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  BLACKWOOD'S

  EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  No. CCCLVIII. AUGUST, 1845. VOL. LVIII.




  CONTENTS.


  ON PUNISHMENT.                                                     129

  PUSHKIN, THE RUSSIAN POET. CONCLUDED.                              140

  MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN. PART XVIII.               157

  A LETTER FROM LONDON. BY A RAILWAY WITNESS,                        173

  PRIESTS, WOMEN, AND FAMILIES,                                      185

  MY COLLEGE FRIENDS. NO. II.--HORACE LEICESTER,                     197

  ZUMALACARREGUI,                                                    210

  NORTH'S SPECIMENS OF THE BRITISH CRITICS. NO. VII.--MAC-FLECNOE
    AND THE DUNCIAD,                                                 229


EDINBURGH:

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS, 45, GEORGE STREET; AND 37, PATERNOSTER ROW,
LONDON.

_To whom all Communications (post paid) must be addressed._

SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND HUGHES, EDINBURGH.




  BLACKWOOD'S

  EDINBURGH MAGAZINE.

  No. CCCLVIII. AUGUST, 1845. VOL. LVIII.




ON PUNISHMENT.


How to punish crime, and in so doing reform the criminal; how to uphold
the man as a terror to evil-doers, and yet at the same time be
implanting in him the seeds of a future more happy and prosperous
life--this is perhaps the most difficult problem of legislation. We are
far from despairing of some approximation to a solution, which is the
utmost that can be looked for; but we are also convinced that even this
approximation will not be presented to us by those who seem willing to
blind themselves to the difficulties they have to contend with. Without,
therefore, assuming the air of opposition to the schemes of
philanthropic legislators, we would correct, so far as lies in our
power, some of those misconceptions and oversights which energetic
reformers are liable to fall into, whilst zealously bent on viewing
punishment in its reformatory aspect.

We have selected for our comments the pamphlets of Captain Maconochie,
not only because they illustrate the hasty and illogical reasonings, the
utter forgetfulness of elementary principles, into which such reformers
are apt to lapse; but also for the still better reason, that they
contain a suggestion of real value; a contribution towards an efficient
prison-discipline, which merits examination and an extensive trial. We
have added to these pamphlets a brief work of Zschokke's, the venerable
historian of Switzerland, on death-punishment, in order that we might
extend our observations over this topic also. It is evident that the
question of capital punishment, and the various questions relating to
prison discipline, embrace all that is either very interesting or very
important in the prevailing discussions on penal legislation.
Transportation forms no essentially distinct class of punishment, as the
transported convict differs from others in this only, that he has to
endure his sentence of personal restraint and compulsory labour in a
foreign climate.

Reformatory punishment! Alas, there is an incurable contradiction in the
very terms! Punishment is pain, is deprivation, despondency, affliction.
But, would you reform, you must apply kindness, and a measure of
prosperity, and a greater measure still of hope. There is no genial
influence in castigation. It may deter from the recommission of the
identical offence it visits, but no conversion, no renewal of the heart,
waits on its hostile presence; the disposition will remain the same,
with the addition of those angry sentiments which pain endured is sure
to generate. No philosopher or divine of these days would invent a
purgatory for the purifying of corrupted souls. No--he would say--your
purgatory may be a place of preparation if you will, but _not_ for
heaven. You may make devils there--nothing better; he must be already
twice a saint whom the smoke of your torments would not blacken to a
demon.

We may rest assured of this, that the actual infliction of the
punishment must always be an evil, as well to mind as body--as well to
society at large as to the culprit. If the threat alone could be
constantly efficacious--if the headlong obstinacy, the passion, and the
obtuseness of men would not oblige, from time to time, the execution of
the penalty, for the very purpose of sustaining the efficacy of the
threat--all would be well, and penal laws might be in full harmony with
the best educational institutions, and the highest interests of
humanity. But the moment the law from a threat becomes an act, and the
sentence goes forth, and the torture begins, a new but unavoidable train
of evils encounters us. There is war implanted in the very bosom of
society--hatred, and the giving and the sufferance of pain. And here, we
presume, is to be found the reason of the proverbially severe laws of
Draco, which, being instituted by a man of virtue and humanity, were yet
said to have been written in blood: he desired that the threat should be
effective, and that thus the evils of punishment, as well as of crime,
should be avoided.

Whatever is to be effected towards the genuine reformation of the
culprit, must be the result, not of the punishment itself, but of some
added ingredient, not of the essence of the punishment; as when hopes
are held out of reward, or part remission of the penalty, on the
practice of industry and a continuance of good behaviour.

And yet--some one may here object--we correct a child, we punish it, and
we reform. The very word correction has the double meaning of penalty
and amendment. If the plan succeeds so well with the infant, that he who
spares the rod is supposed to spoil the child, why should it utterly
fail with the adult? But mark the difference. You punish a child, and a
short while after you receive the little penitent back into your love;
nay, you caress it into penitence; and the reconcilement is so sweet,
that the infant culprit never, perhaps, has his affections so keenly
awakened as in these tearful moments of sorrow and forgiveness. The
heart is softer than ever, and the sense of shame at having offended is
kept sensitively alive. But if you withdrew your love--if, after
punishment inflicted, you still kept an averted countenance--if no
reconcilement were sought and fostered, there would be no reformation in
your chastisement. Between society and the adult culprit, this is
exactly the case. Here the hostile parent strikes, but makes no after
overture of kindness. The blow, and the bitterness of the blow, are left
unhealed. Nothing is done to take away the sting of anger, to keep the
heart tender to reproof, to prevent the growing callousness to shame,
and the rising rebellion of the spirit. And here reveals itself, in all
its force, another notorious difficulty with which the reformer of penal
codes has to contend.

In drawing the picture of the helpless condition of the convicted and
punished criminal, how often and how justly does he allude to the
circumstance, that the reputation of the man is so damaged that honest
people are loath to employ him--that his return to an untainted