of 16 years; which will be long enough, we should imagine, for the most fastidious.

We will take the thirty-two years ending 1842, (London and Middlesex,) and dividing this period into two periods of sixteen years each, we get the following striking result:-In the first 16 years, all who were convicted of murder, 34 in number, were executed. The rulers of the time proclaimed that no mercy whatever should be shown to the murderer: that if convicted, he should inevitably be hanged. Well, notwithstanding this inexorable rigour, 188 murders were committed during this period. In the second period, clemency began to prevail: and during the sixteen years of the experiment, out of 27 persons convicted, only 17 were hanged; and yet there were but 90 persons committed for murder, during the whole period. With only 62 per cent. of executions, instead of 100 per cent., the crime decreased more than one half!

We will take another illustration of our position, from the same Parliamentary Return (No. 618, session 1843). The years 1815, 1817, 1818, and 1829, witnessed the execution of all who were convicted of murder in England and Wales; sixtysix in number; and in the four years immediately following these years, the crime of murder increased 12 per cent. In the years 1836, 1838, 1840, and 1842, only thirty-one were executed out of eighty-three condemned; and in the years succeeding these, the crime diminished 17 per cent. Thus, when you hang all without mercy, you increase crime; when you save above half, you materially lessen it.

From the same source we gather the following even more striking result. 1. In the years, from 1834 to 1841, (inclusive) in the counties where all who were convicted of murder were executed, the number of murders remained in the following years as nearly as possible the same. 2. In the counties where commutations of the extreme penalty took place (during the same period), the years following exhibited a diminution of 35 per cent. 3. In the counties where a large proportion of the persons committed were acquitted on the ground of insanity, the commitments decreased in the succeeding years 32 per cent. And 4. In the counties were there were commitments, and no convictions at all, the commitments in the following years were fewer by 23 per cent. Thus,' says a commentator on these returns, it appears, on the authority of these official tables, that the crime of murder flourishes most under a system of invariable executions; that it prospers more then, than when the mercy of the crown interposes with commutations of sentence; that it prospers more than under acquittals on the ground of insanity; and lastly, that it even thrives better than

under a total failure of justice, through the acquittal of all who stand charged with the crime.'

To the foregoing statements we add but one more fact, and it clenches and confirms every argument we have used on the subject. In the three consecutive years-1834, 1835, and 1836, no executions whatever took place in England and Wales, and these were the only years in which no conviction for murder took place in this country. For this fact we are indebted to the Parliamentary Return, No. 21, printed in 1846.

May we not now safely say, in the words of one of the writers before us, 'The times are rapidly approaching, when the gallows will be viewed in its true character, as a gross political blunder: and this is the charge on which the punishment of death must stand convicted at the bar of reason—that it is in itself a cause of the commission of murder; that it increases the exposure of every innocent man in the country to the arm of the assassin ; that it defeats the end it was intended to advance, and promotes the very crime it is inflicted to repress!"

But we must hasten to conclude. We have treated at such length the facts connected with our question, that we have left ourselves no room to consider its philosophy. For full and convincing expositions of this branch of the subject, however, we may direct the reader to the various works named at the head of our two articles, especially to the productions of Lord Nugent, Mr. Dickens, the Rev. Mr. Christmas, Mr. Cooper, and Mr. Rowton. We will content ourselves, therefore, with one or two brief observations on the general question, and then bring these remarks to an end.

We have charged the gallows with increasing the crimes it seeks to repress; and we have proved our point, by showing that crime advances or diminishes just as the penalty of death is more or less employed; and that when it is not employed at all, crime falls to its minimum. If we are asked to account for these facts, we reply that we find a full explanation of them in the nature of the punishment itself. By invading life, it teaches disregard for life; by furnishing an example of brutal violence, it calls forth the violent passions of the people; by preaching the doctrine of life for life,' it inculcates the unchristian principles of retaliation and revenge. The public infliction of death further demoralizes the community, by collecting to its murderous exhibitions crowds of the most vile and mischievous members of the state; who find a horrid pleasure in the spectacle, and go from it to scenes of drunkenness, riot, and debauchery, to plot new wickedness of every kind. Capital penalties deprave the moral sense, also, by asserting in effect the dangerous and frightful doctrine, that mercy may be dispensed

with as an element of human punishment. There are other grounds, and very important ones, for affirming that the pain of death is inexpedient. It often destroys the innocent, a charge to which no other punishment is liable; it corrupts the source of justice the judgment-seat, the jury-box, the public-by leaving the decision upon a murderer's guilt to the issue of a doubtful struggle, between the feelings of humanity and the sense of public duty; and by its necessarily uncertain operation, it excites in the breast of criminals those hopes of impunity which it should be the great object of all governments to preclude. Beyond all this, we regard the gallows as founded on a fallacy. It is based upon man's supposed fear of death; a fear which, however universal in the abstract, is utterly unrealizable by the mind; a fear which has obviously been despised by every criminal who has been hanged; a fear of which men think so lightly, that they will encounter it for honour, for glory, for sport, nay, even for hire; a fear concerning which Lord Bacon most truly says:-'There is no passion in the mind of man so weak, but it mates and masters the fear of death.'

What more need we say? Every branch of our inquiry has led us to the same result, that 'all hanging is a bungle; and that the sooner we abolish the gallows the better. We will simply, then, invoke the strong voice of public determination in the matter; and conclude by avowing our firm belief, that with that powerful will once fairly and fully expressed, the rotting timbers of the gibbet will before long crumble utterly into dust, and be remembered only as 'the moral wonder' of a barbarous age, disgraceful and degrading to the generations which endured it.

ART. II.-Five Years in Kaffirland: with Sketches of the late War in that Country, to the Conclusion of Peace. Written on the spot, by Harriet Ward. London: Colborn. 1848.

THE chief interest of these volumes is centred in the narrative of passing events. Mrs. Ward's whole attention seems, in most instances, to have been rivetted on the exciting and novel scenes around her, so that her mind occupied itself but little with observing the national characteristics of those races among whom she found herself for the time compelled to sojourn. She prefers dwelling on the various exciting incidents which marked a campaign into the wilds of a country inhabited by barbarous tribes of men, to sketching the manners, habits, and modes of life obtaining among those tribes. Her fancy delights

in stirring the reader's imagination with vivid descriptions of battles, pursuits, and escapes; of sudden alarms and rapid marches; of midnight bivouacs, and wild adventures in the heart of a territory, swarming with a hostile population. And this circumstance serves to account for the comparatively small portion of her narrative, which Mrs. Ward devotes to the delineation of those features of savage life, which her experience rendered her so eminently fitted to describe. Perhaps, however, if our authoress had devoted those pages of her work, in which she indulges in speculations on colonial policy, on the delinquencies and remissness, the want of severity, the unseemly mildness of the Home Government,-if, we say, she had devoted those pages to the subjects above alluded to, the public would have read her work with much more profit, and doubtless very much more pleasure.

Yet, in saying this, we must not be understood to mean that the present volumes contain no valuable, no new, no curious information. On the contrary, as she hurries us with the rapidity of an able writer through the account of a succession of the most exciting events, our authoress allows us to catch, by the way, many interesting glimpses of the characteristic features of Kaffir life. Certainly, though we should at all times endeavour to learn as much as can be learnt of the manners and customs of barbarous nations, our curiosity is seldom powerfully excited by details concerning the tribes of Kaffirland. We meet among those races of men with little of that pleasant, childish simplicity, that trusting confidence in the stranger, that affection and willingness of disposition, which mark the character of so many other savage populations. The Hottentots, the Kaffirs, and the Fingos, bear, according to most accounts, more resemblance to the blood-thirsty and ferocious inhabitants of some of the districts of interior Australia, than to the ignorant, bead-hunting, though docile, and easily reclaimed, and easily taught Dyaks of Borneo, and the other islands of the Indian Archipelago, or the wild and uncultivated, but simple and confiding bushmen of some of the other provinces of the gigantic island of Australia.

Since the time of old Bartholomew Diaz, travellers have entered into much discussion concerning the character of these tribes. Dr. Sparrman describes them, and, we dare say, with much correctness, as neither very amiable nor very ferocious. Le Vaillant, however, seems to have been enraptured with them, while the venerable Jesuit Tackard, Lieut. Patterson, and Mr. Forster, all agree that they are a filthy people, but possessed of many good qualities, such as Mrs. Ward seldom allows them. We are inclined, therefore, to balance between

these varied accounts, and declare the Kaffirs to be, like most other nations, made up of the good and the bad. Certainly, much has been attempted to be done towards bringing them within the circle of civilization, and but comparatively little has resulted from these endeavours. But we have seldom founded a colony which has been the scene of so long and continued troubles as Kaffirland. Wars and dissensions have been the normal state of affairs, and now that there is some prospect of that territory being recognized in the great scheme of the world, as a place where commerce may flourish, and manufactures and the processes of agriculture may be carried on, undisturbed, we trust the change will soon be felt in the condition of things.

As to the policy which originated, and the plans pursued in the carrying out of the late Kaffir war, our readers are already acquainted with our opinions on these points. Suffice it here to say, that we rejoice at the termination of a campaign so harassing to all employed in its prosecution, and so utterly obstructive to the growth of trade, and the spread of civilization and Christianity in the wild provinces of Kaffirland. Our object in the present paper will rather be to present the reader with a succinct sketch of events and incidents, touching on the manners, character, and religion of the tribes mentioned in the course of the narrative.

Mrs. Ward left England in May, 1842, on board the 'Abercrombie Robinson,' troop ship, and paid, by the way, a visit to Madeira, a town which has been so continually described, that our authoress wisely abstains from making many remarks upon it. We have but a poor account of the comfort enjoyed on board the vessel, and Mrs. Ward seems to have no pleasant associations connected with it, for she hurries with rapidity over the voyage, and we catch sight of Table mountain almost before we fancy we have well cleared the view of Funchal.

But before landing on African ground, we must extract, as a specimen of the vigorous language in which the whole is written, a brief portion of Mrs. Ward's description of the wreck of the Abercrombie Robinson,' and 'Waterloo.' Towards evening of the 27th of August, while riding at anchor off Cape Town, a tremendous tempest arose, which drove the first named vessel from her holding ground, and carried her with impetuous swiftness over the waves, towards a most dangerous part of the shore. Our authoress says:

'I remember, at the height of the storm, when the noise of the thunder could scarcely be distinguished from the roar of the waters, and the torrents of rain,-when the elements, in fact, howled wildly and angrily at one another, when the lightning, pouring, as one may call it, on our