at a
man had been executed two hours before, and the body afterwards burnt. I
could not help looking with horror around--the fields lost their
verdure--and I turned with disgust from the well-dressed women who were
returning with their children from this sight. What a spectacle for
humanity! The seeing such a flock of idle gazers plunged me into a train
of reflections on the pernicious effects produced by false notions of
justice. And I am persuaded that till capital punishments are entirely
abolished executions ought to have every appearance of horror given to
them, instead of being, as they are now, a scene of amusement for the
gaping crowd, where sympathy is quickly effaced by curiosity.

I have always been of opinion that the allowing actors to die in the
presence of the audience has an immoral tendency, but trifling when
compared with the ferocity acquired by viewing the reality as a show; for
it seems to me that in all countries the common people go to executions
to see how the poor wretch plays his part, rather than to commiserate his
fate, much less to think of the breach of morality which has brought him
to such a deplorable end. Consequently executions, far from being useful
examples to the survivors, have, I am persuaded, a quite contrary effect,
by hardening the heart they ought to terrify. Besides the fear of an
ignominious death, I believe, never deferred anyone from the commission
of a crime, because, in committing it, the mind is roused to activity
about present circumstances. It is a game at hazard, at which all expect
the turn of the die in their own favour, never reflecting on the chance
of ruin till it comes. In fact, from what I saw in the fortresses of
Norway, I am more and more convinced that the same energy of character
which renders a man a daring villain would have rendered him useful to
society, had that society been well organised. When a strong mind is not
disciplined by cultivation it is a sense of injustice that renders it
unjust.

Executions, however, occur very rarely at Copenhagen; for timidity,
rather than clemency, palsies all the operations of the present
Government. The malefactor who died this morning would not, probably,
have been punished with death at any other period; but an incendiary
excites universal execration; and as the greater part of the inhabitants
are still distressed by the late conflagration, an example was thought
absolutely necessary; though, from what