent nor authority, must justify me in proposing to the general assembly, this important change; reason alone can persuade them to adopt it. I proceed therefore to develope the considerations which carried conviction to my