[761] The Century Magazine for September, 1912, p. 886.
[762] Pike, A History of Crime in England (1876), vol. i, p. 50.
[763] Wines, Punishment and Reformation, 6th ed., p. 103.
[764] Pike, A History of Crime in England (1876), vol. ii, p. 287.
[765] His Essay on Crimes and Punishments appeared in 1764 and produced a profound impression. It did much to abolish torture in judicial proceedings.
[766] “In proportion as punishments become more cruel, the minds of men, as a fluid rises to the same height with that which surrounds it, grow hardened and insensible.”—Beccaria, An Essay on Crimes and Punishments (1793), p. 95.
[767] Wines, Punishment and Reformation, 6th ed., pp. 122 ff.
[768] The penitentiary system was inaugurated in 1704 by Pope Clement XI, who in that year established the Hospital of St. Michael at Rome. For the history of the penitentiary movement see Wines, Punishment and Reformation.
[769] “The whole conception and method of these courts suggests the religious spirit and almost startles us with its indication of the spiritualizing of the civil power.”—Edward O. Sisson, “The State absorbing the Functions of the Church,” International Journal of Ethics for April, 1907, p. 344.
[770] The progressive purification of the social conscience may be traced further in the changed feeling in regard to dueling, lotteries, gambling, and the use of intoxicating liquors. Less than a century ago dueling was common among all the European peoples. To-day in all Anglo-Saxon lands the duel is condemned by the common conscience and prohibited by law. During the last few decades in the United States lotteries have been transferred “from the class of respectable to a class of criminal enterprises.” So too is it the growing moral disapproval of the use of alcoholic drinks that has caused drunkenness both in England and in our country to become much less common among the reputable members of society than it was only two or three generations ago.