It is pleasing to reflect that the public mind of England has softened while it has ripened, and that we have, in the course of ages, become, not only a wiser, but also a kind people.... The more we study the annals of the past, the more we shall rejoice in a merciful age, in an age in which cruelty is abhorred, and in which pain, even when deserved, is inflicted reluctantly and from a sense of duty.
Thomas Babington (aka Lord Macaulay, 1800-1859), written in "History of England", 1848