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The Debates Upon the Bills for Abolishing the Punishment of Death
The Debates Upon the Bills for Abolishing the Punishment of Death Author:Basil Montagu Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PREFACE. TO these debates, published at the request of a society for the diffusion of knowledge respecting the punishment of death and the improvement of pris... more »on discipline, a summary of the reasoning in the two houses of parliament is prefixed. The debates in the House of Commons are published from the newspapers, from notes taken during the argument, and from the communications of some friends. For the debate in the House of Lords I am indebted to a gentleman who was present when the bill was rejected. They are printed from his manuscript without any alteration. These imperfect reports are submitted to public consideration with the grateful consciousness that, in a country where freedom of inquiry is thus encouraged in the community and proposals for ameliorating the condition of mankind are fully heard and deeply considered by the legislature, Truth, which chapter{Section 4has been compared to a spring of living waters, troubled only as it rises, will flow in perpetual progression. It must and it ought, for a time, to be impeded by attachment to existing customs by the perplexities with which change is generally attended and by a remembrance of the excesses into which kind intention has been too frequently hurried. From such obstacles no evil is to be dreaded. They do not lie concealed. Their nature is known. They may resist but they cannot retard the current, which has for ages been gradually subduing and will for ever continue to subdue the errors both of mistaken severity and of mistaken humanity. January 8, 1811.. chapter{Section 5f which dete .nd the judge Page nl thai the slature that on of Ihe ju was conler uncertain/ than deal THE PROP( i. AS TO INN 3. ANY PUN I 4. AN ALTER 5. THE CRIM ABOLITION 6. THE JUDG tlvL chapt...« less