.. ... ... 64
1866-9 ... ... .5 ... ... 47 ... ... ... 68
1872-6 ... ... .7 ... ... 49 ... ... ... 66
1877-81 ... ... .7 ... ... 50 ... ... ... 66
1882-6 ... ... 1 ... ... 49 ... ... ... 65
These figures, if they do not show (as might have been foreseen)
so large an increase of severity as in the percentages of
acquittals, yet prove that repression has not diminished even in
the serious character of the punishments. On the other hand, we
can see that, in the assize cases, excluding the first period,
before the revision of 1832, whilst capital punishment shows a
certain diminution (especially due to the laws of 1832, 1848, &c.,
which reduced the number of cases involving the death penalty),
though continuing at a certain level since 1861, sentences of
penal servitude and solitary confinement show a continued
increase from the second period, and especially since 1851.
So also at the Tribunals, except for a few oscillations, as in the
ninth period, there is a sustained increase of repression.
And the fact that this increased ratio of the more serious
punishments actually indicates a greater severity on the part of
the judges can only be contested on the ground of a simultaneous
increase of the more serious crimes and offences.
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