On the subject of the penal code—a subject of such paramount
importance to every civilised community—Dr. Parr has
offered to the public the fruit of much careful reading, much close observation, and much
deep reflection, in the long and valuable disquisition, of which some account is given in
the preceding chapter. No subject, indeed, more frequently engaged his attention; or
excited in his mind, whenever adverted to, stronger emotions of sorrow and indignation.
“Is it possible,” he would say, “for any reflecting and
benevolent person, without shame and grief, and even horror, to examine a statute-book
like ours?—where death is commissioned to keep the keys of so many cells, and to shake
a dreadful dart in so many directions.” Happily, however, the fact is, that
common reason and equity wage a perpetual war with the positive institutions of the land;
that the malefactors, annually executed, fall far
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He often complained that the higher orders did not yet sufficiently sympathise with the lower, at the sight of evils, which little affect themselves; and that growing wealth and luxury have produced, among all ranks, an unfeeling temper towards the crowds of miserable beings, who are driven by want to crime; and who ought, therefore, to be regarded as more unfortunate than guilty. Considering the strong and almost irresistible temptations, to which the poor and destitute are left exposed, he looked upon many a criminal, doomed by the law to die, “as far less sinning than sinned against;” and when he heard of such an one being led to execution, he would sometimes repeat the words, which the pious and excellent Boerhaave is said to have uttered on similar occasions: “May not this man be better than I?”1
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1 “On the days, when the prisons of this great city are emptied into the grave, let every spectator of the dreadful procession put the same question to his own heart—May not this man be less culpable than I am? For who can congratulate himself upon a life, passed without some act more mischievous to the peace and prosperity of others, than the theft of a piece of money?”—Johnson’s Rambler, No. 114. |
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Impressed with these sentiments of compassionate concern for unhappy criminals, and shuddering at the cruel and remorseless spirit of English law, Dr. Parr adopted a course, which many would think a dereliction of public duty, by declining, in his own case, to prosecute, and by inducing others, in similar circumstances, to exercise the same forbearance. In justification of himself, however, he could appeal to the authority of Dr. Johnson, who observes, “that the necessity of submitting the conscience to human laws is not so plainly evinced, nor so generally allowed, but that the pious, the tender, and the just will always scruple to concur with them, in an act, which private judgment condemns.”1—Dr. Parr thus feelingly and forcibly explains his own sentiments, in reference to his own conduct:
“Three times, let me confess, I have suffered the most painful struggles, between the sense of private and public duty; and three times, dreading the severity of our laws, I have yielded to my humanity conspiring with my reason, when they forbad me, without real necessity, to shed the blood even of the unrighteous. One of the offenders, after leaving my family, ventured upon other crimes in other places; a second, by my suggestion, entered into the army: I have not been able to trace the conduct of the third. But under a deep conviction of my responsibility to the tribunal of Heaven I shall ever look back with approbation to my forbearance.”2
In cases of capital conviction, if circumstances
1 Rambler, No. 114. 2 Characters of Fox, p. 402. |
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“Eagerly do I embrace this opportunity,” says Dr. Parr, “of paying a public and grateful testimony to the memory of an illustrious person, lately deceased. Disregarding the difference of our political sentiments, he, at my request, gave the fullest effect to my exertions for saving an unfortunate person, who had committed the crime for which he was on the point of suffering death, but was guiltless of some aggravations, hastily imputed to him; and who, by the diligence, the sobriety and honesty, which he has uniformly manifested for the space of twenty-five years from the time of his liberation, has fully justified the opinion I had entertained of him, and amply repaid to society the mercy shown him by the executive government.”1
During the earlier periods of his residence at Hatton, Dr. Parr was accustomed frequently to
1 Characters of Fox, p. 464. |
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But it was to the deplorable case of condemned convicts, to which his
attention was most of all attracted; and for these so strongly were his sympathetic
feelings excited, as often to destroy for a time all the peace and composure of his own
mind. “Ah!” he would say, “had I pronounced the ‘dreadful
notes’ of a sentence which I heard this morning, it would have torn my heart with
anguish; and the recollection of it would have disturbed my slumbers for weeks, months,
and years.” On one occasion, when, in the assize-court of
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But, agonised as were his feelings, when he beheld man doomed by his fellow-man to die—and that, too, as he thought sometimes rashly and unwarrantably—yet these feelings were absorbed in compassion for human wretchedness, and in the desire of administering the soothing comforts, which kind sympathy and religious hope afford, in the last and worst extremities. For many years, therefore, Dr. Parr imposed upon himself the task, however painful, of visiting, advising, and consoling, in the gloomy dungeons of Warwick jail, the miserable beings, awaiting their awful fate from the hand of the executioner. Thus he describes his own feelings and reflections, on these distressing occasions:—
“Such are the fixed and serious sentiments of one, who for many years has been an attentive observer of judicial proceedings; of one, who is no stranger to the pleas, usually urged for the rigour of our laws; of one, who has thought it the charitable duty of his order to prepare malefactors for eternity, by lessons of resignation and repentance; of one who, while he soothed them by consolation, when they were about to taste the bitterness of death, rarely failed to explore the deepest recesses of their hearts; of one who, upon a view of all circumstances, has been yet more
1 New Monthly Mag. May, 1805. |
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In the discharge of his painful office, dreadful was the example of human obduracy, which he was sometimes forced to witness; produced, as he always maintained, by the combined effects of laws too severe, of a police too remiss, and of moral discipline and instruction, especially in the case of young offenders, either insufficiently applied, or wholly neglected. Speaking of one, who had been capitally convicted and executed—upon whom he had bestowed much pious care with little apparent success, but who had met his fate with an intrepidity which passed with the spectators for fortitude—he remarked, that “his intrepidity was without the calmness of resignation, and without the sanctity of repentance; and yet there were some loose and floating notions of virtue.”—Another lamentable case is thus described by himself:—
“A recent instance of deplorable obduracy has fallen within my notice. A youth of twenty-two had deserted more than once, and betook himself to robbery. He anticipated death, as the probable punishment of his thievery or his desertion. He
1 Characters of Fox, Notes, p. 358. |
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The reader will probably recollect the deep interest which Dr. Parr felt in the case of a man of much excellence of character, who was hurried, in a moment of sudden irritation, into a crime, for which he suffered death—as related in a former part of the present work.2 To this unhappy individual, there is an affecting allusion in the following passage:—
“To a very enlightened man, who thought himself unjustly condemned, I had occasion to state the principle of submission to private wrong for public good, and to enforce it by the example of Socrates, and other examples, yet more sacred; and I pressed them with so much earnestness, as to prevent an act of suicide, which my unhappy friend was determined to perpetrate, on the morn-
1 Characters of Fox, Notes, p. 394. 2 Vol. i. p. 373. |
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Dr. Parr’s anxiety to perform with due effect the benevolent office, which, on these melancholy occasions, he took upon himself, is apparent in the following passage:—
“Some years ago,” says he, “when I was accustomed to visit persons under sentence of death, I often felt the want of a proper service. I could not persuade myself to read some prayers, and some exhortations, which I found in books. They seemed to me either unintelligible or unprofitable to offenders, whether obdurate or penitent. I cannot help wishing, therefore, that a form of prayer, annexed to the old Irish Prayer Book, may be introduced by authority into the English Prayer Book. The topics are, indeed, very pertinent; the language is simple and solemn; and a spirit of the most rational and most pure devotion prevails through the whole.”2
After the short detail now given, the reader may easily conceive the high satisfaction with which Dr. Parr hailed an event, bearing a most favourable aspect upon a cause, which lay so near his heart. This was the formation of a society, the professed object of which is, “the diffusion of knowledge respecting the punishment of death, and the improvement of prison discipline.” Of
1 Characters of Fox, Notes, p. 411. 2 Ibid. p. 707. |
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“My very ingenious and benevolent friend, Mr. Basil Montagu, has sent to the press a large collection of the opinions, which many distinguished writers upon the penal code of England and other countries have delivered, in recommendation of other punishments, as substituted for death. He has been much commended, I am told, by professional men, for his publications on subjects connected with the studies and duties of his profession. I esteem him highly for his literary attainments and personal virtues. Gladly, too, would any advocate for the reform of the penal code acknowledge such a man as συνεργον του χόπου της αγαπης.”1
In our courts of justice is sometimes exhibited a spectacle, from which Dr. Parr always turned with disgust and dismay. It is when a whole sable tribe of lawyers appear arrayed, on the side of a criminal prosecution, against a friendless individual, unsupported by a single legal adviser. It is true, in such cases the presiding judge is presumed to sustain the office of counsel for the prisoner. But, with the humane and judicious Blackstone, Dr. Parr always thought the express appointment of an advocate to conduct the de-
1 Characters of Fox, p. 799. |
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At the Warwick assizes, in the spring of 1812, a clergyman of the Church of England, who had long resided in that town, and who was subject to fits of derangement, was tried for shooting the servant girl of the house, in which he lodged. The public feeling was strongly excited against him; and it was most important to provide for his defence, in the best possible manner. He had some small property, but no command of present supplies; and no one seemed willing to advance the necessary sums, as it was supposed there would be much uncertainty or difficulty in obtaining repayment. At length the unfortunate case was stated to Dr. Parr, who instantly and eagerly ordered the best legal advice to be secured; desired that no expense should be spared; and declared himself responsible 1 for the whole amount, which exceeded 100l. That sum he paid on demand. The unhappy man was acquitted on the plea of insanity; and at a subsequent, though somewhat distant period, the money was repaid by his trustees.
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1 “Ille se interposuit; pecuniamque sine fœnore, sine ulla stipulatione, credidit. Ita aperuit se non fortunæ sed hominibus, solere esse amicum.”—Corn. Nepos. |
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Oh a still later occasion, another clergyman was tried at Warwick assizes, capitally charged with a heinous and revolting crime. The popular indignation was high and clamorous; and the accused was wholly destitute of the means of providing for his own defence. But no sooner was the case made known to Dr. Parr than, with all his usual ardour, he interposed, and generously advanced the sum required. “Horror of crime,” he said on that occasion, “can never destroy the claims of justice, and ought never to extinguish the feelings of humanity. Every accused person, whether guilty or not, ought, in the means of defending himself, to be put upon a level with his accusers; especially where the laws are so remorseless, and the penalty so dreadful.”—It should be added that, of the persons benefited, in the two instances now referred to, the former was but slightly known to Dr. Parr, and the latter entirely unknown.
The case of an unfortunate youth, guilty of petty theft, is related by Dr. Parr, with all the warm feelings of compassionate concern so peculiarly characteristic, in the following letter to Mr. Roscoe:—
“Dear and most esteemed Mr.
Roscoe—The bearer is an Irish lad, who has no friend in the
world, or the world’s law. He is about twenty years old. He was brought
into my neighbourhood by his parents, who have deserted him. He was unknown; he
was unassisted; he was unemployed. In danger of starving, he, on Thursday
night,
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