The drawing up and presentation of petitions by people who are in no way connected with the case, would to a great extent be done away with under such a system as I have outlined, but in order to provide for cases where the system might not have this effect, I would make it a punishable offence to attempt to influence the decision of the judges or jurymen, by an appeal to any consideration other than the evidence. This advice I give because in so many, nay, in most cases, the appeals contained in petitions are based upon considerations other than the justice of the case. If the condemned person is an interesting character, or if there is any sort of excuse upon which an appeal can be based, there are always a great number of people who have no special knowledge of the case, and who, perhaps, have not even read the newspaper reports, who are ready to get up petitions, collect signatures, and stir up a lot of sympathy for one who too often deserves nothing but execration and contempt. Such agitations lead to much misrepresentation of facts, and often to sweeping condemnations of the judge and jury. They tend to infuse, in the minds of young people especially, an incorrect notion that the administration of the law is uncertain and ineffectual, even if it is not unjust and corrupt.
The mere fact of the extent to which the consideration of loathsome crimes and their punishment is brought under the notice of children by this system of petitions, is in my mind sufficient argument for its complete suppression. One case I might instance, in which the masters of two public schools led the whole of the children under their charge through an ante-room in which a petition was lying, and made them all sign it in turn. This kind of thing occurs whenever a petition praying for a sentence of death to be reversed or commuted is in the course of signature, and surely such a thing should not be possible.
In many cases the people who draw up these petitions are people who object on principle to all capital punishment, but unfortunately the principle is entirely lost to sight when dealing with individual cases. The fact of big petitions being presented in one case, while no effort is made in another case with similar features, naturally leads uneducated people to think that there is uncertainty and injustice about the whole affair.