The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits | Page 5

philosophers, and governed by their reason: criminals, for whose
controul laws are made, are a set of desperadoes, governed only by
their passions. What wonder that so little progress has been made
towards a mutual understanding between the two parties! They are
quite a different species, and speak a different language, and are sadly
at a loss for a common interpreter between them. Perhaps the Ordinary
of Newgate bids as fair for this office as any one. What should Mr.
Bentham, sitting at ease in his arm-chair, composing his mind before he
begins to write by a prelude on the organ, and looking out at a beautiful
prospect when he is at a loss for an idea, know of the principles of
action of rogues, outlaws, and vagabonds? No more than Montaigne of
the motions of his cat! If sanguine and tender-hearted philanthropists
have set on foot an inquiry into the barbarity and the defects of penal
laws, the practical improvements have been mostly suggested by
reformed cut-throats, turnkeys, and thief-takers. What even can the
Honourable House, who when the Speaker has pronounced the
well-known, wished-for sounds "That this house do now adjourn,"
retire, after voting a royal crusade or a loan of millions, to lie on down,
and feed on plate in spacious palaces, know of what passes in the hearts
of wretches in garrets and night-cellars, petty pilferers and marauders,

who cut throats and pick pockets with their own hands? The thing is
impossible. The laws of the country are, therefore, ineffectual and
abortive, because they are made by the rich for the poor, by the wise for
the ignorant, by the respectable and exalted in station for the very scum
and refuse of the community. If Newgate would resolve itself into a
committee of the whole Press-yard, with Jack Ketch at its head, aided
by confidential persons from the county prisons or the Hulks, and
would make a clear breast, some data might be found out to proceed
upon; but as it is, the criminal mind of the country is a book sealed, no
one has been able to penetrate to the inside! Mr. Bentham, in his
attempts to revise and amend our criminal jurisprudence, proceeds
entirely on his favourite principle of Utility. Convince highwaymen and
house-breakers that it will be for their interest to reform, and they will
reform and lead honest lives; according to Mr. Bentham. He says, "All
men act from calculation, even madmen reason." And, in our opinion,
he might as well carry this maxim to Bedlam or St. Luke's, and apply it
to the inhabitants, as think to coerce or overawe the inmates of a gaol,
or those whose practices make them candidates for that distinction, by
the mere dry, detailed convictions of the understanding. Criminals are
not to be influenced by reason; for it is of the very essence of crime to
disregard consequences both to ourselves and others. You may as well
preach philosophy to a drunken man, or to the dead, as to those who are
under the instigation of any mischievous passion. A man is a drunkard,
and you tell him he ought to be sober; he is debauched, and you ask
him to reform; he is idle, and you recommend industry to him as his
wisest course; he gambles, and you remind him that he may be ruined
by this foible; he has lost his character, and you advise him to get into
some reputable service or lucrative situation; vice becomes a habit with
him, and you request him to rouse himself and shake it off; he is
starving, and you warn him that if he breaks the law, he will be hanged.
None of this reasoning reaches the mark it aims at. The culprit, who
violates and suffers the vengeance of the laws, is not the dupe of
ignorance, but the slave of passion, the victim of habit or necessity. To
argue with strong passion, with inveterate habit, with desperate
circumstances, is to talk to the winds. Clownish ignorance may indeed
be dispelled, and taught better; but it is seldom that a criminal is not
aware of the consequences of his act, or has not made up his mind to

the alternative. They are, in general, too knowing by half. You tell a
person of this stamp what is his interest; he says he does not care about
his interest, or the world and he differ on that particular. But there is
one point on which he must agree with them, namely, what they think
of his conduct, and that is the only hold you have of him. A man may
be callous and indifferent to what happens to himself; but he is never
indifferent to public opinion, or proof against open scorn and infamy.
Shame, then, not