Punishments may be divided into three classes; capital, when the death of the offender is intended to deter others from similar offence; precautionary, when a noxious individual is removed from general society by imprisonment or transportation; and correctional, when by some pain or penalty inflicted on the individual, he is to be deterred from future crime. Though the subject would admit of much curious detail, our remaining space will not allow us to trace the different modes or modifications of legitimate punishment used in various nations or ages; nor to enter our protest of abhorrence against the many and inhuman tortures which religious fanaticism or political rancour have invented for their antagonists; the only point on which we can physiologically have occasion to observe, as applicable to the capital punishments of the present times, is, that they should be inflicted with as little pain as possible to the criminal, lest compassion for the sufferings of the man, should supersede the salutary horror of his offence; an end which is really, though not apparently, attained in our ordinary mode of execution by hanging; the victim does not suffer, though sometimes his convulsive struggles induce a contrary belief; but the method is defective in one point, it is not calculated to produce a deep impression on the minds of spectators, _Pompa mortis magis terret quam mors ipsa_. The French mode of decapitation, though held in abhorrence from the outrages with which its very name has become associated, is equally humane; an instant terminates the mortal sufferings of the criminal; for this reason it was originally adopted, and when we consider that it superceded the barbarous punishment of breaking on the wheel, previously in use, and the clumsy and uncertain method of decapitation by the sword or axe, we feel ourselves justified, in spite of popular prejudice, in designating the guillotine[105] an invention of humanity. Decapitation is also a punishment known in the law of England, and as a more dignified and impressive death, is reserved for the execution of nobles, or distinguished commoners, in cases of high treason, the rest of the barbarous sentence (now abolished by act of parliament), and the previous sentence of hanging, being dispensed with by the king’s authority. The barbarous punishment of burning, formerly part of the law, is no longer in use; Catharine Hayes, to whose case we have alluded (vol. ii, p. 73), was the last who suffered in this manner. On the subject of imprisonment we have already commented, (vol. ii, p. 112), and from the very general attention now excited, as well by the discovery of abuses, as by an encreasing spirit of humanity, we may expect the best results.