Each of the principal departments of instruc
tion is gradually gathering the nucleus of a depart
ment library, consisting only of such books as are
most needed in connection with the actual instruc
tion or practicum work of the department. Be
sides this a system of transfers has already been
begun, by which special classes of books may be
transferred, for limited periods, from the main
library to the departments.
SHOULD CAPITAL PUNISHMENT BE
ABOLISHED ?
(continued.)
We are now prepared to investigate the effec
tiveness of the death penalty as a preventive of
crimes, realizing that upon the issue of this inves
tigation depends the fate of the whole question.
Mr. Buckley, in the same article before quoted
from, also says that the sole object of any punish
ment of criminals is the prevention of crime, and
names three, conditions that must be fulfilled in
order that this object may be attained, viz : re
straining the criminal from further crime, reform
ing him, if possible, and warning others by his
fate. The first two conditions manifestly have
little to do with the present question, while upon
the third, that the fate of the criminal should be a
warning to others and hence restrain from crime
through fear, is based nearly all the serious argu
ment of our opponents. To that, then, we must
turn and examine it with the utmost care.
It is assumed by the advocates of the death pen
alty that the more severe the penalty prescribed by
law, the more effective will be the warning to oth
ers ; and that the enormity of the crime or crimes
for which the life of the criminal is demanded is
such as to justify the severity of the punishment.
In controverting this position I will first observe
that the certainty or uncertainty of punishment is
of more weight in making the warning effective
than severity or mildness of the penalty itself; for
it is a well known fact that most men are disposed
THE FREE LANCE.
to look on the sunny side of life and to believe
that they will be the fortunate ones to escape mis
fortune or to gain a coveted prize, whenever there
is any chance involved. This fact .is well illus
trated by the wonderful success of all kinds of
lotteries and chance schemes, although the proba
bility is always some greater (and generally much
greater) that one will lose than gain in the cast
of the die or turn of the wheel. It is only when
there is absolute certainty that men will cease to
be warped by this trait. While it is true that ab
solute certainty of punishment for any offense can
not be secured, yet there is possible a great im
provement in this respect as well as in the dis
patch with which convictions are made, which
would have a wholesome influence on crime so far
as mere penal methods can have influence. And
I am convinced that the disuse of the death penalty
would materially assist in making conviction more
certain and speedy than at present in the same
class of offenses; and therefore it would tend to
ward making the fate of the criminal a more ef
fective, rather than less effective warning. To
pass sentence of death upon a fellow-being
is such a serious matter, that it is often difficult,
and many times impossible, to secure conviction
where there would be no hesitancy on the part of
the jury if the punishment were merely life im
prisonment. When the English law punished
with death the crime of house-breaking and steal
ing forty shillings or more, it became a common
occurrence for a jury to bring in the verdict
“guilty of house-breaking and stealing thirty-nine
shillings,” even when the amount stolen had been
proved by unimpeachable evidence to have been
many times that sum. And when the amount
stolen, to require the death penalty, was raised to
five pounds, the verdicts would read “four pounds,
nineteen shillings” whatever the actual value
taken. If it be said that in these cases the penalty
was so much out of proportion to the crime that
the juries quite properly refused to expose the
thief to the gallows, it must also be remembered
that there is now a fast growing sentiment that the