and never went a murderer to his end with a more overwhelming terror. But be that as it may, the question is, how can murder be ade quately punished, when murder is thus added to another crime? If imprisonment is to be the ultimate sanction of law, all law is weakened, and society abdicates that power of protecting life, without which society must ultimately perish.

The latest of these instaces is a strong illustration on another point. The facts are too recent not to be familiar to most of our readers. And yet we must briefly state them that the point on which they bear may be clearly indicated. On a cold winter morning, early in 1845, a peaceful and respectable young man of the town of New Haven, who was not known to have an enemy in the world, was found murdered, frozen to the ground in his own blood, within a stone's throw of his father's dwelling. In a few hours, before the first shock of horror at the murder had passed by, the community was yet more astounded with the discovery, that the young man had been murdered by a most intimate friend for no other ends than to keep possession of a borrowed watch, and obtain the amount of a forged note at the settlement of his estate. Yet there was no mob-no demonstration of popular excitement-no manifestation of rage and horror. Why? Was that community deficient in sensibility? Did it estimate the life of a peaceful cit izen so lightly as not to feel the dreadfulness of the crime? No, the absence of tumult and popular rage can be ascribed to nothing else than the conviction on all minds that justice would be done by law. Had there been no law adequate to all the purposes of justice, or had there been no confidence in the administration of the law, the horror and wrath of the community would have found vent, and having found

vent would have kindled into fury. Of course, none can tell distinctly what would have been; but certainly, in the circumstances supposed, it would not have been strange if the murderer, torn from the feeble grasp of the pusillanimous law, had died that very day without law. We do not speak unadvisedly when we say that, fifteen months afterwards, when that murderer's petition for a commutation of punishment had just been rejected by the legislature, a gentleman who had been concerned in the management of the case was surprised to learn that, had that petition been granted, the criminal would not improbably have died by the hands of individual vengeance on his way to the penitentiary.

This is the point which this last case illustrates. Abolish capital punishment altogether, and by that very act you establish either the primeval barbarous rule of bloodrevenge by the next friend of the murdered, or a horrible Lynch court to take cognizance of crimes peculiarly atrocious. In other words, if the magistrate lays down the sword or bears it in vain--if the state, as such, abdicates its proper function of maintaining justice by penalties adequate to the protection of life, society itself, by an irresistible tendency, begins to be disor ganized.

It is to be expected that in some at least of the United States, the entire abolition of capital punishment will be carried, and that the exper iment will be made of laws with no ultimate sanction beyond imprisonment. Such an experiment may continue for a while, it may continue for a whole generation, or even longer. But sooner or later it will be seen that law has lost its majesty; that the state has lost its hold upon the love, the confidence, and the reverence of the individual citizen; and that the people have lost their loyalty. It will be seen that the idea

of punishment by the administration of law has passed away; and the vindictive impulses of individuals and of masses, no longer repressed by the majestic presence of protect ing and avenging law, will break out in bloody violence. One act of violence will provoke another; and blood will answer to blood. By the practice of individual vengeance, and by the dreadful dispensations of Lynch court justice, the people will

New Haven.

be trained more and more to habits of ferocity. Thus the progress of demoralization and barbarism will go on, till the people, wearied of anarchy and of a state disorganized, shall restore to law its majesty, by restoring to government its power of protection and of punishment. Happy will it be, if the people shall be wise enough to learn the lesson by a brief experience.

L. B.

SINCE our last number appeared, three events of more than common moment have been announced in this country. We refer to the death of Gregory XVI, and the election of a new Pope; to the final adjust ment of the dispute respecting the Oregon territory; and to the passage of a new revenue bill by the British Parliament, according to the provisions of which the duties on imported grains will be within a very few years so slight as to change essentially the policy of that country.

The election of a new Pope has been followed by indications of a more liberal policy. The government of Rome has shown an inclination, by pardoning political criminals, to restore peace to the state; and by encouraging ways of communication, to develope the resour. ces of that unnecessarily poor and depressed country. The new sovereign has the advantage, from his comparative youth, of growing up amid the ideas of an age which even in Italy, calls loudly for reforms; and from his birth-place on the Adriatic, that of a connection with the most disaffected and revolutionary portion of the ecclesiastical state. The territory on the Adriatic belonging to this state, is at once the most valuable part of its possessions,

and the hardest to govern. It was, we believe, the last to come under the temporal dominion of the Popes, and therefore retains, in many of its cities, the historical traditions of a time of greater liberty. It is also locally severed from the city of the Pope by a great mountain barrier, so that naturally, it would fall quite as well to the share of Tuscany, or of Austria, as to that of Rome. Its intellectual freedom, again, has never been entirely subdued; the university of Bologna, although shorn of some of its medieval celebrity, can not fail to produce a state of things in which many will think for themselves. Its inhabitants too, must contrast the bad government under which they live, greatly to its disadvantage, with the enlightened one of Tuscany, or even with the strict but less anile despotism of Lombardy. For these reasons and others it is, that when murmurs of an outbreak reach the Pope's ear,-perhaps while his people are robing him for gorgeous display in St. Peter's, or after he recov ers from the surprise of seeing Protestant Americans kiss his slipper at a ceremony of introduction,-he looks with dread towards the eastern sky, and puts no faith in any other power except that of the four thousand troops in Bologna, the Roman

and Austrian garrisons in Ferrara, or some other of the military bodies stationed on the Adriatic coast. The last of these outbreaks took place, if we remember aright, in the summer of 1845, principally at Rimini, and was a miserable effort of a few desperate men to attain to blessings which are quite beyond their reach. We venture not to prophecy whether the dawn of a new policy at Rome will be followed by a brighter day; or whether a party opposed to progress, foreseeing that extensive reforms may shake the Catholic church, will gain the ascendancy, and bring thick darkness anew over the states of the church. The turn of things in a land where all is at a low ebb, where there is a fear of change in the rulers, and no inoral strength in the people, can no more be foretold with precision, than the transformations of a fermenting mass of various materials can be foretold, or the heavings and states of quies cence of a volcano. But thus much we know, that the law of progress and reform, which is now abroad in Europe, must come in quietness or in violence to the Roman state, and that the more it is resisted the wilder it will move onward in the end.

The change of policy in Great Britain, is very remarkable on more than one account. A few active persons had for some years, through the agency of the Anti-Corn-law league, filled England with debates and meetings; and although evidently sincere in their convictions, were regarded by the conservative or tory party as the enemies of the country, and as aiming by the dangerous power of association to drive the government and the nation into its measures. On a sudden, the leader of the conservative party-a man without whom they could do nothing, and with whom they felt far from satisfied-avows his conversion to the system of free trade. The financial success of measures looking towards free trade, had for

some time shaken his faith in the policy of protection; and the potatorot, rendering it probably necessary to open the ports for foreign grain, would make it impossible to go backwards again into the system of restriction. "He opened, but to shut surpassed his power." So professed "So to feel the great financier, the man of all others most needed by a country with immense expenses and a tremendous debt; the organ of the aristocracy, yet bound by strong ties to the middle and especially to the manufacturing classes; the man who in his person concentrated the feelings and interests of all England. And when, after his resignation of office, succeeded by the abortive attempt to form a whig ministry, he was recalled to carry out these new measures, so odious to the great body of his party; and it was understood that the duke of Wellington would act with him, and that nearly all his old associates would retain office under him; it became manifest that the change of measures would be approved by many of the conservatives themselves, that Sir Robert Peel's personal friends and members of the party who had no decided opinions would go along with him, and that there would be a breach in the party, betokening its speedy downfall.

When the measures came before parliament, it became apparent how little talent there was in the large fraction of the conservatives who stuck to their old principles. Probably they despaired very soon of resisting the new bill with success in either house; at all events, like desperate men, they fell upon Sir Robert Peel more zealously than upon his proposition, and by reckless, envenomed ridicule, showed themselves more intent on vengeance than prevention. One thing is deserving of record in this place; we refer to the obloquy cast by this party on sundry of its members who had changed their minds as to the

corn-laws, and who would not resign to please their constituencies. This procedure verifies a remark which we made in the first volume of the New Englander, that the pernicious doctrine of instruction is in theory, just as much an aristocratic doctrine as a democratic one. Here we see the most aristocratic party in England trying to carry it out.

The debates on Sir Robert Peel's bill were unusually protracted. After passing the commons, it came in May before the lords. The discussion there was characterized by no more ability on the part of the conservatives than in the house of commons, if we except the speech of Lord Stanley, who may be regarded as the first man of that party. In one point of view, the way in which they managed the subject did injury to their cause. They could not conceal the fact, that it was the interests of the great land holders, rather than those of the nation, which lay most on their minds; this peeped through their speeches, although they covered it up as well as they could with apprehensions for the welfare of the tenantry now exposed to hazard. The close of the first debate in the house of lords was particularly memorable. The Duke of Wellington, without condescending to offer a single argument upon the merits of the bill, told the peers of the realm that "the measure had been agreed to by the two other branches of the legislature," and that if they undertook to oppose it they must bethink themselves "that they would take a position on which they could not stand, on which they could do nothing."

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He then went on to say, you have great influence on public opinion; men have great confidence in your judgment; but separately from the crown, and the house of commons, you can do nothing; and if you break your connexion with the crown and the house of commons, you will then put an

end to the functions of the house of lords." A most significant sugges tion and one full of wisdom, although certainly not touching the moral responsibility of the house as a body of legislators. For although the house of lords can defeat measures of minor importance, and can delay those of greater, they are, in the present state of England, powerless to resist for a long time radical changes demanded by the people. On the one hand, the ministry by the creation of a new batch of peers could swamp the house, as it is termed,--although doubtless this would be done with extreme reluctance ;-and on the other, if worst came to worst, they could no more subsist as an independent branch of the legisla ture, fighting against the wishes of the country, than they did during the civil wars. They know this well, and will yield always when a struggle comes.

After carrying this bill, Sir Robert Peel, feeling his position to be an unpleasant and an unnatural one, took advantage of a defeat upon a stringent bill relating to Ireland, to retire, and was succeeded by a whig ministry. He seems to have delay. ed announcing the resignation of the ministers a day or two, in order that the expected Oregon treaty might reach England. His farewell speech by the help of this news, shed a brilliant light on his administration. The furnisher of cheap bread to myriads of half starved workmen, he had now negotiated a peace on honorable terms for his country, with another country, which helped those workmen to live by what it gave and what it took; and two Christian nations were prevented from running to arms by a wise moderation, half the merit of which, to say the least, must fall to the share of the Peel ministry. The tone of frank manly sincerity and the Christian opinions of his speech were such as we wish we could see frequently displayed in our Congress.

We have one or two remarks to make upon these measures of the late British ministry and the indications attending them. And 1. This must be regarded as an era, the beginning of a new policy. And by this we do not mean, that it is an era in such a sense as to amount to a revolution, but only that the great. ness of the change causes it to stand out more prominently than any measure of modern times in England, except the reform bill, and that it involves the necessity of further progress. So much of an era is it, that its effect on parties is almost revolutionary. It has apparently so broken up the old tory party that it can never coalesce anew; other forms of party may arise, but this seems to be self-destroyed. It is an era too, as disclosing to the high aristocracy that they are no longer the ruling element of England. It is true that the aristocracy were divided upon the corn-laws, and that some of the greatest land holders were in favor of the new bill. But it is true also that their interests were peculiarly involved and exposed to hazard; and that many who voted against the instinctive principles of their order, did so because they saw that opposition would in the end be unavailing, or because they hoped to gain more by the general prosperity of the country than they lost by a sacrifice of private interests. The success of Sir Robert Peel's bill therefore shows that the public opinion of the aristocracy can not be united as against that of the rest of the country, but is gradually becoming absorbed in the public opinion of Great Britain. We say the public opinion of Great Britain, because undoubtedly the anti-cornlaw league would have shot useless arrows, if the thinking men of the nation, who kept aloof from the league, had not felt that a change was called for. And here we will just hint at the gratifying fact, that

this public opinion, in public or private ways, is at work to relieve the sufferings and raise the condition of the lower classes; and that sympathy for the poor was one of the causes which procured for Sir Robert Peel's bill its success. Never probably did the wise and rich of Great Britain feel so much their obligation to help their poor and ignorant countrymen; never did the upper classes stand forth so decidedly on Christian principles as the benefactors of the lower.

2. We add the remark, that the new policy introduced by this bill, must have a great effect, of some kind or other, upon the state of the world. We will not venture to predict what will be the result. It may be that by taking the bread-stuffs of other nations, Great Britain will persuade them to use her manufactures in exchange, and that thus what has been called her vocation

to spin cotton-will be more completely fulfilled. It may be that as population increases, and with it the supply of operatives, wages will still diminish, while the working classes will be enabled to keep alive by the diminished cost of bread; and that thus foreign competitors will be distanced in the race of cheap prices for goods. It is possible, too, that a part of the agricultural laborers of England will sink lower in the scale of poverty, in consequence of the alteration of the laws. We will not express an opinion upon these points. But to one thing in which our own country may become invol ved, we will allude. The change from a policy under which the colonies of England enjoyed great protection for what they raised, to one which places them almost on a level with aliens, must have some influence in weakening the ties between the English provinces upon our frontier and the mother country. This result was predicted by Lord Stanley in his speech, and immediately afterwards came a protest from