to the general alarm excited by it in others, and to the consequences which may attend future attempts of the same kind. Of frauds or of injuries which are effected without force, the most noxious kinds are forgeries, counterfeiting or diminishing the coin, and the stealing of letters in the course of their conveyance; inasmuch as these practices tend to deprive the public of accommodations, which not only improve the conveniences of social life, but are essential to the prosperity, and even the existence, of commerce. Of these crimes it may be said, that although they seem to affect property alone, the mischief of their operation does not terminate there. For let it be supposed, that the remissness or lenity of the laws should in any country suffer offences of this sort to grow into such a frequency, as to render the use of money, the circulation of bills, or the public conveyance of letters no longer safe or practicable; what would follow, but that every species of trade and of activity must decline under these discouragements; the sources of subsistence fail, by which the inhabitants of the country are supported; the country itself, where the intercourse of civil life was so endangered and defective, be deserted: and that, beside the distress and poverty which the loss of employment would produce to the industrious and valuable part of the existing community, a rapid depopulation must take place, each execution becoming less numerous than the last, till solitude and barrenness overspread the land: until a desolation similar to what obtains in many countries of Asia, which were once the most civilized and frequented parts of the world, succeed in the place of crowded cities, of cultivated fields, of happy and well-peopled regions. When we carry therefore forwards our views to the more distant, but not less certain consequences of these crimes, we perceive that, although no living creature be destroyed by them, yet human life is diminished; that an offence, the particular consequence of which deprives only an individual of a small portion of his prosperity, and which even in its general tendency seems to do nothing more than to obstruct the enjoyment of certain public conveniences, may nevertheless, by its alternate effects, conclude in the laying waste of human existence. This observation will enable those who regard the divine rule of "life for life," and "blood for blood," as the only authorized and justifiable measure of capital punishment, to perceive, with respect to the quality and effects of the actions, a greater resemblance than they suppose to exist between certain atrocious frauds, and those crimes which attack personal safety. In the case of forgeries, there appears a substantial difference between the forging of bills of exchange, or of securities which are circulated, and of which the circulation and currency are found to serve and facilitate valuable purposes of commerce; and the forging of bonds, leases, mortgages, or of instruments which are not commonly transferred from one hand to another; because, in the former case, credit is necessarily given to the signature; and, without that credit, the negotiation of such property could not be carried on, nor the public utility sought from it, be attained; in the other case, all possibility of deceit might be precluded, by a direct communication between the parties, or by due care in. the choice of their agents, with little interruption to business, and without destroying or much encumbering the uses for which these instruments are calculated. This destruction I apprehend to be not only real, but precise enough to afford a line of division between forgeries, which, as the law now stands, are almost universally capital, and punished with undistinguishing severity. (Paley's Moral Philosophy.) D2 BARON MONTESQUIEU. PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1750. OF THE SEVERITY OF PUNISHMENTS IN DIFFERENT GOVERNMENTS.* THE severity of punishments is fitter for despotic governments, whose principle is terror, than for a monarchy, or a republic, whose spring is honor and virtue. In moderate governments, the love of one's country, shame, and the fear of blame, are restraining motives, capable of preventing a multitude of crimes. Here the greatest punishment of a bad action is conviction. The civil laws have therefore a softer way of correcting, and do not require so much force and severity. In those states, a good legislator is less bent upon punishing, than preventing crimes; he is more attentive to inspire good morals, than to inflict penalties. It is a constant remark of the Chinese authors, that the more the penal laws were increased in their empire, the nearer they drew towards a revolution. This is because punishments were augmented, in proportion as the public morals were corrupted. * Chap. ix. It would be an easy matter to prove, that in all, or almost all the governments of Europe, penalties have increased or diminished, in proportion as those governments favoured or discouraged liberty. OF THE POWER OF PUNISHMENTS.* EXPERIENCE shews, that in countries remarkable for the lenity of their laws, the spirit of the inhabitants is as much affected by slight penalties, as in other countries by severer punish ments. If an inconvenience or abuse arises in the state, a violent government endeavours suddenly to redress it; and instead of putting the old laws in execution, it establishes some cruel punishment which instantly puts a stop to the evil. But the spring of government hereby loses its elasticity; the imagination grows accustomed to the severe as well as the milder punishment; and as the fear of the latter diminishes, they are soon obliged in every case to have recourse to the former. Robberies on the high-way were grown common in some countries; in order to remedy this evil, they invented the punishment of breaking upon the wheel, the terror of which put a stop for a while to this mischievous practice. But soon after, robberies on the high-ways became as common as ever. Desertion in our days was grown to a very great height; in consequence of which it was judged proper to punish those delinquents with death; and yet their number did not diminish. ۱ * Chap. xii. The reason is very natural; a soldier accustomed to venture his life, despises, or affects to despise, the danger of losing it. He is habituated to the fear of shame; it would have been therefore much better to have continued a punishment*, which branded him with infamy for life; the penalty was pretended to be increased, while it really diminished. Mankind must not be governed with too much severity; we ought to make a prudent use of the means which nature has given us to conduct them. If we inquire into the cause of all human corruptions, we shall find that they proceed from the impunity of criminals, and not from the moderation of punish ments. Let us follow nature, who has given shame to man for his scourge; and let the heaviest part of the punishment be the infamy attending it. But if there be some countries where shame is not a consequence of punishment, this must be owing to tyranny, which has inflicted the same penalties on villains and honest men. And if there are others where men are deterred only by cruel punishments, we may be sure that this must, in a great measure arise, from the violence of the government, which has used such penalties for slight transgressions. It often happens that a legislator, desirous of remedying an abuse, thinks of nothing else; his eyes are open only to this object, and shut to its inconveniences. When the abuse is redressed, you see only the severity of the legislator; yet there * They slit his nose, or cut off his ears. |