David Sands to R. Jones and H. Cathrall. NEW CORNWALL, 10th of 9th mo. 1781. Dear Friends,-We read, as from the lips of our blessed Lord, that blessed are the poor in spirit. I have viewed you as a part of this number, who have your way through much poverty, and at times great tribulation, in which situation I can at present sympathise with you in some measure, I having been for some time past in rather a low spot; having had several poor turns as to my health, and I think I find myself under more weakness of body since I left Philadelphia than ever before; having been much of the time hardly able to sit a long meeting; and under these trials my mind seems to be stayed on the Lord, in hope that if it is his will that this earthen tabernacle should be dissolved, I shall, through the merits and mediation of a Redeemer, gain an admittance into those joys that are unspeakable and full of glory. I have had to remember you in much affection and nearness, and the many useful little hints you occasionally dropped in my hearing, as also the letters I received from you at the Western Quarter, and esteem your cares and kindness as the truest tokens of real friendship. I believe I should have written to you before now if I had been at home; .. but I thought at this time, duty and inclination joined in strengthening my hands to take up the pen and endeavour to make some small retaliation for the favours and kindness received; and withal, in hopes of drawing some small bill on one or both of your pens, as I shall, I believe, always be glad of a line from you whenever freedom and opportunity will admit, and shall endeavour to make the best remittance I am capable of, which is but small. I have looked at your situation as a life of care, and much exercise in your outward employment, as well as in your more public, and, what if I also say private labours; still I do believe it is by direction of best wisdom, and in providential care for the help and welfare of Friends in the city, both parents and children. Though I believe this favour, like many others, is too lightly thought of by some, yet I believe there is a remnant preserved in a living sense thereof, unto whom you are often made very near. And I have sometimes thought there is abundant cause for the honest hearted to be encouraged in hope, that though Israel be not gathered according to their desire, yet they are still glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and their God will be their strength. But notwithstanding what I have said, I don't mean to confine your labours within the walls of the city; believing that if I have to accuse

The sense in which this word is now generally used

of returning injury for injury, appears to be a modern application. Its original meaning is a return of like for like.-LED.

you of any neglect of duty, it is in not being more given up to visit the more remote parts of the family. And I may say, I have sometimes thought there appeared too many buts and ifs, and these I have feared were sometimes too much given way to, to the hindrance of some services that might prove advantageous to yourselves, and shall I say, to many of the sheep and lambs that the Master has ordered to be fed, I shall leave you to find or judge by whom.

Thus my dear friends and sisters, I shall conclude with desire for your prosperity every way, and remain your truly loving and affectionate friend, DAVID SANDS.

R. J. to Edward Cathrall. PHILADELPHIA, 7th mo. 25th, 1782. Dear Edward,-Since thou left thy father's house my mind has many times turned towards thee, sincerely desiring that thou mayst not only witness preservation from every temptation that may present to draw thee still further from the path of innocence, but that by a steady adherence to the quick and powerful WORD in the secret of thy own mind, thou mayst be brought into an acquaintance with a state of true inward stillness, in which thou mayst be favoured to understand the things that belong to thy soul's peacewhich is of the greatest consequence both to the aged and to the youth; especially when we consider that our stay in this world is very uncertain, and that, after we have done with things below, we must appear before a righteous tribunal, there to give an account of the deeds done in the body, whether good or evil. How careful then ought we to be in our steppings through time; how watchful should be our words and actions! Retirement of mind is such an excellent situa tion, (I have found it so,) that I cannot but recommend it to thee. Mayst thou often retire alone, and rather choose to be so, than in such company as may have a tendency to do thee hurt. Young people who are inexperienced, are often drawn into things highly improper, if not offensive, in the sight of heaven, for want of keeping on their guard in this very spot: whereas, if they did but love silence, and to hearken to the monitions of Divine grace in their own hearts, they would grow up in good liking, yea, in favour with God and man. My heart prays for thy preservation, and that thou mayst, now in a state of separation from all thy tender connections, be met with by Him who is willing to do them good, and who is waiting to be gracious to the descendants of those who have loved and served Him, as thy grand parents did.

Keep this letter to thyself, and read it over leisurely, it is the language of one of thy best

friends.

R. JONES.

with boldness, and while the log was being cut | 3d of Third month, a motion for the appointoff and split open, it loitered about the feet of ment of a committee on the criminal laws, was those present, in evident distress with an occasional piteous noise, disregarding the danger of the falling axe, under which it frequently passed into the log. When the log was opened, there were its bed and two young ones. When all were lifted out with care and laid down to her, she gathered one with her paws into a round bulk, seized the gathered part with her mouth, ascended the same tree she had previously gone up, and from its top again sailed off to another, and so on, until she had the young one safely deposited in a new home. She soon returned, and in like manner took away the other one to the same place. She seemed to lack, however, in calculation, and returning again, examined the place minutely; but finding no more of her progeny, she went the same direction and returned no more.-Ohio Picayune.

For Friends' Review.

LIFE OF THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON.

(Continued from page 788.)

We have seen in a former number, that upon T. F. Buxton's election to Parliament, a letter addressed to him by a particular friend and connection, suggested the propriety of devoting a large portion of his attention to the melioration of the penal code. This intimation had no doubt its influence on his feelings and conduct; and the attention which he had previously given to the discipline of prisons, could not fail to fix his reflections on the penalties, awarded by law, to the violators of the peace. The labours of his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Fry, to which he was no stranger, brought into frequent review the condition of persons, many of them females, who were condemned and executed, for offences which were the result of weakness and ignorance, rather than deep seated depravity. For gery, and the passing of forged notes, subjected the offender to capital punishment, and it is stated, that when Buxton entered upon his parliamentary labours, no fewer than two hundred and thirty offences were punishable with death. Sir Samuel Romilly had, ten years before that time, distinguished himself in the House of Commons, by his efforts to procure a relaxation of the rigour of the penal code; but his exertions were not productive of much, if any immediate advantage. Yet they probably prepared the way for a more successful effort at a subsequent time. When Buxton entered parliament, he had not the company of his predecessor in this cause. That unhappy statesman, in a fit of insanity, had put an end to his own life in the autumn of

1818.

T. F. Buxton took his seat in the House of Commons in the early part of 1819, and quickly proved that the energy with which his previous life was marked, had not deserted him. On the

made by Sir James Mackintosh, and seconded by T. F. Buxton; the latter of whom, made a speech on the occasion, which being his first essay in that assembly, placed him at once in a respectable position in the estimation of the members. He appears to have made no effort for the display of eloquence; his object was the exhibition of facts and arguments in a clear and forcible order. As the facts on which he relied proved incontestably the necessity of an enquiry into the nature and operation of the penal code, he confined himself principally to them; proving that the capital code, as it then existed, was an innovation on the ancient common law; and that indeed the greater part of those capital enactments had been made within the memory of man. "There are," said he, "persons living, at whose birth the criminal code contained less than sixty capital offences, and who have seen the number quadrupled; who have seen an act pass, making offences capital by the dozen and by the score; and what is worse, bundling up together offences, trivial and atrocious-some nothing short of murder in malignity of intention, and others, nothing beyond a civil trespass; bundling together this ill-sorted and incongruous package, and stamping upon it death without benefit of clergy.' His arguments tended to establish the conclusion that the existing law, by declaring that certain crimes should be punished with death, declared in effect that they should not be punished at all; and thus granted indemnity to the evils it was designed to prevent. The consequence was, that a committee was appointed to inquire into the feasibility of mitigating the penal code. Of this committee Buxton was one; and he appears to have taken at once an active, if not a leading, part in the effort to render the penal code more conformable than it then was, to reason and sound policy. His opinion was in favour of abolishing the punishment of death in all cases except that of murder. But the habits of thought which prevailed in the British Parliament, rendered the task of reforming the penal code one of tedious and protracted labour.

A kindred subject, in which he had already taken an active part, viz.: the improvement of the prison discipline, was taken up by the House about the same time, and referred to a committee, of which he was one.

After much patient investigation of the subject, a bill was prepared, conforming in most of its parts to the principles advocated by Buxton; which passed both branches of the legislature; and by which the character of the English prisons was essentially improved. Hence it appears, that while he was yet a new member of the House, he had the satisfaction to find his labours in the cause of humanity productive of valuable fruit. A new system was introduced,

and the English jails, instead of being the nurse- | instance no less than eleven fold. Here was ries and hotbeds of crime, and the ruin of those an argument not easily answered in favour of a who entered them, became, wherever the im- farther mitigation of the penal code. provements were duly enforced, places where the reformation of the prisoners, the true object of punishment, was attempted.

Although Thomas F. Buxton was disposed to favour the abolition of capital punishment, in all cases except that of murder, he evidently acquiesced in the plan of a gradual relaxation of the criminal law, and took a prominent part in support of a bill which was introduced in 1821, by the committee appointed on the subject a year or two before. This was a bill to abrogate the punishment of death in cases of forgery. On this subject he delivered a speech which excited considerable interest at the time. He pointed out the inhumanity of the existing laws, and their necessary tendency to induce judges and jurors to labour, even at the expense of veracity, for the acquittal of prisoners. Thus the heavy penalties prescribed for smaller offences, rendering their application more doubtful, the uncertainty of a greater punishment would be less effectual, than the certainty of a less one. After proving from unquestionable facts, that in many cases where lenient and rigorous measures for the punishment of corresponding offences had been tried, the protection of property was more fully effected by the former than by the latter, he exhibited a striking instance of the result produced by the mitigation of the criminal code, on a single point. In 1811 the linen bleachers petitioned parliament for a mitigation of the law against stealing from their bleaching grounds. That prayer was cheerfully granted in the House of Commons, but in the other House, it was determined to punish these romantic petitioners by inflicting upon them the penalty of their conceded wishes. In regard to the consequence, he observed that he should furnish a comparison of the increase of crime during the last five years in which the crime was capital, and the last five years in which it was not, and if it should appear that this offence had increased in no greater ratio than other offences, his point, the inefficacy of capital punishment, was proved. But, if he should go further, and prove that while all other offences had increased with melancholy rapidity, this, and this only, had decreased as rapidly; that there was but one exception to the augmentation of crime, and that was the case in which the penalty of the law was reduced; then he had a right to call upon the ministers of the crown, either to invalidate his facts, or admit his conclusions.

He then read the official returns of crimes committed in the dutchy of Lancaster, from which it appeared that previous to the mitigation, that crime was as common as other capital offences, but that after the mitigation, this offence had diminished two-thirds, while all the capital offences had increased prodigiously, and in one

He then adverted to what seems to have been the primary object of the bill-the punishment of forgery--and remarked, that for a number of years, every wretch who was overtaken by the law, without regard to age, sex, or extenuating circumstances, was consigned to the hangman.* Did forgeries then cease under such a terrible method of repressing them? Were the offence and the offenders exterminated by such cruel inflictions? They increased to such an enormous extent, one band of victims was so ready to follow another, that they were compelled to mitigate their law, because of the multitude of offenders; because public feeling, and the feeling of the advisers of the crown, rebelled against such continual slaughter. "Have I not then," said he, "a right to cast myself upon the House, and to implore them no longer to continue so desperate and so unsuccessful a system, and to lay side by side the two cases, forgery, and stealing from bleaching grounds; both offences only against property; both unattended with violence? In the one we have tried a mitigation of the law, and have succeeded beyond our most sanguine expectations; in the other we have tried severity to the utmost extent, and to the utmost extent have failed. Are we not bound by every principle of reason and equity; of common sense and common justice, to discontinue a system which has so utterly failed, and to embrace one which has been so eminently successful?"

The history of former times furnished similar results. Henry VIII. hanged 72,000 persons for robbery alone;t yet Sir Thomas More wondered that while so many thieves were daily hanged, so many still remained in the country, robbing in all places. Queen Elizabeth hanged more than 500 criminals a year; yet complained bitterly that the people would not carry out her laws; and was obliged to appoint stipendiary magistrates to inflict these penalties. We find from Strype, that the people would not prosecute, and the magistrates would not act.

These cases in which the rigorous system had failed, were contrasted with the happy effects resulting from the relaxation of penalties by King Alfred; and in modern times by the Duke of Tuscany; and by the United States of America. Crimes had increased in England, as com

*Of the rigor with which the crime of forgery was punished, the execution of Dr. Dodd, notwithstanding the strenuous and extensive efforts to save him, may be regarded as a striking illustration, and some instances, perhaps equally melancholy, in humble life, are recorded in the memoirs of Elizabeth Fry.

As Henry died in the 38th year of his reign, the executions for robbery must have averaged more than eight for each working day, during his reign.

pared with every other country; and as coming the efficacy of the criminal law, by abating pared with itself at different periods; and the species of crime which had increased, were precisely those which were capital then, but formerly were not; and which were capital in England and no where else.

In the course of his argument he showed by quotations from the codes of the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, that their laws were much more sparing of human life than the then existing English code; and asserted that six hundred men were condemned to death, during the past year, upon statutes passed within the last century.

before us.

the rigor of its punishments. But in 1823 the resolutions proposed by Sir J. Mackintosh were rejected, and the advocates of reform were left for several years to contend with a superior force.

In 1826 Sir Robert Peel coming into office commenced a revisal of the penal code. His efforts were not confined to the subject of forgery, for he cleared the statute book of many obsolete and barbarous acts, and consolidated the whole body of criminal law. In the progress of this work he introduced, in 1830, a bill for the consolidation of the laws respecting forgery. After the exhibition of numerous facts, to As he still retained the punishment of death prove the injurious consequences to public in several cases, a strong opposition was raised morals, and the administration of justice, arising both in and out of parliament. Buxton had long from the existing penal code; and a reference been of opinion that death for injury to property to the opinions of men the most competent to was adverse to the interests, as well as the feeljudge, in the various stations of life, he con- ings of the English commercial community; cluded his speech in the following manner: and he prepared for circulation through the "My argument then is this. Our system is commercial towns of the kingdom, a petition. The price we pay for our system is, which quickly obtained the signatures of firms the loss of public opinion, and the aid, the best, representing more than a thousand bankers. the cheapest, and the most constitutional, which This petition represented the punishment of the law gathers from the concurrence of public death on account of forgery, as unfavourable to opinion; the necessity of doing that by spies, their interest and protection; and solicited the informers and blood money, which were better enactment of a more lenient law. This petition done without them; the annual liberation of was presented to the House, in corroboration of multitudes of criminals; the annual perpetra- a motion to amend Sir Robert Peel's bill by the tion of multitudes of crimes; perjury; and the abolition of capital punishment for forgery. This utter abandonment of the first of your duties, amendment being negatived, Buxton informed the first of your interests, and the greatest of the House that a motion of similar import would all charities, the prevention of crime. This is be introduced in a future stage of the bill. A what you pay. And for what? For a system majority was eventually obtained in the House which has against it a multitude of divines, of Commons against the punishment of forgery moralists, statesmen, lawyers - an unrivalled with death, and although this decision was rephalanx of the wise and good; a system which versed in the House of Lords, the question was has against it the still stronger authority of prac- so far settled in practice that no execution for tical men, who draw their conclusions from real forgery has since taken place. In succeeding life; a system which has against it the still years, the infliction of capital punishments was stronger authority of the common law of Eng- more and more reduced by the efforts of several land; which if wrong now, is wrong for the individuals, to whose exertions Buxton afforded first time; a system which has against it the his strenuous assistance as long as he remained still stronger authority of experience and ex- a member of Parliament. The crimes punishperiment, in England on the one hand-inable with death by English law amounted, as Tuscany, in America, and elsewhere, on the already observed, to two hundred and thirty, other; and finally a system which in its spirit when Buxton began his parliamentary labours; and temper, is against the temper and spirit of but their number is now reduced to ten or twelve; that mild and merciful religion, which desireth and in point of fact, few, if any, executions now not the death of a sinner, but rather that he take place, in England or Wales except for murshould turn from his wickedness and live." der or attempts to murder.

This speech was received with marked approbation, but when the bill in support of which it was made, was put to vote, there were 121 voices against its passage and only 115 in its favour. In 1822 an attempt was again made by Sir James Mackintosh, seconded by T. F. Buxton, for the mitigation of the penal code. They succeeded in carrying, by a majority of sixteen, a resolution that the House would in the next session consider the means of increas

Most of the laws, in relation to capital punishments, now in force have been enacted since the subject of this review left the House, and the great improvement which has been made in the penal code within the last thirty years, may be considered as the result of advancing civilization. But we may also reflect that light and knowledge are increased in the world by the exertions of those who are in advance of their age. Of those who contributed to the diffusion of