the poor, and grow fat by sucking their blood?" He afterwards (p. 75) expresses himself as doubtful if there ever be any honest trade between the pawnbroker and the poor. The trade of a pawnbroker, however, has been since put under regulation by an Act passed in 1775, and other subsequent statutes; and the consequence has been, as we have just remarked, a decided improvement in the mode in which it is generally conducted. But even before the passing of the first of these Acts, a system had been adopted of sending round notices to the different pawnbrokers, as soon as it was known that any burglary had been committed or property stolen; which seems to have had the effect of deterring them from purchasing articles respecting which they had been thus forewarned. This innovation transferred a great part of the trade of receiving stolen goods into other hands. Among the witnesses examined by the Committee of the House of Commons, which sat in 1772 was Fielding's brother, Sir John Fielding, who was also for many years an active police magistrate. Having laid before the Committee some statements in proof of the great increase of housebreaking for some years preceding, he was asked to what, in his opinion, the increase was to be attributed; when he said "that felons formerly carried their goods to pawnbrokers; but by the present method of quick notice to pawnbrokers, silversmiths, and others, that plan is defeated; and the housebreakers now go to Jews, who melt the plate immediately, and destroy other things that might be evidence, which in burglary can be nothing but the goods, though in other cases the person may be sworn to; that they disguise jewels by knocking them out of the sockets, so that they cannot be sworn to." The new plan, therefore, we see, although it had corrected one evil, had in its stead produced another and a still greater. It had, in a great measure, put down the malpractices of the pawnbrokers; but by sharpening the ingenuity of the thieves to find out a new mode of disposing of their spoil, it had enabled them to institute a still more effective plan for that purpose, and hence to carry on their depredations to a greater extent than ever.

The compounding of a felony was not punishable by law before 1752: up to which time it was common for persons, who had lost property by robberies, openly to advertise a reward to whoever would bring it back, which should be paid without any questions being asked. But in that year an Act was passed, inflicting a penalty of fifty pounds on any person, including the printer and publisher, from whom such an advertisement should proceed. Yet the practice of compounding, as we have seen, has continued to be carried on, on a large scale, down to the present day. Colquhoun states that, in his time, the number of receivers, or, as they are called in the cant language, fences, in immediate connexion with thieves, burglars, and highway robbers, was understood to be about fifty or sixty,-" of whom," he adds, "not more than ten (whose names and places of abode are well known) can be said to be persons of property, who can raise money to purchase articles of value." The most notorious case on record, of a person carrying on a regular and extensive trade in the receiving of stolen property, is that of Jonathan Wild, who was executed in 1725, and whom Fielding has immortalized as the hero of one of his works. More ample details, however, of his life and actions, than are given in that performance, may be found in some of the publications which appeared immediately after he fell into the hands of justice. The following extract from one of these, entitled "The Life of Jonathan Wild, by H. D., late Clerk to Justice R.," while it affords a curious sample of his mode of doing business, places in a striking light the extent and completeness to which he had carried his arrangements. In giving an account of the many expert thieves whom he had in his employment, the writer says:-"These people sometimes went disguised like chairmen, in great-coats and harness; and a couple of them meeting together, stole the young Duchess of Marlborough's chair, as her Grace was visiting at Mrs. H-n's in Piccadilly; her chairmen and footmen being gone to a neighbouring alehouse. One of her servants thought immediately of applying to Mr. Wild, who told him that, if he would leave ten guineas, he might have the chair the next day. The man made some difficulty of leaving the money beforehand, but Mr. Wild told him he was a man of honour, and scorned to wrong him; and, indeed, his character was by this time established as a man that dealt honourably in his way; so that the man ventured at last to

leave the money: wherefore Mr. Wild bade him direct the Duchess's chairmen to attend the morning prayers at Lincoln's Inn Chapel, and there they should find the chair; which the fellows did accordingly, and they found the chair with the crimson velvet cushion and damask curtains, all safe and unhurt. And it must be observed that whenever Jonathan obliged the parties to leave the money beforehand, he very punctually complied with the terms of his agreement as to the delivery of the goods; for one of his common sayings was, that honesty was the best policy." The audacity of Wild's proceedings occasioned an amendment of the law against the receiving of stolen goods, and the taking of a reward for helping any person to their recovery; the former of which offences was, in 1719, made punishable by transportation for fourteen years, and the latter by death. These penalties deterred Wild for some time from prosecuting his trade; but after a while he got over his fears, and proceeding again, with nearly as much boldness as ever, was at length caught in the fatal meshes of the new statute.

Persons who kept houses for the receipt of stolen goods, and who had thieves in regular pay, had however existed in this metropolis long before the time of Wild. "At the sessions, in July, 1585," says Maitland, the historian of London, "this may be worthy to be related, as it was written by Fleetwood, the recorder to the lord-treasurer—that he, and some others that were then upon the bench, spent a day about searching out sundry that were receivers of felons; and a great many were found in London, Westminster, Southwark, and places about the same. And they got the names of forty-five masterless men and cutpurses, whose practice was to rob gentlemen's chambers and artificers' shops in and about London, and seven houses of entertainment for such in London, six more in Westminster, three more in the suburbs, and two in Southwark. Among the rest they found out one Wotton, a gentleman born, and sometime a merchant of good credit, but fallen by time into decay. This man kept an alehouse at Smart's Key, near Billingsgate; and after, for some misdemeanour, put down, he reared up a new trade of life; and in the same house he procured all the cutpurses about the city to repair to his house. There was a school set up to learn young boys to cut purses. Two devices were hung up; one was a pocket, and another was a purse: the pocket had in it certain counters, and was hung about with hawks'-bells, and over the top did hang a little sacring-bell: the purse had silver in it; and he that could take out a counter without any noise was allowed to be a public Foyster; and he that could take a piece of silver out of the purse, without noise of any of the bells, was adjudged a judicial Nypper, according to their terms of art. A foyster was a pickpocket, a nypper was a pickpurse or cutpurse. It gave great encouragement to evil-doers about these times, and good men complained of it, that thieves and malefactors condemned were so frequently and commonly spared; and this evil came from the court, insomuch that the recorder aforesaid, a wise and honest man, observed to the lord-treasurer, that it was grown a trade in the court to make means for reprieves." The latter part of this statement introduces us to a very important topic,-the fearful amount of juvenile delinquency in London. At the present day, large multitudes of both sexes, some from the utter destitution in which they are thrown upon the world, and others under the tuition of the bad example of their parents, may be said to be reared in crime almost from their cradles. They have been taught no other way of supporting existence, except by the violation of the laws; they practise no other, and they have scarcely an idea of any other. The evidence attached to the Report of the Committee of 1828 contains many statements upon this head. The following passages from the evidence of Mr. J. S. Thomas (now one of the superintendents of police) present a view of a part of the evil :

"According to your observation, are there many boys employed about the theatres in picking pockets?—Yes; I have taken seven or eight at a time: I speak of boys that are bill-deliverers. There is a publication called the Theatrical Observer, and those boys deliver the bills, and, if they possibly can, they pick pockets. There are from fifty to sixty immediately round the theatre; I took eight of them before Sir Richard Birnie, one night, to try how far we could interfere in dispersing them; and Sir Richard Birnie spoke to them one gave one account and one

another; some came from a part of the town called Mutton Hill, at the end of Hatton Garden, some from St. Giles's, and some from Tothill-fields, Westminster; and they place themselves all down Brydges-street, Catharine-street, Charles-street, Bow-street, and round the piazzas at Covent Garden, and even as far as St. Martin's court, Leicester-fields. "What are their parents?-In many instances they are fatherless, and in some instances they have proved to have neither father nor mother. There was one little fellow, a most intelligent and interesting-looking lad as ever I saw, who stated that his father was an officer; that he had been born in Colchester barracks; he was illegitimate; and that his father in the first instance had abandoned him, and finally his mother, and that he had no other means of living, and he paid four pence a night for his lodgings: that boy was cautioned, along with the rest, never to be seen there any more; one or two of them went down on their knees before Sir Richard Birnie, and made most solemn assurances that they never would, and within an hour I found them at it again, and they have continued to do so ever since.

"Do these boys attend any school?-None, as I believe. "Are there not many boys of that age who sleep in baskets and on the offal round Covent Garden?-Yes; I have taken some of them up, and I have saved one or two from destruction, by taking charge of them in the night and handing them over to their parents. There was an instance of a son of a surveyor at Marylebone: I found him in company with some professed thieves at three o'clock one morning; he had a watch and some shirts, and other things, which were the property of his father, and he was then only waiting for daylight to get a ship to go off; and I took him to the watch-house for the night, and he was restored to his anxious father the next day.

"Are there not certain classes of boys that have no regular lodgings, who live in the market, and who sleep in the baskets at night?-Yes, there are, and not only at night, but in the day. We can take nearly a hundred of them, particularly at the time the oranges are about; they come there picking up the bits of oranges, both boys and girls; and there are prostitutes at eleven, twelve, and thirteen years of age. *** I counted last night, at the king's entrance of the theatre, seventeen individuals, men and women, that were apparently houseless, sleeping there,"

The most lamentable of all the debasing habits to which many of the poorer classes in England have surrendered themselves, is that of gin-drinking. This vice is one of comparatively recent introduction. "A new kind of drunkenness," says Fielding, writing in 1751, "unknown to our ancestors, is lately sprung up amongst us, and which, if not put a stop to, will infallibly destroy a great part of the inferior people. The drunkenness I here intend is that acquired by the strongest intoxicating liquors, and particularly by that poison called gin; which, I have great reason to think, is the principal sustenance (if it may be so called) of more than a hundred thousand people in this metropolis. Many of these wretches there are who swallow pints of this poison within the twenty-four hours; the dreadful effects of which I have the misfortune every day to see, and to smell too." The habit in question, however, appears to have made considerable progress more than a quarter of a century before this date. In the Life of Wild, already quoted, which was published in 1725, we find mention made (p. 23) of the "venders of the royal liquor commonly called gin." And in February, 1729, a presentment was made by the grand jury of the county of Middlesex to the following elect:-"We, the grand jury of the county of Middlesex, being sensible of the great mischiefs which arise from the number of shops or houses selling a liquor called Geneva, in and about this city, think it our duty to take notice of them as public nuisances, since we apprehend they may be ranked among the worst of disorderly houses; it being notorious that they not only harbour the vilest of both sexes among the meanest of the people, but, by enuring them to a habit of laziness and debauchery, bring them to want and misery; and, when intoxicated with these pernicious liquors, they are hardened enough to attempt the greatest villanies, such as were formerly scarce known to our nation, though we now, with the greatest concern, observe that they grow familiar to us. The incredible prejudice which his majesty's subjects suffer by frequenting these houses is too obvious to pass unobserved; since the constitutions of the labouring people are not only thereby weakened, but utterly destroyed: and we do not conceive that even any addition to the revenue can be equivalent to the loss the public sustains by the ruin of such numbers of poor families, which fill both the city and country with beggars and vagabonds; of which we at present see the fatal consequences, and fear posterity will feel worse, if, by a speedy regulation of these disorderly houses, an effectual stop be not put to this growing evil."

It is very obvious that no mere police regulations are at all likely to be effectual in putting down this description of criminals, so long as the destitution and abandonment by which they are bred continue to exist. They are the natural produce of that hotbed of vice and misery; and will continue to issue from it while it remains unremoved. Any punishments that may be inflicted can, in the nature of things, operate but very imperfectly in restraining either their growth or their delinquencies. To send them to jail, as most of our jails are at present conducted, is only to send them to the best school of crime. But even if our system of prison discipline were made ever so perfect, this improvement alone could not be expected to clear our streets of these marauders, for successive detachments of whom, indeed, a prison might afford an asylum for a few months, but it could be for that short period only. When again restored to liberty they would still, as at present, find themselves again thrown upon their own resources, and compelled to resort to their former practices. Besides, no reformation, even were it complete and permanent, of the existing race, could prevent the succession of new swarms from the same prolific source. To heal this disease of our political condition, the general habits of the most degraded portion of our population must be changed, and education and all other salutary influences plentifully and perseveringly applied to eradicate the vice and wretchedness with which they are overrun.

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circumstance, Mr. Colquhoun, writing in the following year, states that the sobriety exhibited by the labouring classes was then much greater than it had been before; a fact which was evinced by the number of quarrels and assaults being very considerably diminished, while the pressure, with respect to the means of living, was also apparently less than in the spring of 1795, notwithstanding that no charities had been distributed, and bread was considerably higher." It would seem reasonable,” he adds, "to attribute this favourable change to the high price of gin, which being in a great measure inaccessible, the lower ranks have it now in their power to apply the money formerly spent in this way to the purchase of provisionsperhaps to the extent of some hundred thousand pounds a year in the metropolis alone." Fielding seems inclined to reckon upon one cure of this evil--" the loss of our gindrinkers." "Should the drinking of this poison," he says, "be continued in its present height during the next twenty years, there will, by that time, be very few of the common people left to drink it." This consequence has not followed; for, however great the number of the poor which gin-drinking may have destroyed on the one hand, it has, on the other, been constantly bringing down as many more to the same level of misery, to serve it for new victims. There is reason, also, to believe that this destructive habit has been gradually extending its ravages higher up into society. Fielding speaks of it, in his time, as indulged in only by the lowest of the people; but it is now well known to have spread to a wide extent among the classes of servants and small tradesmen. A fact, especially to be lamented, is the number of females, respectable in their circumstances, who, without carrying their predilection for gin to the excess

To prevent the obstruction of footpaths in fields. From a Catholic priest, complaining of an insult offered to him on account of his religion, at the Bank of Ireland

From the owners of British vessels trading from Liverpool, complaining of burdensome duties and unfair monopolies

Against the use of machinery
From the general commissioners of police of
Glasgow, relative to poor-laws for Ireland
On the low rate of wages of labourers in Ireland
To prevent the passing of the bill for limiting of
actions.

For the establishment of district courts in Scot-
land from the burgh of Perth
From debtors in Newcastle and Maryborough
gaols

From surgeons and apothecaries at York and

Scarborough, concerning the apothecaries' act Praying for an alteration of the law relating to

the assessment for sewers

From Wm. Thornsett of Dover, complaining of a seizure made by a post-office inspector From the contributors to the Glamorganshire county rates.

From certain merchants, bankers, &c. of Plymouth for facilitating the law of debtor and creditor

From D'Arcy Mahon, late a commissioner of stamps in Ireland, for an addition to his superannuating allowance

Concerning Trinity Hospital, New Ross
From Drogheda, in Ireland, relative to the game

act

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325

6528

426

4

205 223

2151

From Robert Robison, late a Captain in his Majesty's service, for a further inquiry into his case

From the unemployed mariners of Newcastle

upon-Tyne, complaining of distress

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516

The total number of petitions presented and reported upon, up to April 19, has been 2597.

NEW PATENT BILL.

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8

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243

1809

There are here, therefore, two parties, whose separate and opposing interests the law has to look to, and to maintain. But it is by the claims of a third party that the case is principally complicated, namely, the rival inventor, whose rights must not be infringed upon by the protection given to the person taking out the patent. In other words, there must be an assurance, before granting the patent, not only that the patentee has given such a specification or description of his invention as shall suffice truly to put the public in possession of it, but also that it is really a new discovery, and that it has actually been made by the person who claims to be the author of it.

These considerations are enough to show, that it would not exactly do to grant a patent as a matter of course, and without both examination and notice to the public, to any person who might apply for it. The necessity of giving public notice, at least to a certain extent, of every application for a patent, is in particular a source of great embarrassment. If such notice were not to be given at all, one man might obtain a patent for an invention which had really been made by another, or for something which was already in common use. But, on the other hand, the very publication of the claim that has been made has the strongest tendency to endanger it, although it may be really a fair one, by tempting some other person fraudulently to pretend to have himself made the same discovery, the knowledge of which he 110 may sometimes contrive to acquire even from the shortest announcement of its nature and object. The announcement must always, however brief and reserved as to parti132 culars, be a correct description, in so far as it goes; and likewise so definite and specific, as that its meaning shall be perfectly intelligible: for otherwise, it is obvious it would be no better than no announcement at all.

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meet all the difficulties of the subject, there can be no doubt as to the many defects and objectionable provisions of the present law; and some of the principal of these we will now enumerate, with a reference to the provisions of Mr. Godson's bill, by which they are proposed to be met. We will begin with those as to the proper mode of dealing with which there can be little or no controversy.

In the first place, the expense of taking out a patent, under the present law, has long been complained of. The fees alone, laying aside the cost of agency, come to about 1077. for England, about 80%. for Scotland, and about 1287. for Ireland. There are some reasons for holding, that it would not be expedient to abolish these taxes entirely, and to make a patent cost no more than the price of the parchment upon which it is written; but whatever difference of opinion there may be as to the propriety of still continuing to check the taking out of patents, in a certain degree, by making it a thing which cannot be done but at some cost, there can be no doubt that the present cost is needlessly and oppressively high. It is proposed, in Mr. Godson's bill, that the expense shall be reduced to a certain portion of its present amount, to be settled in the committee.

As the law now stands, although a patent may be taken out by the first introducer of an invention from another country, provided he swears the secret has been communicated to him by a foreigner, the protection in question cannot be granted to him if the person from whom he received the invention was an Englishman residing abroad. According to the new bill," letters-patent may be granted to any person in Great Britain and Ireland, who may have received from any person being abroad, or from any person being resident within the kingdom, information of any new manufacture whatever."

At present, the assignees of an inventor while he is himself alive, cannot take out a patent for his discovery. By the proposed measure, a patentee is to be at liberty to assign or transfer his interest in his patent, or grant licences to make or use the same, in any manner, or to any number of persons, he may think fit. Of course, by this enactment, also, the present prohibition against more than five individuals having an interest in the same patent, is done away with.

The present patent law being founded upon an old statute (the 21 James I. cap. 3), in which the only expression used to describe the person to whom a patent may be granted, is the inventor of a new manufacture, considerable difficulty has been experienced in the attempt to stretch the meaning of these words, so as to comprehend all sorts of discoverers and introducers of inventions. To obviate the doubts which have been thus occasioned, and which have been strengthened by conflicting decisions of the judges, it is proposed to enact," that all new substances or things made, that all new machines, that all new combinations or arrangements of machinery or things, either already known or newly discovered; that all principles newly discovered, and all new applications, which, when reduced into practice, produce some article fit for sale; that all chemical discoveries, methods, or processes, which result in or produce an article of commerce, shall be the subjects for which letters-patent shall be granted; whether they be discovered within the United Kingdom or be obtained by communication or sale." This is perhaps as comprehensive a description as could well be framed, and will probably be found to embrace every case fairly entitled to protection.

a patent could be obtained for a shorter period, provided the expense were less, it would in many instances be preferred. The choice of taking out a patent either for fourteen or for only seven years, the fees being different in the two cases, is accordingly given in the new Bill. And whereas, at present, the extension of a patent beyond the original term, which is in some cases no more than a fair indulgence, can only be obtained by an application to parliament, it is proposed, that in such cases his Majesty shall be empowered to grant a new patent, after the matter has been submitted to an examination of the same nature with that on which the original patent was obtained.

So far there will probably be little difference of opinion in regard to the suggested alterations of the law. There are, however, some other points, as to which, although there may be a general agreement that the present practice is attended with injustice or inconvenience, the proper mode of correcting it may not be quite so clear.

At present any person who wishes, for whatever purpose, honest or the reverse, to know for what new inventions patents are applied for, may, at an expense of 15s., lodge what is called a caveat, which will entitle him to a notice of all patents applied for during the following six months. Great abuses are alleged to have sprung up from this practice; and in particular it is stated to have often happened that the secret of inventions has thereby escaped before the letterspatent were sealed. The entering of caveats it is therefore proposed to place for the future under great restrictions. Of these the chief is, that each person shall, at the time of entering the same, lodge an outline or description of that invention of his own which he professes to think is about to be made the subject of letters-patent to be granted to another person. It may seem at first sight that this is an unfair restriction of the rights of the public, who are entitled to ascertain by means of these caveats what patents are applied for, whether they relate to subjects on which the party lodging the caveat has matured any invention of his own or no. But the force of this objection is perhaps abated by the consideration, that the mere taking out of a patent does not protect a patentee against all disturbance in the enjoyment of his monopoly; but that if the same proof which would have at first prevented the patent being granted shall be afterwards adduced in a court of law, the patent will be thereby overturned. This risk, it may be argued, is quite enough to protect the interests of the public.

One of the objections which have been most strongly urged against the present system is derived from the incompetency of the persons on whose decision letters-patent are granted. The officers charged with this duty are the Attorney and Solicitor-General; personages, certainly, whose knowledge of arts and manufactures is not usually very profound. Under the new Bill the dignitary of the law is to be allowed in disputed cases to call in any two men practically skilled in the arts and sciences, to assist him in coming to his determination, the costs to be paid by the parties in the proportions that he shall direct.

If a patentee at present shall make any improvement on his invention, after he has taken out his patent, he can only protect that improvement by taking out a new patent, at the same expense as the former. The Bill proposes to allow him to secure the monopoly of such improvements, to any number, merely by enrolling so many new, or, as they are termed, secondary specifications.

The only term for which a patent can be granted under the existing law is fourteen years; but it is probable that if

of a patent, the patentee obtain a verdict, the court may grant a certificate that the validity of the letters-patent has been fully tried on the merits thereof, and that in all future actions brought upon the same patent, the patentee shall, upon the production of the said certificate, be required only to prove the infringement of the party sued, and the damages suffered, and nothing more. This rule will put an end to one of the most oppressive grievances of the present system, namely, the liability which a patentee is under to have his rights called in question by repeated trials at law, notwithstanding any number of verdicts that may have been given in his favour.

These are not all. the enactments of Mr. Godson's Bill,