Crimes and Punishments Including a New Translation of Beccaria's 'Dei Delitti e delle Pene'
CHAPTER II.
THE GENERAL INFLUENCE OF BECCARIA ON LEGISLATION.
Present inconceivability of torture due to Beccaria—How far he was the first to write against it—Torture first abolished in England—Beccaria’s influence in Russia—Quotations from his treatise in Catharine’s instruction for the new code—Beccaria’s influence in France; Tuscany; Austria; Pennsylvania—Beccaria the first advocate of the abolition of capital punishment—Relative severity of death and other penalties—Slight relation of crime to punishment—Reasons why capital punishment is always more uncertain than other penalties—Cases accounting for its uncertainty—The efficiency of a punishment its real test—Futility of discussing the general right of punishment—Instances of the abolition of capital punishment in ancient and modern times—The argument for its abolition the same as that for the abolition of torture 29