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He compared modes of execution at home and abroad, and he remarks, "An execution day is too much with us a day of riot and idleness; and it is found by experience that the minds of the populace are rather hardened by the spectacle than affected in any salutary manner." This conclusion, of late, I am thankful to remember, has been adopted by our legislators, and the horrid scenes witnessed once in front of Newgate executions are abolished. Howard seems to have preferred a private mode of putting criminals to death, and notices that at Aix-la-Chapelle decollation is concealed from the view of the public by a scaffolding round the spot where it is performed.1 Mr. Field, after quoting the sentence, adds this paragraph of his own :—

"The writer,”—who, as a gaol chaplain, may be cited as an authority on the subject,—“cannot forbear expressing an earnest hope that the day is not far distant when in his own country a somewhat similar plan shall be adopted, when the officers of justice alone shall witness the execution of the criminal; and, for the satisfaction of the community, a certain number of persons-perhaps two or three hundred— shall be allowed to see and sufficiently examine the corpse of the offender to identify his person and remove all doubt as to his death." 2 This sentence was written in 1850. It has carried with it public opinion; and now the chaplain's hope is fulfilled.

1 Life of Howard, p. 173.

2 Ibid., p. 174.

H

CHAPTER X.

LATER RESEARCHES.

1781-1783.

OWARD was exceedingly careful in the record

of facts, but he seems to have had little power of generalization; hence, in reading his voluminous reports, it is difficult to summarize the result of his inquiries. Here and there he makes a comprehensive remark, but, in most cases, he is content to note down measurements, rules, occupations, the state of health, and a number of sanitary facts. Therefore it is no easy task to give a compact yet complete view of his journeys; and now that I take up later expeditions, I am under the necessity of making a selection from a large mass of material.

The tour which began in May, 1781, and ended in December of the same year, was to the countries of Denmark, Sweden, and Russia, which he had not visited before. Passing through Holland and a part of Germany, he reached the city of Rendsburg, in the Duchy of Holstein, on the bank of the Eider. There he found seventy-seven slaves receiving their daily dole of bread whilst employed on fortifications that had stood many a siege. He calls attention to a

post at the entrance of the town, exhibiting the figure of a man with a sword by his side and a whip in his hand, premonitory of consequences attendant on crime; and to the strange sight of people, under the charge of an officer, walking through the streets encased in tubs, which covered their bodies, their heads projecting through a hole on the top, their legs moving through the open bottom; the contrivance being termed "a Spanish mantle." Gibbets and wheels used for executions were placed on eminences; but the common mode of putting criminals to death was beheading. Capital punishment, however, was rare in Denmark. Condemnation to the spinning houses seems to have been regarded as worse than death. Rooms in the citadel of Copenhagen were clean and whitewashed, and had chains. fixed to the walls; but in the Blue Tower, set apart for State prisoners, the dirtiness of the male wards contrasted with the cleanliness of the female ones. There were dungeons, however, which drew forth the exclamation, "The distress and despair in the pale and sickly countenances of these slaves were shocking to humanity." In walking to their work, prisoners, branded for their crimes, were chained hand to hand.

Crossing the Sound at Elsinore, which reminds one of Shakespere and Hamlet, Howard entered Sweden, and made some stay in Stockholm, with its picturesque streets alive with people, its waters alive with boats, and its bridges alive with traffic. Executions there were performed with an axe by a headsman; and women, after being beheaded, were burnt together with the scaffold, which was set on fire at the four corners. Torture had been abolished, but prisons

were dirty and offensive. Our philanthropist, with his own hand, distributed bread among starving prisoners, remarking that their punishment seemed severe, to which the gaoler replied, "It was good for their health." Coffins were kept ready for those who died; but the place of confinement reserved for the condemned seems to have been comparatively comfortable.

Howard found the Swedish houses generally neater than Danish ones; whence he inferred that he should find Swedish prisons also in better condition. This was not the case; and altogether Swedish travels gave him no satisfaction, personal inconvenience being added to his disappointments. He therefore gladly proceeded to Russia.

Russia was then the talk of Europe. It had not long emerged from barbarism, under the discipline of Peter the Great, yet it aspired to artistic refinement, under the profligate Empress Catherine, who had just purchased the Walpole collection of pictures to adorn her palace walls. Howard naturally felt some curiosity about an empire which made such a start in civilization; but especially, he wished to see what was the operation of its criminal laws, and the state of its criminal population. To escape observation-for he was now a famous man all over Europe-as he approached St. Petersburg, he stepped from his carriage, and walked into the city alone, wishing to remain unrecognised, and to examine prisons in their usual state, not as they might be specially prepared for inspection. The Empress heard of his arrival, and, whatever might be her motive, immediately invited him to Court. He replied that he had come to

visit prisons, not palaces. The Empress's character might have something to do with this curt reply; but probably, had she been as virtuous as she was base, he might have shrunk from a visit.

In his notes on Russia he is more concise and comprehensive than usual; therefore I cannot do better than use his own words.

"In Russia the peasants and servants are bondsmen or slaves, and their lords or masters may inflict on them any corporal punishment, or banish them to Siberia, on giving notice of their offences to the police. But they are not permitted to put them to death. Should they however die by the severity of their punishment, the penalty of the law is easily evaded.

"Debtors in this country are often employed as slaves by Government, and allowed twelve roubles yearly wages, which goes towards discharging the debt. In some cases of private debts, if any person will give sufficient security to pay twelve roubles a year as long as the slave lives, or till the debt is paid off-as also to produce the slave when he is demanded—such person may take him out of confinement; but if he fails to produce him when demanded, he is liable to pay the whole debt immediately.

"There are no regular gaolers appointed in Russia, but all the prisons are guarded by the military. Little or no attention is paid to the reformation of prisoners. There is no capital punishment for any crime but treason; but the common punishment of the knout is often dreaded more than death, and sometimes a criminal has endeavoured to bribe the executioner to kill him. This punishment seldom

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