not yet arrived, nor possibly are we destined ever to reach it. But we have gained at least the intermediate space between that and the commencing point of civilization, when, in the contest between the criminal and the law, we have seen the latter assert its permanent supremacy, and the former acknowledge its strength and its terrors, even though still striving to elude its notice. Then, the practical benefit of the change, that which we feel every day and every hour, is not to be told. We move about everywhere without dread and without danger. No man, generally speaking, dreams of the chance of being either murdered, or knocked down, or robbed, of being exposed to injury either in person or property, while passing along the public street or the king's highway, be it at what hour it may. He moves about upon his lawful occasions, whithersoever they may carry him, in the feeling and in the reality of perfect security. The robberies, and assaults, and murders, that are still sometimes perpetrated, take place out of sight, in remote and lonely situations, not to be kept under perpetual observation by the most numerous and best appointed police, and on victims who have usually been first decoyed and snared before they have been plundered or sacrificed. If while two individuals are together in a room, one of them who is the stronger of the two, or who is on the watch for his opportunity, shall suddenly give the other a blow which stuns him, and shall then rob or murder him,-this is a case which no vigilance on the part of a police could have prevented. Such are our modern crimes of violence. They will always be committed while the immorality and evil propensities by which they are instigated remain in the bosoms of men; let police be made however perfect. The machinery for their detection might indeed be improved; but in regard, for example, to those inhuman atrocities of this description which are done at the bidding of the worst passions to which our nature is subject, and by maddened or brutalized wretches incapable of being acted upon by any but their one governing impulse, it may be doubted if any possible increase of the chances of detection would operate with much effect. Other remedial influences, of a different character altogether, must be applied to bring about the extinction of such crimes. Meanwhile the persons who suffer from them are extremely few in number; and the risk of suffering from them can hardly be said to give a moment's uneasiness to anybody. It is a mere metaphysical possibility, or little more, on which no one spends a thought. And is not this a state of security and ease well worth the price, in so many pounds, shillings, and pence, at which it has been bought? Notwithstanding the undeniable state of the fact, however, with regard to the metropolis, it has been doubted whether even the more violent description of offences has of late decreased throughout the country generally. If we are to judge by the committals and convictions, it would appear that such offences have increased in number very considerably during the last thirty years. The apparent increase has even been greater in proportion than the increase of the population. It has only not been so great as the increase of minor delinquencies. There can be no question, however, that a considerable part of this apparent increase is apparent only, and to be attributed to the more exact administration of justice, which now takes notice of many crimes that would formerly have been overlooked, and neither brought to punishment nor trial. Whatever may be the case also with regard to the mere number of such more heinous violations of the law, the whole amount of evidence upon the subject goes to show that they are attended in general (we do not allude to extraordinary cases) with a much less degree of outrage and cruelty than were formerly their concomitants. There has been a progressive mitigation of the old ferocity of the populace, and the improved tone of manners has extended even, to the worst order of criminals themselves. This is fit matter of congratulation, both on its own account, and for the sake of that to which it may lead. It ought also to be remarked that any comparison drawn as to this point between the last eighteen or nineteen years, and the times immediately preceding, can hardly be expected to show a favourable result, when the great change which took place in the circumstances of the country at the commencement of the more recent period is taken into consideration-the transition, we mean, from a state of war to a state of peace, accompanied as it was both by the disbanding o. the greater portion of the army and navy, and by a shifting 'in the channels of our commerce and domestic industry, to an extent never perhaps before so suddenly experienced by any nation. Both these causes must undoubtedly, by throwing many thousands of persons loose from their wonted employments and resources, have added largely to our criminal population. But we are still inclined to think that the cause which more than any other lies at the root of the evil, and chiefly accounts for the steadily progressive growth among us of all descriptions of crime, is the vast increase which has of late years taken place in the number of juvenile delinquents. All the witnesses that have been examined before the several committees on police agree in bearing testimony to the fact of this increase, although few or any of them express a distinct opinion as to the causes to which it ought to be assigned. There is probably something in the conjecture which has been hazarded, that it may be partly owing to the much greater proportion of children from among the whole number born that are now reared to maturity than were formerly. The value of human life at every age has been considerably augmented; but the augmentation that has taken place in the value of infant life, owing to the introduction of vaccination and other causes, is the greatest of all. If, therefore, five children, for example, live now for three that lived formerly, in families of that class from which the ranks of juvenile delinquency have always been supplied, the consequence is very evident. Those ranks must have acquired an immense accession of numbers. Now, this is the nursery in which our greater criminals are reared. These unhappy children commence their career by pilfering and other minor offences; they are sent to prison, to be there associated with and tutored by older malefactors; they come out more accomplished adepts in villany, more hardened, and if possible more destitute than ever; they plunge again, and in truth are almost forced to do so, into their former courses, only in all probability, with their increased age and more matured habits of lawlessness, choosing a higher and broader path of criminal adventure, and pursuing it with bolder and more reckless steps; till at last, such of them as dissipation and misery have not yet destroyed, ripen into desperadoes of violence and blood. Very few, we believe, of those most unfortunate victims of neglect and destitution are ever reformed into useful members of society. The draughting off of such multitudes of the young of both sexes to an existence of almost hopeless depravity and perdition, is, indeed, a fearful waste of the very life-blood and best strength of the community. It is here unquestionably, if any chance of success is to be given to the attempt, that the suppression of crime must begin. A few years ago it was stated to a Committee of the House of Commons that there were 130,000 children in London without the means of education. What an appalling fact is this alone! and how are we entitled to expect that the growth of immorality and crime should ever be checked so long as this state of things shall remain unredressed? The subject which we have here taken up, and upon only a few of the leading points of which we have been able to touch, is likely immediately to engage much of the attention of Parliament. Mr. Lamb, the Under-secretary of State, has lately brought into the House of Commons a Bill for consolidating the several Acts relative to the Police-offices of London and Westminster; and a Committee has also since been appointed to inquire into the subject of the police of these cities. What has been already accomplished is the best proof that much more may yet be done to improve our police system. We believe that it may be rendered much more perfect than it now is, without being made in any respect more than it is now either an instrument of oppression in the hands of the government, or in any way an annoyance to the peaceably-disposed portion of society. But it is not to be forgotten, we repeat, that the repression of crime is not to be attained by the most complete form of what is commonly called a police establishment alone. The general system of the law and of its administration, the discipline maintained in prisons and other places appointed for the punishment of delinquents, and the state of every institution affecting the social condition of the people generally, have each and all a direct and powerful bearing upon this matter. It is, however, a matter as intimately connected as any other with the well-being of the community at large, and than which there is none having a stronger claim upon the best attention of the legislature, or more imperatively demanding that the most strenuous exertions should be applied to its right consideration and management. We shall, in a future Number, under the head "Crime in the Country," examine a few of the circumstances which distinguish the offences peculiar to our rural population. WEST INDIA QUESTION. On the 14th of the last month, Mr. Stanley, in a speech of remarkable ability, brought forward in the House of Commons the plan proposed by ministers for the accomplishment of the great object on which the heart of the country has been so long and earnestly set,—the extinction of colonial slavery. We shall, in the first place, endeavour to present such a summary and explanation of the intended measure, as may enable our readers perfectly to understand its several provisions. The most important immediate effect of the new law will be the entire cessation, from that instant, of the further growth of slavery. All children born after the passing of the act, or who, at the time of its passing, shall be under the age of six years, are to be free, provided their respective parents shall take upon themselves the charge of their maintenance. Those children only whose parents may decline maintaining them are to be bound apprentices to the master of the parents, and to work for him without wages-the males till the age of twenty-four, and the females till that of twenty, at which periods they are to be absolutely free. With regard, secondly, to the grown-up negroes, it is proposed that they shall all become free within twelve years, or twelve years and a half, at the farthest, after the passing of the act. Only those who prefer being slaves can remain such after the expiration of that period. Meanwhile, the condition of the slave is also to be immediately altered in various important respects. Every slave who chooses is to be at liberty to claim to be registered as an apprenticed labourer to his master; and the effect of this change in the relation between the two will be at once to destroy and put an end for ever to many of the most degrading distinctions by which the lot of the former is at present marked. Except, indeed, in respect to the compulsion which he will still be under to work for his master, during a certain part of his time, he will immediately enter into the enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of a freeman. He will of course cease, though it is not expressly so stated in the resolutions, to be a commodity transferable by sale. He will be capable, it is distinctly intimated, of giving evidence in all courts, criminal as well as civil, and as well against his employer as against any other person; of serving upon juries and in the militia; of attending whatever place of worship or teacher of religion he pleases; and generally will have and enjoy all other rights and privileges whatsoever of a British subject. The power of inflicting upon him corporal punishment, also, will be taken out of the hands of his master, and be transferred to the magistrate. Finally, instead of working, as at present, for ten hours of the day or more, he will be obliged, under his contract of apprenticeship, to work only three-fourths of that time. And for this amount of labour, he may, at his own option, be either paid, as at present, by being lodged, clothed, and fed, or by receiving a sum in money, weekly, to be fixed by a magistrate with reference to the actual cost of the legal provision. During the remaining fourth of his time, he is to be permitted to work for wages, either to his master, from whom he shall be entitled to claim employment, or elsewhere if he pleases. Should he remain in the service of his master, he will receive wages at a rate to be regulated on this principle:-The master will fix a price upon him at the time of his apprenticeship, and of that he will be bound to pay him a twelfth part every year as his wages. This is an arrangement of great importance, and very ingeniously contrived for the effecting of its object, the ascertainment of the real value of the negro to his master, a point which it would be probably impossible to get at in any other way. By this scheme it is made equally the interest of the master not to fix that price either too high or too low. If he should fix it too high, he will have to pay the negro a correspondingly high rate of wages; if, on the other hand, he should name too small a sum, he will run the risk of being obliged altogether to forego the benefit of the negro's labour for that inadequate compensation, it being provided, that the latter, on paying, at any time, the price fixed upon him, or such It is proposed that, in order to compensate the master for this abstraction of the fourth part of the negro's time and labour, a loan of 15,000,000l. sterling shall be granted to the proprietors of West Indian estates and slaves, on approved security in the case of each individual, and on payment of interest. The provisions of the scheme which refer to this loan are at present somewhat imperfectly stated, and may probably receive considerable modification. From a passage in Mr. Stanley's speech, it would appear that it is to be left to the future consideration of Parliament, whether it will ever require repayment of the money, or eventually convert it into a gift. In the mean time, however, it is proposed that it shall be, in part at least, liquidated by a deduction or tax, which each negro is to be compelled to pay half-yearly out of his wages. In default of such payment by the negro, the master is to be liable, and in return may exact an equivalent amount of labour, without wages, in the succeeding half-year. It is this clause which may, in some cases, protract the existence of slavery for six months beyond the twelve years. But it is not likely, we think, that the proposal of taxing the negro will be ultimately persevered in. No hint has been given as to how much of the loan is expected to be recovered by this arrangement; but we should suppose the amount reckoned upon cannot be very considerable. It is to be recollected that, although the negro is now to receive wages for a portion of his time, he is, on the other hand, to be burthened with the new charge of supporting his family out of his earnings. If it be intended that he shall, in what we may call his state of transition, have any opportunity of accumulating property, and thereby learning some of the habits which promise to be of most value to him when he shall be absolutely emancipated, it would seem to be unadvisable to diminish the pittance out of which his savings are to be made, by any further deduction than that to which his domestic expenses must subject it. Such are the outlines of the proposed plan. It may be considered as a scheme for the equitable distribution, among the different parties concerned, of the burthen to be borne in effecting the great object contemplated. These parties are three in number-the public, the planters, and the slaves. They all receive a certain share of the benefit, and are each also called upon to pay something for what they receive. The public is to be gratified by the accomplishment of its strongly expressed desire for the abolition of slavery; and for that it is to pay 15,000,000l. sterling in money, or some other large sum. The various advantages which are to accrue to the slave have just been enumerated. He is the party having the strongest claim upon any benefits which the measure may have to bestow; but even he is to purchase the immediate liberty of his children, and his own eventual emancipation, by being subjected to compulsory labour for a certain period. The planter, lastly, gives up or is to be deprived of various things in which he has hitherto had a legal right of property-of the labour of his slave for one-fourth part of every day-of the labour of the same slave for the whole day after a period of twelve years-and of all the profit which he might have made of the negroes born within the last six years, or to be born in future on his estate. The advantage by which it is proposed that he shall be compensated for these sacrifices, (besides his exemption from the expense of maintaining the individuals thus made free,) must be regarded as consisting in the deliverance which the successful operation of the plan may be expected to bring him, from the obloquy and insecurity to which he is at present exposed, and the increased value which his property will acquire after the establishment of the new system. We shall not at present venture to express our opinion as to how far the above division of the gain and loss may be regarded as a fair apportionment. Upon this head nothing can be certainly advanced, until the details of the measure shall have been discussed and settled. As yet it can be said to exist only in outline. We will add, however, a few words as to one of the leading principles of the plan, which has been somewhat violently attacked. Of the three parties we have mentioned, the first, namely, the public or the nation, are unquestionably the authors of the evil to be redressed, and ought, therefore, it may be said, in strict justice to bear the whole cost of its removal. And were it only for the purpose of relieving them of a part of this charge, that it was proposed to pay a portion of the master's claim by the labour of the negroes for twelve years longer, we should certainly not be prepared to defend that arrangement. But if we rightly understand the government plan, this is not the object, or at least the principal object, of the enactment in question. It is plain that this most difficult subject, embarrassed as it is by a multitude of considerations both of right and of expediency, cannot be surrendered to the domination of any single principle, but must be treated with a reference to all the conflicting interests that have become mixed up in it, and settled, if at all, only in the way of mutual concession and compromise. It would neither be practicable nor just for the government to attempt any other mode of managing it. It would be an experiment pregnant with danger to the interests, not of some of the parties concerned, but of all. Suppose, for instance, that what is called the indefeasible claim of the negro to his liberty were alone to be looked to. You have no right to keep these men under restraint for another hour, upon any pretence whatever you have no such right, even on the plea that you do so for their good. You are not entitled to sit or judge respecting what is for their good. Arguing the matter merely upon the abstract rights of man, the only question is, what do they themselves feel and wish? Would you allow them to impose any restraint upon you on their conviction that they were thereby doing you a service, or protecting you from a danger? We should scout such a pretension, and justly insist upon being allowed to judge for ourselves. On the principle of the rights of man, the negro is equally entitled to do the same. He is entitled, in other words, not only to his freedom, as soon as you shall conscientiously believe it safe and for his own interest that he should be made free, but, if he wishes it, to his freedom immediately, and without reference to any apprehensions of yours, however conscientious or disinterested. If you are to go simply upon the rights of man, you are not more justified in imposing yourself upon him as his guardian than as his driver. : But all this only shows the absurdity of attempting to combat the difficulties of a great political question with the armour of this schoolboy metaphysics. Let the doctrine of the rights of man say what it will, there are few people in their sound senses who will be ready to consent to liberate the West Indian negroes by a mere proclamation of Slaves! be free!' Those among us who are most anxious for the extinction, and if possible the instant extinction, of the state of slavery, would hardly demand that the bondsman of the last moment should be the entirely-unrestricted freeman of the next. The apprehension might, after all, by possibility be an unfounded one; but all rational persons would consent to act to a certain extent, in this case, upon the supposition that the negro, if at once released from all his customary restraints, would be in some danger of making an unfortunate use of his freedom; and that both himself and others might run the risk of suffering terribly by his imprudence and misconduct. It would be generally, for instance, thought necessary to provide, in such an event, against the chance of the social system of the West India islands being thrown into confusion by the land being allowed to lie uncultivated, were it only for a single year, even although the regulations deemed necessary to avert that calamity should trench somewhat upon the absolute freedom of the emancipated negroes. Of the two evils, the less would be submitted to in order to avoid the greater. But the moment that this mode of proceeding is adopted, the principle of mere abstract right is relinquished, and that of expediency is taken as the rule. So it is in the present plan. It is true, that, on the doctrine of the equal rights of all men, you are not entitled to retain these negroes another day, either in a state of slavery or in a state of apprenticeship; but you take the liberty of looking to other considerations as well as to this, to the security, for instance, of the property of the planters, and to the benefit of the negroes themselves. With a reference to these two objects, it is proposed that the emancipation of the slave shall not be immediate, but gradual; that he shall have to work his way up to his new state of freedom through a period of considerable length, in the course of which both he and his master may have ample opportunity to prepare for the changed condition of things to which they are both to be transferred. But this delay, we are bound to add, will be altogether use less for its professed purpose, in so far as the benefit of the slave is concerned, and will be only a cruel prolongation of his servitude for no justifiable end whatever, unless adequate measures shall, in the mean time, be taken to turn these years to account in the improvement of his moral and intellectual nature. Unless this use shall be made of the interval, the general emancipation, with which it is proposed that it shall close, might as well take place now. It is with great satisfaction, therefore, that we observe the intimation with which the announcement of the government plan concludes, to the effect that means will be taken to establish, in the colonies to which this great measure relates, "a general system of religious and moral education." For the reasons we have stated, we hope this system will be of such a nature as to comprehend the instruction not only of the emancipated child, but also of his nearly equally ignorant and still unli| berated parent. PROPOSED NEW LAWS RELATING TO DRA MATIC LITERARY PROPERTY AND IT would be difficult to conceive anything more absurd or more unjust than our present law of literary property, in so far as the drama is concerned. In all other cases, the admitted principle is, that the property of a thing and the right of using it are in the person by whom it has been created. Sometimes this right is granted with, sometimes without, limitation; but there is no other instance, we believe, in which the benefit of anything having an exchangeable or pecuniary value is taken from him by whose labour or ingenuity the article was produced, and transferred to another party, who has only had the trouble of seizing upon it. Yet this is the manner in which the law treats the writer of a play. His work, as soon as it issues from the press, may be taken possession of by any theatrical manager who chooses to try the speculation, and employed by him in nearly all respects as if it had been the produce of his own brain, or had been purchased by his own money. He cannot, indeed, (at least immediately,) print and sell another edition of it on his own account; but he can turn it to profit in a way which is commonly much more productive. What can be made by the sale of the printed copies is what the law, in its wisdom and liberality, allots to the author; the remainder of the productive value of the piece belongs, it says, no more to him than it does to anybody else. The hardship of this is in every way grievous. If the play is what a play ought to be, it will be something adapted essentially and principally for exhibition on the stage; it will be dependent, in a main degree, for its effect upon the illusions of the theatre and the presence of an audience; it will be only half felt and enjoyed by him who peruses it in his closet. The money return, therefore, of such a production will be derived in great part from its representation. This is not an imaginary case; it is one which has often happened. But suppose that the drama, as sometimes happens, shall not have been written specially for representation, and that the author, conscious that it is not adapted for the stage, gives it to the world rather as a dramatic poem than as a play, and proclaims his aversion to its being acted. His aversion is all that he can express; it is not in his power to issue his prohibition. The players, induced by the notoriety of his name, or by some similar consideration, lay their hands upon the unfortunate production, and he can no more protect it from their grasp than if he had not any right of property in it whatever. It receives the unsuitable honour of being acted, probably only to be followed by the disgrace of failure and condemnation. This also has actually happened. The operation of the law here, it will be observed, inflicts a positive injury upon the author, and is, therefore, still more oppressive and iniquitous than in the former case, in which it only deprives him of a right. All this arises from the error of not giving to the author of a dramatic composition the same property in his production which is recognized in the case of every other producer. He is undoubtedly entitled to claim that another party shall not be permitted to make a profit by the use of what he has created, without his consent. Nobody is allowed to print his play but himself; why should any one be allowed to act it, and thus to appropriate what is, in almost all cases, by far the greater part of its commercial value? A bill, having for its object the correction of this glaring defect in the law, has this session been introduced into Par is resorted to as the mere amusement of a listless or vacant hour, and with the expectation that the senses shall be gratified at least as much as the intellect. It is, in short, a disenchanted thing; like a rich shrine to which devotees have ceased to crowd, and which is only visited by successive companies of the curious and the worldly, who come to feed their eyes on the glare of its gold and jewellery. liament, and has already passed the House of Commons. | permanent fountains of feeling and reflection, is gone. It It provides that no play, which may be written from this time forward, and also no one which has been printed within the last seven years, shall be produced on any theatre, without leave obtained in writing from the author, for a period of twenty-eight years from the date of its first publication, nor for so many years beyond that term as the author shall live. This is the same extent of protection which the legislature has already thought proper to grant to authors against the piracy of their works by the press. A penalty of 50%, which may be reduced by the Judge to 107., with double costs, is affixed to every infringement of the regulation. The action must be brought within twelve months from the date of the offence. BILL FOR THE RELIEF OF THE JEWS. ANOTHER great triumph of the principle of religious liberty, in addition to those of the emancipation of the Catholics, and the repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts, is likely soon to be achieved in parliament, by the repeal of the disabiliAnother bill, of great importance in relation to this sub-ties affecting the Jews. The resolution in favour of this ject, has also been brought into the House of Commons, measure, agreed to by the House of Commons on the 18th entitled "A Bill for Licensing Theatres, and for the Regu- of April, was to the effect," that it is expedient to remove lation of Dramatic Performances in the cities of London and all civil disabilities at present existing with respect to his Westminster, and within a certain distance thereof." At Majesty's subjects professing the Jewish religion, with the present, as is well known, the only theatres licensed in the like exceptions that are provided with respect to his Majesty's metropolis, for the performance of what is called the regular subjects professing the Roman Catholic religion;" and the drama, are those of Drury Lane and Covent Garden for bill which has since been brought in, and the second reading eight months in the year, and that of the Haymarket for the of which took place on the 22d of the last month, merely remaining four. In other words, the number of theatres, contains the enactments necessary to secure the object thus open for the representation of comedies and tragedies during announced. It is proposed, that from the passing of the act the principal theatrical season, is still just the same as it it shall be lawful for the persons to whom it refers, " to have was at the Restoration, or nearly two hundred years ago, and enjoy all such and the same civil rights, franchises, and although the population of London has at least doubled since privileges, and to hold, exercise, and possess such and the then, and its extent been increased in even a higher ratio. same offices, places, emoluments, trusts and confidences, as The object of the present bill is to rectify this state of things, the subjects of his Majesty professing the Roman Catholic by giving to the Lord Chamberlain the power of licensing religion are now by law able and competent to have, enjoy, additional theatres in London and Westminster, and within hold, exercise, and possess, and under the same restrictions." a circuit of twenty miles around these cities; or, rather, They are to take the same oaths on being admitted to sit making it compulsory upon him to grant a licence to every and vote in parliament, and on being appointed to any establishment within that space, which shall adduce certain office under the crown, which are required by the late relief specified recommendations in support of its claim. Of these act to be taken by Catholics on the like occasions; with this required conditions, the principal is, that the application difference, that, in the declaration substituted in room of the shall not be opposed by a majority of the contiguous pro- sacramental test, the words "upon the true faith of a Chrisprietors, who are defined to be all persons, residing not far- tian" shall be omitted. The incapacities to which they are to ther than a quarter of a mile from the building, who have continue liable are also the same with those to which Cathothe privilege of voting at the election of a member of Par- lics are still subjected; the chief of these being inability to liament. The licence is to be renewed annually. It is pro- hold the offices of Lord High Chancellor and Lord Lieuposed that, on the institution of this new system, an end tenant of Ireland, or any office in the established churches or shall be put to the power, at present exercised by justices the universities. of the peace, of licensing theatres for certain descriptions of entertainments in the neighbourhood of the metropolis; but all those houses which are open under such authority at present, are immediately to receive new and more unrestricted licences from the Lord Chamberlain. The second part of the bill gives to that officer the same right of superintendence over the performances at all the houses to be licensed under the new system, as he has at present over those which take place at the two patent theatres. That is to say, no new piece is to be represented without first being submitted to his inspection, and having obtained his sanction as containing nothing either immoral, profane, or seditious. Persons contravening any prohibition which he may issue against the performance of an objectionable play, may be sent to prison for six months by any two justices of the peace within whose jurisdiction the theatre may be situate. There are several of the enactments in this latter bill which may probably give rise to some discussion, and which may be considerably modified before it becomes a law. But some legislative provision, embracing at least its principal object, the breaking up of the monopoly of the two patent theatres, is imperatively required. In addition to the argument, already noticed, derived from the vast extension of the metropolis since that monopoly was established, there are various other pressing reasons which demand this reform. Let us mention only one more. The attempt to make the same number of two theatres serve for the London of the present day which served for that of the seventeenth century, has led to an extension of each house, altogether incompatible with the effective performance, at least, of the higher drama. But it is the interest created by this high drama alone that can ever give to the theatre anything like an empire over the national mind. Banish that from your boards, and the playhouse becomes merely one among the multitude of places of entertainment, with nothing national about it more than any other show. The true love of the drama languishes and dies among the population. It loses altogether its old character of a high intellectual banquet. All its power over the imagination, and the deeper and more In 1752, a bill was brought into parliament, and passed through both houses almost without opposition, for permitting persons professing the Jewish religion, who had resided in Great Britain or Ireland for three years, to be naturalized without taking the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Every Jew actually born in Great Britain, it is to be observed, was already naturalized independently of this new law; so that what it proposed to effect was in reality as small a matter as it is easy to conceive. The few Jews born abroad who, under its operation, would have been admitted denizens of the kingdom, would not thereby have acquired a single privilege beyond those of their brethren who happened to be the King's natural born subjects. All the disabilities affecting persons professing the Jewish religion would still have attached to them as well as to the rest. The only possible effect, therefore, of the law would have been to add a few more individuals to a class already existing among us to the number of several thousands. Yet seldom has any political question excited such a ferment in England as did the passing of this bill. The people were plied with pamphlets, sermons, and other inflammatory appeals upon the subject, till they were persuaded that the ruin of the constitution and of the country was certain to be the speedy consequence of the step the legislature had taken. No prognostication of the tendency and necessary results of the new law was too absurd to be gravely proclaimed, and to obtain ready and extensive acquiescence. It was alleged, for instance, that, with their early marriages, the Jews, under the encouragement about to be given them, would increase at such a rate as in no long time to form a body in a high degree dangerous to the commonwealth from its numerical force. Another favourite topic was that, whether their numbers increased or not, they would certainly soon draw to themselves all the trade of the kingdom. The Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and Livery of London, presented a petition to parliament against the bill, in which they expressed their strong apprehensions that, if passed into a law, it would place the constitution in jeopardy. After it had passed, many of the other corporations through. out the country followed this wise example. Public meet-thousand; and the notion, therefore, of danger to any of ings were held in most of the boroughs and counties, and our institutions, either in church or state, from the aboliresolutions voted calling upon the members to get the law tion of disabilities affecting so mere a handful of the popurepealed. So perseveringly, in short, were the clamour and tion, is quite out of the question. agitation continued, that it was at length deemed expedient to yield to it; and the law was actually repealed the following session. No class of persons have ever endured so general and so long-continued a persecution as have the Jews. It has been their lot to be subjected to all the degradation and oppression that contempt and hatred could inflict in almost every nation in which they have sojourned, and alike by the adherents of all the other great systems of theological belief. Sects opposed to each other in almost every other point of doctrine and feeling have united in trampling upon this unhappy race. In this particular, Roman Catholics and Protestants, Christians and Mahometans, have pursued with equal zeal the same course. In Turkey, in Spain and Portugal, in France, in Germany, in England, the Jew has been looked upon not merely as an alien, but almost as an outcast from the great human family, and often treated as if he possessed neither the feelings nor the form of man. In some cases, indeed, the treatment so far vindicated the notion from which it sprung as to produce, in a certain degree, that very result. The physical structure of the Jew, when allowed to develop itself freely and in favourable circumstances, has always manifested eminent activity, strength, and elegance; this, for instance, is its character generally in both sexes in Poland, where for a long time the race has enjoyed a degree of consideration which it has scarcely anywhere else attained. But in most of the European capitals a Jew used to be distinguishable by his feeble and stunted appearance; and probably in many places this is still, to a considerable extent, the case. Ages of persecution had dwarfed and withered the race and no doubt the debasement and suffering they have had to endure have not passed over them without leaving some of their noxious effects upon their moral nature as well as upon their physical. THE BANKING SYSTEM OF GREAT BRITAIN. No. II. COUNTRY BANKING IN ENGLAND. COUNTRY banks began to be formed in England after the middle of last century,-a time when the inhabitants of our provincial towns slowly but perceptibly increased their numbers. The chief causes of increase were the improvement of turnpike roads, the extension of canals, and the diffusion of the cotton and iron manufactures. There was no obstacle to the establishment of a bank in any town, except the attendant expense; if that could be defrayed by the paper circulated, and the accompanying agency, a partnership was formed, and notes were engraved and issued in the name of the firm. The lowest sum on a bank note, at that time as at present, was 51. Country banks thus continued to increase. They met, like other mercantile establishments, with a severe check in the sudden transition from peace to war in 1793; but most of them recovered from the shock, and their number throughout England was computed at 280 in 1797. In that year leave was given to them, as well as to the metropolitan bank, to issue 17. and 27. bank notes. This privilege was coupled with the equally important one of not paying their notes in cash. From this period there was a surprising extension in the business of country banks; in the seventeen years between 1797 and 1814, their number was more than trebled, for in the latter year it exceeded 900. Then, indeed, came a time of severe trial. In the course of three years (1814, 1815, 1816) there were no less than ninety insolvents among country banks, followed by an equal number of dissolutions of partnership. The number of country banks throughout England was now between 7 and 800: in the year of speculation, 1825, it increased, but was soon brought down by the heavy failures of that and the following year. To this was added the forced recall of the small notes in 1829. Since this time, several country banks have dissolved partnership, the total number in England last year being reduced to 636. There is one thing which makes the dislike and hostility which Christians have so long displayed to the Jews peculiarly discreditable to the former. It appears to have been originally excited in a great measure by envy of the Jew's superiority in learning, science, the arts of life, and all the constituents of civilization. It was in the darkest night of what are called the middle ages, that the persecution of this attention of parliament. Fourteen years ago the Committee Country banking has had a comparatively small share of the ill-fated people by Christian states commenced, and was on the Resumption of Cash Payments was altogether at a loss carried on with the greatest rage and cruelty. During this to form an opinion of the amount of country bank notes period they were the most cultivated inhabitants of Europe. in circulation. They conjectured that it might exceed In England they appear to have existed in considerable twenty millions sterling; but they could make no satisfacnumbers some centuries before the Conquest; but the first tory estimate of the occasional variations in the amount, general plunder and massacre of them of which we read, because they had no means of judging except by returns took place towards the close of the twelfth century, in the from the Stamp-office. This was a very uncertain criterion, reign of Richard I. During the hundred years that followed, since the same stamps might remain in circulation three, four, similar outbreakings of the popular fury, generally excited or five years. Last year, however, a Mr. Burgess, Secretary to and aided by the public authorities, were frequently re- the Society of Country Bankers who meet in London, gave to peated, till at last, in 1290, Edward I. completed the work the Committee on the Bank of England Charter some useful by seizing upon all estates in the hands of Jews, and ba-information in regard to the variations, or rather the companishing every individual of that denomination from the kingdom. The Jews, as is well known, remained excluded from England, till they were re-admitted, in 1655, by Cromwell,-not without vehement remonstrances against the measure from the prejudice of that day,-the remains of the old popular feeling, which nearly four centuries of the cessation of all irritation from the presence of its objects had not been able to extinguish. Englishmen could not, even at that distance of time, forgive the Jew that his forefathers had been distinguished by talents, knowledge, and wealth, when theirs were ignorant, rude, and poor,-that the former had acquired property to be plundered, at an era when the latter could boast of nothing except the numerical force which enabled them to effect the spoliation. It is time that this unworthy jealousy should cease, and that even its last faint traces should be obliterated. Since the Christian has succeeded to that superiority which was formerly the distinction of the Jew, the ancient aversion, as is natural, has become greatly mitigated. The Hebrew race has been amply repaid for the decline of its old social consequence, by the freedom from molestation which, in its comparative obscurity, it now enjoys. There is no reason, of any force that we can see, against adding to this release from actual oppression the other boon of political emancipation. The number of Jews at present in England is not supposed to amount to more than between twenty and thirty rative steadiness in the circulation of country bank paper, for the fluctuation proved to be less than had been previously supposed. Take, for instance, the eight years from 1818 to 1825, a period first of declining, afterwards of increasing business. During the first six years of the eight, there was a decrease in the amount of country bank notes of about 2 per cent. annually; while in the two remaining years, (1824 and 1825,) the increase amounted to 7 per cent. each year, leaving very nearly the same sum in circulation at the end as at the beginning of the period. Security from Country Bankers. The great defect in the system of country banking in England hitherto has been the want of security to the public. Any partnership of individuals, not exceeding six in number, could exercise the important privilege of issuing notes in provincial towns and districts, without giving a guarantee of their ability to pay them. The history of commerce does not exhibit so gross an anomaly. Yet in consequence, at one time, of the dependence of government on the Bank of England,-at another, of the unacquaintance of men in office with the principles of banking, this abuse has been allowed to continue until the present day. The expiration of the Bank of England Charter prevents any further toleration of it, and renders it incumbent on government to provide for the security of the public. |