had less invention than Hocker, and perhaps was not so deliberately
bad; but his attempt was a branch of the same tree, and it has its
root in the ground where the scaffold is erected.

Oxford had his imitators. Let it never be forgotten in the
consideration of this part of the subject, how they were stopped.
So long as attempts invested them with the distinction of being in
danger of death at the hangman's hands, so long did they spring up.
When the penalty of death was removed, and a mean and humiliating
punishment substituted in its place, the race was at an end, and
ceased to be.


II


We come, now, to consider the effect of Capital Punishment in the
prevention of crime.

Does it prevent crime in those who attend executions?

There never is (and there never was) an execution at the Old Bailey
in London, but the spectators include two large classes of thieves--
one class who go there as they would go to a dog-fight, or any other
brutal sport, for the attraction and excitement of the spectacle;
the other who make it a dry matter of business, and mix with the
crowd solely to pick pockets. Add to these, the dissolute, the
drunken, the most idle, profligate, and abandoned of both sexes--
some moody ill-conditioned minds, drawn thither by a fearful
interest--and some impelled by curiosity; of whom the greater part