ave hitherto prevailed in this country, I
shall only say that at present they are very ill-timed.
Whilst the people of this country lived from hand to mouth,
and had very little wealth but what was confined among
themselves, a simple system of laws might be proper, and
capital punishments might in a great measure be avoided; but
when by the acquisition, diffusion, and general intercourse
of wealth, the temptations to fraud are abundantly
increased, the terrors of it must be also proportionably
enlarged; otherwise if, through a false tenderness for
wicked men, the laws should not be sufficient to protect the
property of the honest and industrious, the rights of the
latter are given up to the former, and the undue mercy shown
to the one becomes a real injury to the other. To instance
this, I need only say that I have no doubt but that if these
crimes had been capital some years ago, and usually punished
as such, they would not have been committed at all at the
present time."

The Governor's opinion, however, was not borne out by the experience
of the British government in its dealings with crime. There, it was
made a capital felony to steal in a dwelling-house to the amount of
40_s._, or, privately, in a shop, goods to the value of 5_s._, or to
counterfeit stamps that were used for the sale of perfumery, or such
as were used for the certificates of hair-powder; and yet,
notwithstanding this severity, all who considered the subject
thoughtfully found that the increase of capital crimes more than kept
pace with the increase of laws creating them; and this became so
alarmingly evident that at length the conservative opposition to
reform was overborne, and Sir Samuel Romilly and his coadjutors began
those changes which have continued in the same direction to the
present day. Before the reform was established, however, executions
became so frequent that it was not uncommon for citizens to avoid
certain parts of London and its environs on account of the intolerable
odor, there, of decaying human bodies, hung in chains by the highways
and before the doors of citizens.

Still the judges rode their circuits, leaving briefly minuted
"calendars" in the hands of the executioners, who erected close behind
them the gallows and the gibbet as monuments of their dispensation of
"justice." Barristers bandied repartees and cracked jokes over good
dinner