Moral and Polilical PhUosophy, ibid

29. Ibid. En 1784, Wilkes, dînant avec Mirabeau et Romilly, défendait la fréquence des exécutions capitales par un argument également étrange. 9 He thought the happiest resulls foUowed from the severity of our pénal law. It accustomed men to a conteropt of death, though it never held out to them any very cruel spectacle ; and he thought that mach of the courage of Ënglishmen, of their humanity loo, might be traced to the nature of our capital pnnishments, and to their being so often exhibited to the people > (Romilly, Memoirs^ vol. 1, p. 84).