Next to Gaming, Illicit Trade or Smuggling may be mentioned as a very productive source of criminality. The vast extent of the Trade and Revenues of the Country; its insular situation, and the temptations arising from the magnitude of the duties, contribute exceedingly to the corruption of morals, not only of these engaged in illicit pursuits, but it is to be lamented also of the inferior officers themselves, whose duty it is to prevent this evil.
Severe and pointed as the laws unquestionably are with an immediate view to the prevention of this evil, experience proves how ineffectual they have been, since every idle and profligate character becomes a smuggler. But it is not merely the offence of smuggling as it relates to the revenue, which is to be deplored as a grievance to the Public, since those on the Sea Coasts of the kingdom, concerned in such pursuits, are generally of ferocious habits, which produce such excesses and depredations upon the unfortunate, when suffering the calamity of shipwreck, as would disgrace the rudest savages.
With contaminated minds, depraved hearts, men given up to such warfare upon helpless humanity, become fit instruments for every species of criminality.—Vagabonds by trade, the transition from one offence to another is easy, and hence through this medium many culprits are added to the general catalogue of delinquency, which nothing can check or prevent but a System of Police, attaching responsibility some-where instead of no-where as at present.
Crimes are also generated in no inconsiderable degree, by the evil examples exhibited in Prisons, and by the length of time persons charged with offences are suffered to remain in gaols previous to their trial, particularly in the counties adjoining the Metropolis, where they frequently are in confinement five and six months before the assizes.—If they were novices in villainy before, the education they receive in these seminaries, in the event of their escaping justice, returns them upon society, completely proselyted and instructed in the arts of mischief and depredation.
Nor have the unequal scale of punishments, and the ultimate unconditional pardons, dictated no doubt by the purest motives of humanity, a less tendency to generate new crimes. Encouraged by the chances of escaping free, even after conviction, many delinquents pursue their evil courses, trusting ultimately to this resource, if other devices shall fail.
To shew mankind that crimes are sometimes wholly pardoned, and that punishment is not the necessary consequence, is to nourish the flattering hope of impunity, and is the cause of their considering every punishment which is actually inflicted, as an act of injustice and oppression.
Let the Legislator be tender, indulgent, and humane; but let the Executors of the Laws be inexorable in punishing;—at least to a certain extent.