Moral and Political Philosophy, ibid

29. Ibid. En 1784, Wilkes, dînant avec Mirabeau et Romilly, défendait la fréquence des exécutions capitales par un argument également étrange. « He thought the happiest results followed from the severity of our pénal law. It accustomed men to a contempt of death, though it never held out to them any very cruel spectacle; and he thought that much of the courage of EnglishmeD, of their humanity too, might be traced to the nature of our capital punishments. and to their being so often exhibited to the people » (Romilly, Memoirs, vol. I, p. 84).