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Massachusets-The Legislature of this State ap- pointed committee last winter, to inquire into and report upon the erpediency of capital puniShmens, which committee have submitted to that body, now in session. the result other labors upon this very inn portant subject From their report we make the fol- lowing extracts:

 If in the opinion of this community death in exc 6ution of the sentence of the law, in any case ne- cessay this demand for justice would be better satis fled, it is believed and something might be added to its terrors by making a Jess defned and ty setting tt upart from Me public gaso. Might it not be done in private; in the presence of peace officers, magistrates and competent number of citizens drawn from the jury boxes of the county, though without the com pnlsion to be present against their will And when this solemn and awful act is done, might not the ex ecuton of the sentence of the law be declared in some mode which might be seen or heard over a far wider space than any multitude would covert

 ''The result then, to which the committee have come, and which they respectfully submit to the Ho- norable House, is this:

 "FirSt-That the punishment of death, IS requr- ed by law. natural or divine by any wise po- lcy, for any crime, in relation to property merely, where human life has not been destroyed; conses quently that highway robbery, burglary, and arson, where life is not in fact, sacrificed ought not to be So punished.

 "Second'y,-That rape ought to be punished by solitary confinement for life, that the criminal will be no more seen or heard of

 "Ihudty,-That murder may be punished as se- condy above, and without the possibility of escape, pardon mitigation but, that, if the public sentl- ment still demands death, it should be in private, and in the manner already stated.