xxi., 12, 13.) This was a great modification of the original injunction, and also shows clearly, to my mind at least, that all human punishments should be regulated by the condition of the people for whose benefit they are designed. Again, in the same chapter from which I have already quoted, I find the following, "Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, &c.," a law evidently designed for a semi-barbarous people, and admitting of prompt administration and summary execution. Turning to the Christian law on the subject we find, "Ye have heard that it hath been said an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, _but I_ say unto you that ye resist not evil." This would appear to introduce a new principle of forbearance, and if we refer to the case of the woman taken in adultery, where the legal penalty was death, we find that mercy, and not vengeance, is the principle on which our penal code ought to be based. But leaving scriptural grounds and descending to those of expediency merely. Does capital punishment deter men from committing murder more effectually than perpetual imprisonment would? I believe that 999 out of every 1000 of our convicts even would not commit deliberate murder, although the penalty was only a few months' imprisonment and detection _certain_, unless under peculiar temptation or provocation. It is a crime naturally abhorrent even to the thief, and the majority of those men capable of committing wilful murder would on the whole, I believe, prefer to be hanged out of their misery, than remain in prison all their life. If all hope of release could be utterly extinguished, very few of such men would chance perpetual imprisonment, if they had it in their option. Of course we could not banish hope from the minds of all, and therefore many would at first cling to life, and after a few years seek death as a release from bondage, and even commit suicide rather than endure such suffering longer. I knew one prisoner who pleaded to be hanged, and others who would certainly prefer execution if they had no hope of ultimate liberty. The general opinion of those who had been in prison ten or twelve years out of a 'life' sentence was in favour of execution at once, as being the less dreadful alternative, so that with respect to punishment as a deterring influence, I have no doubt that perpetual imprisonment would be more efficacious than the capital sentence. Those who are capable of deliberately taking human life with the view of obtaining money, may be divided into two classes. The one class comprising such as prisoners who perpetrate the crime cunningly and in secret, in the firm belief that they will escape detection; the other class are the highwaymen and garotters, who go daringly and violently to work, pretty sure in their own minds that they will be clever enough to escape.