indeed, emboldened by escape from detection on a first attempt, they have gone on from crime to crime, till the very pursuit has made them ripe in daring and atrocity, and they have at last looked on that with indifference of which, at first, the contemplation produced such painful emotions in their breasts. But this does not set aside that which I endeavour to point out as the cause, nor make Nature the mother of nought but vagabonds and children of disgrace.

Before Manchester was a slave-market, or Paris the depository of the treasures of our landowners, the bare committal to a prison of any individual, for any offence, subjected that individual to the scorn and contempt of his neighbours-it was a lasting badge of disgrace on himself and family; and, if the laws were good, and well and properly administered, such treatment had its good results, in operating as a warning to deter all else, who knew the circumstance, from offending in the same manner, and incurring the same disgrace. But, alas, that sense of shame which was then attached to the punishment of detected offenders-that salutary appendage to imprisonment-is now entirely destroyed, by the very number of offenders; and, this sense of degradation being destroyed, I have no hesitation in considering that crimes will still increase, until the grand cause to which I have attributed its increase is removed. In this, as in every case, when individuals, legislators, or communities adopt laws and regulations in opposition to the strict proprieties of the law of Nature, their systems soon exhibit their weakness of fabric, and, bolster them up as they may, they are still unnatural existences, are still leaky vessels, unfit for sailing, never to be confided in, never of permament duration.

Legislators must return to the prescriptions of Nature-they must cease to legislate for themselves exclusively-they must remember, or learn, in what the strength of a nation consiststhey must remember, or should be taught, that there are duties for them to perform which are as legitimately to be required at their hands, and more so, than are their titles and possessions legitimate. Let them do their duties to their country, without respect of persons, and they will possess honours of far more worth than empty names and noisy titles. Let them allow the people a fair, free, and unrestrained voice in the framing of those laws which are to govern them-for it is their birthright in Nature's statutes. Let them listen to the complaints of the people-and not treat them as a rabble and a disaffected crew.Let them receive respectfully, consider impartially, and answer kindly, the proper petitions of the people, and not just lay them on the table, or under the table, as if but the complainings of disaffection and sedition. Let legislators so act, and they would soon hear of the diminution of crime; they would become more

happy themselves, in being the lawgivers of a happy, a reasonable and an ever-generous, ever-grateful people. Till then-'tis a gloomy assertion-the cause of the increase of crime will exist: and, considering, as I am compelled to do, the propensities of men, who are fattened on corruption, I deem it a Quixotic reverie of the imagination to expect any such change of measures, until the whole system is Macadamised.

The maladministration of affairs in legislation is, as I consider, the primary cause of the increase of crime. There are, however, secondary causes-which, although proceeding from the primary cause, may be commented on in the abstract.-These are-first, the unequal ground on which our manufacturers stand in relation to the manufacturers of other countries. This inequality has its origin in the expensive system of Government pursued in this country, carried on and persisted in, to keep up an honourable name (as they please to tell you), and satisfy the reasonable claims of the national creditor. The pressure of this, places our manufacturer far out of the pale of fair competition with the manufacturer of other countries-allows him no chance of doing business in the general market-except by means of oppression on those he employs, and this necessary species of oppression adopted by the manufacturer over his labourers, is followed by him on the same grounds and for the very same ends, which causes the government to oppress the manufacturers, making the manufacturers act as the effect of the causes of the superior power, and not entirely chargeable as the cause itself. 'Tis this species of oppression caused oppression, that prompts the hunger worn squalid being―HE who has none under him to be HIS protection from the iron floor of misery-who lies at the bottom, bearing the overwhelming weight of the various grades of corruption and oppression-who seems but the shadow of what he ought to be-to look round him, and see enough and to spare-to see others living in luxury, laziness, and profusion, and to ask himself how it is that such an expanse of inequality exists. "Tis this that prompts him to seize the means of gratifying his appetite from another's basket-even at the expense of his liberty.

In such cases, the conviction of so necessitated an offender, frequently excites public sympathy; and although 'tis the echo of nature's disowning, to think the act a crime,-yet how often does it act as a stimulus to further acts of offence, until, at last, the offender becomes a criminal indeed!

Secondly-the scarcity and consequently enhanced value of money is a cause of crime increasing-the facility with which a man can commit an act of forgery, to obtain a sum of money, has, of late appeared worth the hazard of life. How many offences of this nature have come within the compass of the observers of passing events. During the last ten years, the temptation appears

255

so great, that we see the fate of one man operates but feebly, if at all, in preventing others committing the same act-making it appear, (of which I have no doubt)-as if ignominy became diminished in power according to the increase of the number of its partakers. How strange it is, that the men, who affect to consider this world a world of misery, and the other as a happy and better world, should always send thither, with the best recommendation, these, who themselves allow to be too bad for this woeful one!

Another cause of the increase of crime, is the laxity, inconsistency, want of morality in, and consequent inefficacy of those principles which are made sacred by act of parliament; and promulged as the guides to happiness, holiness and heaven.

Whenever rules for regulation of conduct are taught to a community, if the practice of the teachers of such rules runs counter to the principles they lay down, 'twill cause the thinking portion of that community to suspect the goodness of the best principles that could be taught. How much further than suspicion will they not be carried, who, witnessing such conduct in the teachers, examine the principles taught and find, they will not abide the test of common-place scrutiny? When they see these teachers proud, imperious, arbitrary and ambitious, while professing to be the followers and successors of fishermen and netmakers; when they hear these teachers exhorting to meekness and humility, eulogizing poverty as the greatest blessing, while themselves are greedy, arrogant, rich and pursuing every means of aggrandizement; when they hear them telling the people to think not of the morrow, to be content in the situation in which it has pleased God to place them, and to set their affections on things above, while themselves are ever scheming to increase their power and consequence, rolling about in ease, decked with all the trappings of grandeur and all the pageantry of gaudiness and show, telling the people to love one another-to do unto others as they would have others do unto them, and to remember they are all brethren, equal in the sight of God, while themselves act as if the people were their slaves, and hate, perhaps, without exception, all who happen to have the temerity to question them, or the honesty to avow themselves of a different opinion-enforcing obedience by the threat of damnation-coaxing and soliciting charitable contributions by promises of cent per what cent for their money where 'twill be of no use to them; will the candid enquirers think and how act? Can such a system, so conducted, have any tendency but a bad one? the thinking observer of such inconsistencies become callous to the teaching, and doubt even the propriety of a good sentiment from such a source? If, for instance, he is exhorted by such teachers to sobriety and punctuality, and we will allow these

Does not

two salutary and good principles to be possessed by the teachers. Yet, the hearer, knowing the teacher to be deficient in other points, has a fair pretext to be inattentive and indifferent to these ; and if the knowledge of human nature allows this to be fair argumentation, which I assume it to be, what becomes of the boasted bulwarks of rewards and punishments? What force is retained by the frightful pictures of judgment to come? are not they all dwindled down to a nursery bugbear; and is not such a system worse than none at all? For the people, seeing such teachers, starting with hypocrisy in their mouths, pursuing their own interests, at the expense of all the best feelings of humanity, consider hypocrisy and fraud a fair game, and deriding the terrors of the law and the meekness of the apostles, try their hand at it, and have but too good grounds to begin a system of fraud and deception: to look at their fellow men as strangers and victims, rather than brethren, and to bury or stifle the remonstrances of their better, their original feelings and sensibilities.

Their names not being on the list of the privileged class, their frauds and deceptions not being sanctioned by either acts of grace or acts of parliament, are found among the list of crimes in Mr. Peel's celebrated index to the criminal law.

The inference to be drawn from these observations, is, I trust, clear.

But if more is asked, go to Japan, or somewhere else, take a single individual for contemplation, see his property and means of existence frittering away, till he becomes the possessor only of his daily hard-earned pittance; see him consoling himself with the mystification of a few words about futurity-comforting his sinking heart with the assurance of his spiritual adviser, that whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and how blessed are the poor; see his circumstances arrived at such a pitch, that he is unable to keep pace with the legal demands made upon him. Still as he grows old, growing poorer, unequal to the burthensome requirements. See next the minions of the law, to satisfy, perhaps, the demands of some spiritual tyrant, breaking open his cottage door, deaf to his entreaties, dead to any emotion of pity, to the mercy-soliciting entreaties of the partner of his prosperity, and contented partaker of his poverty; claiming and seizing the remaining few of his almost revered articles of furniture; expelling him perhaps from the habitation which has witnessed his birth, his happy, his unhappy days. See all this, and then tell the tax-lord and the tythe-lord, you wonder no longer at the increase of crimes.

Printed and Published by RICHARD CARLILE, 62, Fleet-street, where all Communications, post-paid, or free of expense, are requested to be left.

The Lion.

No. 9. VOL. 3.] LONDON, Friday, February 27, 1829. [PRICE 6d.

INFIDEL EMANCIPATION.

DEAR MR. CARLILE,-I write on this day for the first time, after an Odyssey of troubles, from my own old table, in my own old residence, at 17, Carey-street, Lincoln's Inn, beyond the plain and frugal accommodations of which my ambition has never aspired. In all my griefs I never looked for other remedy, nor wished for other recompence of my humble merits, nor breathed any other aspiration than that of the Poor Country Mouse

Give me again my hollow tree,

A crust of bread, and LIBERTY.

Already I feel the healing virtue of my redintegration into so near an approach to the status quo ante bellum, upon my longharassed spirits. I have slept in my own little cubile, and by the contrast of so sound a sleep, have found the measure of difference between my present serenity and the dreamy nights of Oakham. Nothing could better show to the world, or to the little part of it which feels and thinks with us, our weight of substantial moral respectability, than my settling down again, for a short breathing time, in all the localities and associations from which oppression drove me. Here 'tis seen that, numerous as are my enemies, ruthless, cruel, and false as are my persecutors and slanderers, among those who have known me, whether Christian or infidel, savage, saint, or sage, I have not an enemy; and I would answer for the magic of one afternoon spent in the company of those who hate me most and have used me worst, that it should lay their enmity with its face upwards, and make them more sorry for the wrong that they have done, than I am now for the grief that I have suffered; all my innocent ambition ever promised should be realized

Warm from my heart the tears of rapture flow,
And virtue triumphs o'er remembered woe.

No. 9.-Vol. 3.