For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.

T. M.

Dec. 3. 1849.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS-EXECUTION OF MARGARET HAMILTON AT GLASGOW.

On the 4th December last we submitted to our readers an article on capital punishments, in connection with the trial and execution of the Mannings; and on the calmest and most careful review of our published sentiments, we find nothing which we could conscientiously alter, or retract, or modify. We have, moreover, looked again into some of those assumed great authorities on the subject of criminal jurisprudence which are referred to by zealous inquirers, and perceive them to be so barren of all truthful principle, that we restore them to their dusty shelves, with a firm determination to repair to those dead oracles no more. The real guiltiness of crime, and the just appropriation of punishment, are themes utterly beyond the comprehension of fallen human nature; for the blindness and corrupt confusion of the intellectual powers are the universal consequences of sin, so as to destroy all pure perception of the demerit of evil, or the proper penalties which should attach to it. To make it manifest, however, that the world's wickedness shall not be increased by open impunity, it hath pleased God to appoint Law to be the means of denoting crime, and of affixing punishment. And this is the sole intent and object of all law; and when laws cease to be penal, they are nothing—for all good must come to man through the gospel. As we write in a land where the sacred scriptures are still held in reverence, we may refer men of understanding to the solemn declaration of the inspired Apostle, recorded for unfailing instruction. Knowing, saith the spirit by Paul, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane; and then follows an enumeration of transgressions, which, if examined, will be found completely conformable with the denunciations of the decalogue. Here, then, we have the divine doctrine of crime and punishment; and all departures from the simplicity of scripture will only entangle wretched mortals in inextricable error.

Human laws framed by fallible men will, of

course, evince the taint of sinful imperfection; but this radical weakness of our nature cannot impair the original sanction stamped upon the punishment of crime, where that crime is clearly defined and fully proved. But what is popularly termed the "spirit of the age," scornfully rejects all guidance from the Word of God, when the severities of justice clash with the dictates of an overstrained sensibility. The letter of a London correspondent, which will be found in another part of our journal, affords an important illustration of our remarks. The writer is a person of high literary repute, much versatility of talent, and capable of judging correctly upon all themes which belong to that part of society where the criminal code is not called into penal exercise. A London literary life has undoubtedly its agremens; but we are not disposed to consider the chatty coteries of the metropolis as teeming with sages qualified to reverse all the commandments; which, in fact, constitute the practical wisdom and safety of mankind. Just think of Mr Charles Dickens joining the mob of London rascaldom, plying their trade of evil on the night previous to the execution of the Mannings; and then rushing home to indite a lacrymose letter to the Times in favour of private hanging! His feelings were, it seems, so excoriated by the want of delicate susceptibility on the part of the pickpockets and harlots of the modern Babylon, that nothing can soothe the biographer of Oliver Twist but the quiet strangulation of offenders within the walls of a jail! We showed, on a former occasion, that publicity is a part, and a most proper part, of capital punishment―quite irrespective of any presumed example to be reached to the spectators of an execution; but we may also reasonably and confidently allege, that public executions afford a guarantee against tyrannical injustice. The Scriptures, which contain treasures of truth, shedding the light of certainty upon every subject, supply us with special instruction on this very point. Herod was desirous of putting John the Baptist to a public death, and the only restraint upon the tyrant's cruelty was, that he feared the multitude; but, when overcome by the wicked importunity of the daughter of Herodias, he consented to the death of John; he sent an executioner who went and beheaded him in prison. The historical epochs of darkest despotism abounded in such clandestine atrocities; and our English and Scottish annals are full of prison murders perpetrated by royal command, and sometimes inflicted upon royalty.

But our clever London correspondent assumes a position of nonacquaintance with the subject, which, in despite of eloquent enthusiasm, negatives the writer's claims to be considered quite oracular. "The justice of Margaret Lennox's conviction I do not pretend to argue. I have never read her trial, and am unacquainted with the particulars of her crime." That our epistolary friend may be a little enlightened on these points, we would just throw in a hint that Margaret Lennox was convicted, upon the clearest evidence, of having administered as much arsenic as would have destroyed an elephant, to a poor young woman, whose money she thereby possessed herself of. Until the "new morality" is in full systematic vogue, so as to extirpate all existing criminal codes, such a malefactor as this must be adjudged to die; and death upon the scaffold, by the hands of the public executioner, is the proper, fitting penalty for such enormous guilt.

Oh no! exclaims our state sentimentalist, are we to stain our annals of jurisprudence with details such as these?" and then the details are copied and reprinted. Now in our humble apprehension the delinquent party who laboured under "stain," was the murderer Margaret Hamilton; and the only stain which could have visited our jurisprudence, would have been leaving the wretched woman unconvicted, and consequently unhanged! It may seem a very stern proposition to Quakers, Pickwickian philosophers, and the school of social optimists who eke out creeds and codes from Goethe's Faust or Schiller's Robbers, but it is, nevertheless, eternally true, that capital crimes demand capital punishments. The whole drift of the present petty clamour against sentences and executions is to destroy the distinctions between right and wrong, as they are immutably laid down in God's Word, and innately implanted in man's conscience. As to the behaviour of a mob congregated in a populous city to behold a public spectacle; it is an incident connected with any exciting display, to which numbers of idle people have access. That the presence of a crowd is an indirect part of the punishment, may be inferred from the last recorded request of Maria Manning. The wicked woman, though persisting in a desperate denial of her proved guilt, and ready to rush with a lie in her mouth into the awful presence of God the Judge of all, shrank from an ocular encounter with the gaze of a multitude, and asked to have her eyes covered with a silken scarf of her own providing!

The remarks of " Mercy and Justice" lead us to question if the the writer clearly apprehends the meaning of the words seized on as a signature. The mercy of the gospel cannot be righteously extended so as to render void the temporal sentence on transgressors of the law. In answer to the supposition of the writer as to how Jesus of Nazareth would have acted had our divine Lord stood among the thirty thousand witnesses of the execution at Glasgow? -we reverently say, just as he acted in the very case adduced from the Scriptures. For, on referring to John viii. 10., it will be seen that Jesus said unto the woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? Howsoever strong her guilt might have been, the adulteress had not been lawfully condemned by a formal adjudication; and therefore our Saviour was not interfering with the administration of human justice-which Christ never did and which well instructed Christians will never attempt to do, on pleas unsanctioned by their great Head. The thief, it may be added, was pardoned on the cross; but the promise of Paradise was not accompanied with deliverance from penal death. Our correspondent, like many other erring zealots, is quite mistaken in assuming that "punishment inflicted by the hand of man, should be inflicted for the amendment of the guilty;" we on the contrary affirm, that all lawful punishment is the assigned and meet recompense for wilful transgression of the law itself; and that the law worketh wrath, without contemplating reformation— which, whenever it takes place, is effected exclusively and sovereignly through the grace of Christ's Gospel-by the divine agency of Faith. In conclusion, we would notice the inconsistency of pleading against capital punishments on the score of cutting short human life; and yet indulging in wholesale clemency towards murderers, who it seems may destroy their victims with impunity! Truly, false knowledge breeds more rampant error, than ever sprang from mere ignorance.

THE ARMY ESTIMATES-DOES GREAT BRITAIN REQUIRE 100,000 SOLDIERS?

Mr Fox Maule, the very efficient Secretary at War, hast just made the annual statement regarding the cost of the British army, which may be shortly summed up in the following figures. It is

proposed to apply to the effective service £3,936,582, which will defray the expense of 59,398 men upon home service, and 39,730 men upon the colonial service. The cost of the non-effective service consists in half-pay, allowances, &c., and amounts to £2,682,815. The details were given with much minuteness and considerable clearness by Mr. F. Maule, who seemed to be chiefly intent upon propitiating Mr Cobden, the great champion of unsparing retrenchment. A discussion followed, in which the usual arguments were testily put forward in favour of reductions, but which we do not deem of much value. Items of expenditure are commented upon according to the peculiar crotchets of the objecting party; but as for comprehensive views, or useful suggestions, no such contributions to the public stock of knowledge must be looked for from the small talkers and dull debaters, who constitute the "collective wisdom" of the greatest empire under the sun.

But there is mind in exercise outside the walls of Parliament which will make its power known; and perhaps with more benefit to the public weal, than all the snip-snap of would-be statesmen, and babbling legislators. The feebleness; the inconsistency; the shuffling tergiversation which mark the career of our prominent political leaders, deprive them of national confidence; while they show the emptiness of party professions, and the vileness of pretended patriotism. One of the palpable perils of our days, is the imbecility of governments. There is nowhere to be seen anything like commanding energy on the part of ostensible rulers, who vacillate between adherence to old abuses, and a truckling subserviency to popular movements. The consequence is that we behold neither just authority nor willing subjection. Real reforms are out of question; for these can only emanate from an upright executive, never from the turbulent impulses of the people. Year after year the pressure of unjustifiable public burdens, not only irritates and impoverishes the masses; but it corrupts the upper orders of society, who profit by the lavishnes of the State. To a certain extent this has been true of all the communities of Christendom for long ages; but then there is an element of danger in the present condition of things which was unknown to our ancestors. Until the French revolution, political changes arose from the shiftings of power in high places; but for the last fifty years, the disturbance of social order has begun below. All democratic demolition of old institutions has failed to improve society;