t/., ibiil. — Cf. Blackstone, IV Comm

27. Thoughts on ExecuUve Jmtice. Dans ce curieux OQvrage, qui exerce (V. les mémoires de Bomilly, Narrative ofhis early life^ 1785; vol. I, p. 89) de l'influence, Madan veut démontrer 1" que la peine pour être effiGace doit être certaine; 2* qu'il se commet plus de crimes en Angleterre que dans aucun autre pays civilisé ; 3* que celte fréquence des crimes a pour cause l'incertitude de la peine ; 4* que cette incertitude de la peine a pour cause Tindulgenoe maladroite des juges et des jurys; 5* que les lois anglaises ne sont pas sévères. — Il admet dVlleurs en finissant (pp. 133-4), qne, si les lois ne sont pas exécutées, parce qu'elles sont jugées trop sanguinaires, il faut les adoucir, mais il ajoute: However, this is matter wholly for the considération of the législature : I shall therefore dismiss il, wilh my hearty good wishes, thaï, if ever il be donc, il may be productive of ail thaï benefit to the public, vrhich the warmest advocates for such a measure can expect or désire : at the same lime expressing my ovrn doubts, whether any other human System could equal the présent, for the suppression of public injury supposing the law as it now stands were puoctuaUy execulcd. — L'ouvrage de Madan est intéressant surtout pour avoir provoqué une réplique de Bomilly, où nous croyons reconnaître déjà l'influence de Bentham. V. p. 5 : Thaï crimioal prosccution ought always to be carried on for the sake of the public and never to gratify the passions of individuals; that the primary object, of the législature should be to prevent crimes, and not to chastise criminals ; that that object cannot possibly be attained by the mère terror of punishment; and that unless a just proportion bc obscrved between thc various dcgrees of crimes, in the pcnaltiçs appointed for them, the law must senpe to excite, rather than repress guilt; are truths so generally received, that

328 NOTES. (Pp. 142-146)

they are corne to be considcred almost as axioms of criminal law. — p. 32 : AU punishment is an evil, but is yet necessary to prevent crimes, which are a greater evil. — p. 35. We are told that, the law being of public ootoriety, those who incur its penaities do it voluntarily, and bave therefore no reason to complain. .. It is tnie, that cvery yearan immense Tolume of slatutfs is printed and publicly sold ; but it might as well not exist, for the multitudes throughout the kingdom, who hâve not money to purebase it, time to peruse it, or capacities to understand the technical and mysterious language in which it is composed.