Punishment, when strained beyond what is necessary becomes revenge; punishment, also, should never exceed, but rather be milder than, public opinion. In the awful decision of death, more especially, we should be careful not to inflict a penalty which we cannot repay back to the sufferer if the condemnation should afterwards prove to have been erroneous. There can be no recall from the grave: in the beautiful words of our author, “THE DOOR OF THE TOMB OPENS NOT INWARDS!”
There are several points in “The Last Days of a Condemned” to which I would particularly invite the attention of the reader. In the first place, the story being left unfinished, and there being a doubt as to whether the condemned was executed or pardoned, takes from the feeling of horror without affecting our interest in his fate. It is as a veil cast over the last moments,—a film, an indistinctness that blends into harmony the last distorted features of the vision we are contemplating.
Next, I would mention the papers relating to chaplains. How touchingly does the author paint the pure and pastorly being who has dwelt in the homely cure, and amid the peaceful scenes of nature studied nature’s God! At page 277, the poor captive, crushed in worldly feeling, yearns for those “good and consoling words” that shall “heal the bruised reed, and quench the smoking flax.” How beautiful to see the soul seeking for that hope which dieth not; and whether we look at pages 279 and 280, or 289, we cannot but feel a happy and holy wish that Heavenly Peace may rest on the poor condemned.
Pass we now to a beautiful scene of nature, page 290,—the final interview between the prisoner and his infant daughter, which few could read unmoved by its pathos. How happy for the parent who can enfold his child in his arms,—a happiness of which parents seldom know the value until the grave has closed over them, or they have left the homestead and parental hearth for the pathway of independent manhood. Agonizing must it be to a parent when absence has transferred much of the warmth of filial affection to strangers, to behold the child you have pictured, possibly for years, as anxious to welcome home from distant noxious climes the parent from whom it parted in the happy days of innocence, perhaps ere yet the mind was conscious of the father’s parting blessing. How the pulse throbs and the heart beats when the vessel touches land, and the waving handkerchief is indistinctly discerned amidst hundreds of spectators; and if when disengaged from the crowd, and with the beloved object seated beside you as the carriage speeds you to your home, how scrutinizingly does the heart search each gaze, fearfully anxious lest it should be able to fathom the depth of a love it would hold fathomless! But oh! how bitter beyond expression must be a meeting such as is described by the author of “The Condemned:” not only want of recognition from the innocent little prattler, not only indifference towards him,—but terror! How infinitely more must this have reconciled him, and made him court death than all that myriads of arguments could have effected!
A widely contrasted scene is painted from page 245 to 251, wherein is described the departure of the convicts for the Galleys. What an interesting and painful study for the philanthropist or the moralist! In a few words we read the history of years, the downward path, the emulation in vice. The pride of the hardened sinner to show his superiority in crime, and the effort of the newer delinquent to hide his inexperience under a more hardened exterior, prove forcibly how equally emulative is man, whether the object be a sceptre or a public execution, that his fellows may admire him when he is gone, that his compeers shall not surpass him while he remains!
The deterioration of mind on all connected with a crowded gaol,—that university for crime—is shown, in a paper a few pages further on (page 255), where even the song of a young girl, the outpouring of an unburthened heart, is tainted by the details of crime. The words are left in their original tongue; retained for the sake of showing the ability of the author, but not translated, as being little suited to give pleasure or effect any good. Alas! that the gaol should have power thus to efface even the charms of melody, and render discordant music’s silvery tones. But even that sweetest of sounds, a female voice, becomes tainted by prison association: the rust of a gaol corrodes the heart, and eats into every thing; time cannot efface its mark, nor the brightest sun call forth one gleam from where its dimness has once affixed itself.
As it mars lovely woman’s charms, so it renders disgustful the venerableness of age. From the song of the young girl we trace its earlier mildew; from the powerful paper narrating the history of the old convict (which is by far the most stirring and full of adventure of the whole, see pages 268 to 272) we learn its baleful effects on old age.
May a beneficent, rationally-grounded clemency be, in future, the means of redeeming “all such as have erred;” and may a widely-spread system of enlightened education happily train the children of adverse circumstances “in the way they should go.”
P. Hesketh Fleetwood.