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44 pp. With folding plate containing 2 tables. (8vo) 23x14.5 cm (9x5¾"), modern cloth. First Edition.

Important, influential, and uncommon tract written at the height of the increasingly successful campaign to abolish capital punishment in England. The author, a former MP, offers a persuasive demonstration of the negative effect that capital punishment has on the deterrence of crime. At the time, over 200 crimes were punishable with death, so juries were often reluctant to convict many cases where the punishment seemed excessive. Using the government's own statistics he shows that the greater the chance that the accused will be hanged for a crime, the greater the chance that he will be acquitted - thus leading to a situation in which the most serious crimes to unpunished.