er of persons
committed for this offence in the three years previous to 1833, was one
hundred and fifty-five; and in the three following years two hundred and
ten. In the first instance only fifty-eight per cent, were convicted;
in the latter period the number convicted was seventy-one per cent.
From this it appeared that there was no great increase in the number of
offences, while the number of convictions was materially increased.
The reason of this last effect of the present, criminal law was to be
ascribed to the diminished reluctance to prosecute now that the offence
was no longer capital. His lordship here stated that in a recent case
a man had been tried and convicted of forging a power of attorney. That
offence was yet capital; but previously to the case coming before the
king in council, the secretary of state received a communication
from the bankers of London, expressing their objections to capital
punishment: and also another from the governor of the Bank of England,
stating, though the Bank directors did not think it their duty to
interfere, they had no wish to press for capital punishment. His
lordship considered this to be an encouragement to proceed in their
course of mitigating the punishment, and particularly for doing away
with it in the two reserved cases in forgery. The principle as suggested
by the commissioners on which his lordship proposed to proceed was, that
capital punishment should be confined to high treason, and, with some
exceptions, to offences which consist in or are aggravated by acts of
violence to the person, or which tend directly to endanger life. It was
proposed that capital offences should be reduced to--1st, high treason;
2nd, murder; 3rd, attempt to murder; 4th, burnings of buildings or
ships; 5th, piracy; 6th, burglary; 7th, robbery; 8th, rape. Arson,
piracy, burglary, and robbery were to be capital offences only when
committed under circumstances or accompanied by acts directly calculated
to endanger life. The setting fire to stacks would be no longer a
capital offence: the crime, his lordship said, was no doubt a heinous
one; but the severity of the punishment had the effect of deterring
prosecutions. On the secondary punishments which were to be substituted
for capital condemnation, Lord John Russell expressed considerable
doubt as to whether the present system of transportation ought to be
continued. In theory it seemed desirable to remove an offender to a
great distance fr