In India, offences decreased one-half in one year; in England they increased in five years at the enormous rate of upwards of a thousand per annum! When commencing these tables, I have shewn the number of persons sentenced to death and transportation, or imprisonment for life, by the Nizamut Adawlut; exile or incarceration sentences for seven years have thus decreased before this court. SENTENCES of SEVEN YEARS' TRANSPORTATION OF IMPRISONMENT by the NIZAMUT ADAWLUT. In 1825... 1826 1827 number 334 137 65 A decrease, after one year's interval, of two hundred and sixty-nine sentences! Another method exists for testing the efficacy of the police and of the laws, which is by looking at the returns of the higher classes of crime, whether murder or robbery with violence; I have therefore prepared this table to exhibit the result of two periods of two years each, and I would fain indulge the hope that the view these ta les, one and all, exhibit, will have some effect in England, by leading those who have heretofore opposed the abolition of capital punishment, to reflect seriously on the consequences of their perverseness. In the execution of the laws there ought to be no such hopes held out as those of clemency; the strictest justice is the greatest mercy, not only to the unfortunate individual but to society; if any think otherwise, let them peruse the convincing speeches of Lords Holland, Grey, and Grenville, in 1813; of the Duke of Sussex and Lord Brougham on the Forgery Bill just passed; of Dr. Lushington, Mr. Sidney Taylor, and many other enlightened individuals; and if these do not teach them the necessity of excluding circuitous virtue, or of legitimatizing" humanity they must possess incurably vicious, corrupt, or hardened 66 hearts. Under a mild and equitable system, murders with and without depredation decreased five hundred and seventysix on two years! If this argument be not adverse to the bloodthirsty Mosaic code which England has so long followed, I know not what is.* In the Western provinces the number of murders without depredation were— In 1818 and 1820. 1827 and 1828 Decrease number 496 number 241 Under an eternal hanging system, would such a diminution have taken place? Affrays with loss of life were, in the Western provinces,― In 1821 and 1823 1827 and 1828 Decrease number 232 number 114 • The number of persons charged with shooting at, stabbing, and poisoning with intent to kill, in England, have thus lamentably increased: In 1824 1827 numbers 21 65 A trebling in two years! Will nothing rouse the Legislature to a sense of what is due to the commonest rights of humanity? Mr. Robertson gives, in his pamphlet on the Civil Government of India, published in 1829, several tables to shew the decrease of crime. Gang-robberies were Will Mr. Rickards now be satisfied that his assertions, in this as in other instances, are not grounded on facts? Let us however proceed to a closer analytical comparison of crime in England and in the Lower and Western pro |