An End to Hanging

A British judge may never again place a black cap upon his bewigged head and solemnly tell a prisoner that "the sentence of this court upon you is that you suffer death in the manner authorized by the law, and may the Lord have mercy on your soul!" The abolition of the death penalty was carried in the House of Commons last week by a vote of 355 to 170.*The bill was a "private member's motion," introduced by Pacifist Sydney Silverman, 69, a Labor M.P. who has fought against the gallows for nearly 30 years. The Conservative Party in the past has opposed abolition, but much support for the bill came from such Tory chiefs as Iain Macleod, Sir Derek Walker-Smith and ex-Home Secretary Henry Brooke. And the voting was "free." M.P.s voted at the urging of their conscience, not as their party dictated.

Absurd Contradictions. The vote completed the work begun in the Homicide Act of 1957, which defined only certain types of murder as capital crimes while prescribing a life sentence for most other types. Thus a man could still be hanged if he stole from as well as killed his victim, or if he killed a policeman or a prison official, or more than one person, but not for other forms of murder. This resulted in ab surd situations where a killer who slew little children got away with imprisonment; yet if he took as little as a shilling from his victims, he was hanged.

"Executions are so much part of British history," said Viscount Templewood, a Cabinet minister of the 1930s, "that it is almost impossible for many excellent people to think of the future without them." As late as the mid-19th century, when an Englishman could be hanged for 200 different offenses, most of them trivial, 20 or more persons were dispatched at once, and vast festive crowds turned out for the "hanging days" at Tyburn. In recent years, a steady campaign against the death penalty has been fought by lawyers and authors, including Barrister Charles Duff, who dedicated his devastating, sardonic Handbook on Hanging to "The Hangmen of England and Similar Constitutional Bulwarks Everywhere."

Among the present cases that troubled the public conscience was the grisly one of Timothy Evans, who in 1950 was accused of killing his wife and daughter and was executed, although in court he named Prosecution Witness John Chris tie as the guilty man. Three years later, Christie was revealed as the slayer of six women, and a month before his own execution, he confessed to the murder of Evans' wife.

Limited Time. Once Britain abolishes the death penalty, only two countries in Western Europe-France and Spain-will still retain capital punishment. None of the other abolition countries have faced a sharp rise in the incidence of murder, which suggests to the abolitionists that the death penalty never acted as a notable deterrent. Even so, Tory Henry Brooke urged that the bill, if it became an act, should be brought before both Houses of Parliament again in five years' time, adding, "I believe that bold experiment subject to a time limit is the right course to take." When the House comes to examine the bill in committee, it may well be amended on the lines suggested by Brooke.

*Before it becomes law, the bill must pass the House of Lords, which in 1956 rejected a similar bill. But the huge vote for abolition in the Commons is thought certain to swing the Lords this time.

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