The two sources I will be analysing and comparing are both in favour of a de-crease in capital statutes but for very different reasons and together they are repre-sentatives of a change in mentalities towards capital punishment in the first half of the nineteenth century.
The first primary source under study is an extract from the Report of the select committee on criminal laws. This committee was set up in 1819 by the House of Commons and was expected to publish a report on the state of criminal law but especially on the capital punishment and give their recommendations in an official report. In 1819, the British criminal justice system was characterized by the Bloody Code and its numerous capital statutes. The excerpt of the report I am …show more content…
Charles Dickens is a famous British novelist but the piece of his work I am going to focus on is not a work of fiction. Even though a restricted group of person is targeted as recipients of this letter the fact that it was published in the Daily News proves that it was meant to reach a larger audience. In this letter Dickens develops two different arguments but I will focus on the second one in which Dickens explains why the capital punishment should be repealed. Charles Dickens wrote this letter in 1846, in the middle of the Victorians era when voices were starting to rise against the cruelty of the Bloody Code and almost thirty years after the publication of the report from the Select Committee on Criminal Laws. Indeed, from the 1840s onwards the Victorians started protesting more and more against public hangings and an abolitionist movement appeared. At the same time public executions were very common and it was considered as a real form of entertainment by the people. Dickens was part of the abolitionist movement and his letter to the Daily News is a good example of the arguments of the Victorian abolitionist movement, he used his position to try and spread the abolitionist
The first primary source under study is an extract from the Report of the select committee on criminal laws. This committee was set up in 1819 by the House of Commons and was expected to publish a report on the state of criminal law but especially on the capital punishment and give their recommendations in an official report. In 1819, the British criminal justice system was characterized by the Bloody Code and its numerous capital statutes. The excerpt of the report I am …show more content…
Charles Dickens is a famous British novelist but the piece of his work I am going to focus on is not a work of fiction. Even though a restricted group of person is targeted as recipients of this letter the fact that it was published in the Daily News proves that it was meant to reach a larger audience. In this letter Dickens develops two different arguments but I will focus on the second one in which Dickens explains why the capital punishment should be repealed. Charles Dickens wrote this letter in 1846, in the middle of the Victorians era when voices were starting to rise against the cruelty of the Bloody Code and almost thirty years after the publication of the report from the Select Committee on Criminal Laws. Indeed, from the 1840s onwards the Victorians started protesting more and more against public hangings and an abolitionist movement appeared. At the same time public executions were very common and it was considered as a real form of entertainment by the people. Dickens was part of the abolitionist movement and his letter to the Daily News is a good example of the arguments of the Victorian abolitionist movement, he used his position to try and spread the abolitionist